China's Emergence and Impact on Technology in East Asia: The Case of Machinebuilding

Two Taiwan-based economists estimate the technology content of exports by the machinebuilding industry of the East Asia region during 2004-2008, using comparative analysis to clarify changes in the relative competitiveness of four East Asian nations (China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) accompanying the formation of a regional trading bloc and production networks. In particular, they examine the technology content of these countries' machinebuilding sub-industries' exports within the Southeast Asian market (documenting the rise of the machinebuilding industry in China) as well as the penetration of Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese sub-industries into China's market. The results point to areas of emerging competition among China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan for East Asian markets, which can only be expected to intensify in the future. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F14, F15, F36, O14, P23. 7 tables, 36 references.     

安图沙金沟旧石器遗址发现的石器研究

安图县沙金沟遗址于2006年发现,遗址位于沙金河右岸第Ⅲ级阶地上,在地表和含角砾的黄色亚黏土层中共发现石器82件,原料以黑曜岩为主,包括石核、石片、石叶、细石叶、二类和三类工具(刮削器、雕刻器、尖状器和砍砸器等)。遗址的地质年代推测为晚更新世的晚期,即旧石器时代晚期。     

New Fathoms in Scientific Exploration: The DeepWrecks Project

Modern technology lends itself to holistic exploration and widely accessible outreach. New technology allows scientists studying our planet either from space or deep under the seas, to explore and reveal both natural and cultural resources that have previously escaped our scrutiny. However, the use of these new technologies is expensive and often the exclusive tool of industrial research. Yet, these new technologies can lead the way to greater collaboration, better science and more public access. In 2003 and 2004, a landmark project, combining government agencies, industrial technology and outreach set new standards in collaborative scientific exploration. The project focused on six shipwrecks at depth in the Gulf of Mexico. The questions posed by the project illuminate how science and industry can collaborate to produce remarkable results. The papers presented in this issue form a model for deepwater exploration.     

Oldowan behavior and raw material transport: perspectives from the Kanjera Formation

The archaeological record of Oldowan hominins represents a diverse behavioral system. It has been suggested that exploitation of lithic resources by Oldowan hominins was simplistic and represented mostly use of local sources of stone. Here we investigate the raw material selection and transport behaviors of Oldowan hominins reflected in the stone artifact assemblages from the Kanjera South Formation, South Rachuonyo District, Kenya. Using geochemical methods (ED-XRF) artifacts are linked to primary and secondary source outcrops throughout southwestern Kenya. These data show that hominins selected raw materials for transport at frequencies that are significantly different from their availability on ancient landscapes. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of the assemblage represents transport over relatively long distances (>10 km). Our study further suggests that in the early stages of stone tool use hominins used a wide variety of raw materials and selected these materials at some distance from their eventual discard locations. Early hominin behavior may have incorporated an understanding of raw material source distributions across a more extensive landscape than has been previously documented. This supports the growing perspective that Oldowan technology represents a more complex behavioral pattern than is usually associated with the beginnings of hominin tool use.     

从若干项文物科技成果看我国文物保护技术的发展

20世纪末,我国的物保护科学技术基本形成了具有中国特色的完整的科学体系。在石质物、金属物、纸张物、竹木漆器物、壁画物、石窟物等的保护技术方面取得了多项科研成果,并且达到或接近世界先进水平,使我国许多珍贵的化遗产得到了抢救和有效地保护。     

二十世纪有关纸的考古发现不能否定蔡伦发明造纸术（1）

近几十年来,我国考古工作曾先后在一些西汉遗址和墓葬中发现了若干纸状残片,于是引起国内外许多学和广大人民的关注和提出疑问。是否蔡伦前约二百年就有了纸?造纸术还是不是蔡伦发明的?新发掘的纸状物到底是个什么样?经对历次的发掘作了详细的调查研究和分析化验,结论认为：20世纪有关纸的考古发现不能否定蔡伦发明造纸术。     

我国考古和文物保护工作中物探技术的应用

20世纪80年代以来,物探技术在考古和物保护方面应用越来越多,在古墓探查、大型古建筑地下遗存现状探查、重要古建基础状况探查、古遗迹断代等方面,地球物理技术都找到了发挥作用的机会。本通过地球物理技术在云冈石窟、龙门石窟、克孜尔石窟、北京故宫紫禁城、嵩岳寺塔、古泗州城遗址、风阳明中都等的物理探查实例,以及查找古墓、古遗迹断代等方面的工作,介绍了我国在考古和物保护领域应用地球物理技术的进展,并指出了物探在用于考古和保时的特点和展望。     

再读跨湖桥

在《跨湖桥》考古报告的基础上,本文运用浮选、孢粉和非孢粉微化石、PIXE技术和拉曼光谱等多种分析手段,对跨湖桥遗址的人工制品和生态物进行了分析,复原了当时人类的居住环境及变迁、古食谱和制陶技术,从文化生态的角度探讨了先民的生存方式。文章认为,8000年前跨湖桥的富裕环境很可能促使复杂采集狩猎经济的发展,并出现比较复杂的社会结构,而水稻栽培和猪的驯养很可能与这类社会常见的仪式和宴享活动有关。     

Comments on archaeology into the 1990s

This article focuses on the complexity of Early Bronze Age weapon depositions. While some of the deposited weapons have been disabled by intentional breakage, others seem to be more or less unused. A plausible explanation for the variability is that the surrender of lethal weapons to land or water was a means of coping with their power or agency – their individuality. We suggest that weapons, in their capacity as extensions of warriors’ bodies, may have substituted for humans in ritual depositions. The metalworkers also come into play, due to their capacities in the processes of making weapons and shaping weapon technologies. Although we consider the three depositions that we discuss to relate to rituals on the occasion of warfare, we are not aiming for a uniform explanation. In the same way as the patterned human behaviour of a ritual is a means of subsuming individual events into a greater order, so a focus on general patterns may subsume the complexity of the past by ignoring the many different events leading to, e.g., the deposition of metalwork. Far from seeing these perspectives as contradictory, we try to use three well-documented individual cases to shed light on the variability within the pattern.     

How flakes shatter: a critical evaluation of quartz fracture analysis

Despite its worldwide use as a stone tool raw material, quartz is known to be a difficult material for archaeologists. The main reason for this is the tendency of quartz flakes to fragment during detachment, which complicates the use of traditional lithic analyses. In this article we present an experimental study of quartz flake fragmentation. We evaluate the method called fracture analysis that has been developed and used explicitly for the study of quartz assemblages. The method assumes high predictability of quartz flake fragmentation, but our experiments show that there is significant variation in fragmentation that fracture analysis does not take into account. Our results indicate that this variation is partly explained by indenter hardness, the relative thickness of the detached flake, as well as individual knapper-related factors. These results undermine the applicability of quartz fracture analysis in its current form. In addition, we discuss the effects of flake fragmentation on the technological organisation of prehistoric quartz users and suggest that it has affected reduction strategies as well as blank and tool dimensions. We also suggest that there should be mobility-related differences in archaeological assemblages in terms of the quality of the quartz raw material and that the curation of quartz should be low in relation to better quality raw materials used parallel with it.