Current Research (2108-Present)

A Medieval Long-Wall of the Mongolian Steppe

Construction and deployment of long (or “great”) walls occurred periodically throughout Chinese history, from the last centuries BCE and up until the 17th century CE. Among the different episodes of long wall construction, walls built during the medieval period, between the 11th to the 13th century CE, are the most enigmatic. This wall (or walls) is made of two main sections, a northern and a southern one, that altogether stretches over at least 3,500 km, making it among the longest walls ever to be constructed in world history. However, in spite of its huge size, the historical records are silent about this monument. Moreover, little modern research has been done on this medieval wall-system and it is hardly mentioned in authoritative works on the Chinese “Great Wall” or on the medieval period in China and Mongolia.

 

In this project I am focusing on one section of the Medieval Long-Wall, located in the northeastern-most part of Mongolia (and continuing into Russia and China as well). This northern line, also known as the “Genghis Wall,” extends some 800km long in one of the most isolated places of the world (fig. 2). In addition to the wall itself, the system includes other structures like fortresses and camps located along its line.

So far we have carried out two field seasons (July 2018 and July 2019) in Northeast Mongolia’s Dornod province. Our aim was to assess the layout of the wall and associated structures and to collect data on the time of its construction, the technique used for building this wall and to try and identify the purposes for which it was constructed. The two expeditions were headed by Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration with Prof. William Honeychurch of Yale University and Dr. Amartuvshin Chunag of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Our research teams included students and researchers from the Hebrew University and from the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. It was funded by the endowment of the Louis Frieberg Chair of East Asian Studies, by funds from the Mandel-Scholion Research Center and by the Ring Foundation.

In July 2018 we built our camp near the wall remains and systematically surveyed its line, as well as some of the forts and camps that are associated with it. During the survey we collected ceramic shards and other artifacts that will help us date the wall. In addition, we brought with us a drone and used it to take aerial photos that revealed and documented the full complexity of the wall system. We also used metal detectors to try and find coins and other artifacts that will help us date the time of construction and use of the wall precisely. The results of this expedition and our analysis of the geography of the wall-line are reported in a paper published in the archaeological journal Antiquity (2020).

In July and early August 2019 we returned to a section of the wall and a cluster of sites next to it (cluster no. 24 – figs. 2 and 3). Our aim was to better date the wall and understand its different components. This time we conducted a series of test excavations. One of these excavations was a section that cut through the wall itself, and the others exposed four locations within the circular and rectangular structures south of it. These excavations exposed the makeup of the different structures, including the wall and a deep ditch that existed north of it. We took numerous samples for dating (using 14C and OSL methods) and for geological and chemical analysis.

 

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Gideon Shelach-Lavi Research

Previous Researches:

 

CHIFENG RESEARCH PROJECT (1998-2007)

The Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project (CICARP) was one of the largest international collaborative archaeological field projects ever to be conducted in China. It started from my doctoral research (1994-5) and evolved into a Sino-foreign archeological project comprising experts from the Institute of Archeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, the Inner Mongolia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology, Jilin University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Pittsburgh, USA. For further info click here. 

 

FUXIN REGIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT (2011-2016)

The Fuxin Regional Archaeological Project was initiated and directed by Prof. Shelach-Lavi in cooperation with Prof. Jilin University, China. It focused on the transition from mobile hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary agriculturalist societies and the evolution of complex societies in northeast China. Our archaeological field research focused on the Fuxin area (阜新) of western Liaoning Province (fig. 1). This was an interdisciplinary collaborative project that brought together archaeologists and students from the Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology at Jilin University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University and the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics. The research was supported by grants from the Israel Science Foundation (Grant no. 501/11) and the National Geographic Society (Grant no. 8614-09). For further info click here.

 

MI RIVER BASIN (SHANDONG) ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT (2018 – Present)

The Mi River Basin (Shandong) Archaeological Project is the first stage in a larger research project that aims at a better understanding of the long-term trajectory from mobile hunter-gatherers to sedentary agricultural societies in East China. It focuses not only on the reasons for this also on its social context and on the economic, social and cultural consequences that resulted from this revolutionary process. The research is supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation (Grant no. 728/17). For further info click here.

 

 

Previous Publications:

 

Books

Shelach, G. 2015. The Archaeology of Ancient China: From Prehistory to the Han Dynasty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Pines, Y. and Shelach, G . 2012. Kol Asher mi-takhat le-shamaim: Sin Ha-Keisarit (All under Heaven: Imperial China [in Hebrew]), (Yitzhak Shichor chief editor). Volmue 2: Ha-Keisarut Hamukdement (the Early Imperial Period), Tel-Aviv: The Open University Press. 429pp.

Shelach, G. 2012. Zhongguo Beibu Bianjiang Diqu de Shiqian Shehui (中国北部边疆地区的是前社会). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe (China Social Sciences Press). 220pp.

Shelach, G. and Y. Pines . 2009. Kol Asher mi-takhat le-shamaim: Sin Ha-Keisarit (All under Heaven: Imperial China [in Hebrew]), (Yitzhak Shichor chief editor). Volume 1: Mekorot Ha-Keisarut Ha-Sinit (Origins of the Chinese Empire), Tel-Aviv: The Open University Press. 347pp.

Shelach, G. 2009. Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE. London, Approaches to Anthropological Archaeology Series, Equinox. 203pp.         

Shelach, G. 1999. Leadership Strategies, Economic Activity, and Interregional Interaction: Social Complexity in Northeast China. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press. 280pp.

Edited Books

Kowner, R., G. Bar-Oz, M. Biran, M. Shahar, G. Shelach-Lavi (Eds.) 2019. Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Yuri Pines , Lothar von Falkenhausen , Gideon Shelach and Robin D.S.Yates , eds., 2013. The Birth of Empire: The State of Qin revisited. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Project, eds., 2011. Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Region. Pittsburgh: Center for Comparative Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh (The final report of the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Project of which I am one of the PIs.).

The Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Project ed. 2003. Regional Archaeology in Eastern Inner Mongolia: A Methodological Exploration, Beijing: Kexue chubanshe. (Also published in Chinese).

 

Selected Papers:

 

Shelach-Lavi, G. 2022. How Neolithic farming changed China. Nature Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00899-4

Tu, D., G. Shelach-Lavi, and T.F. Ying, 2022. Economy, Sharing Strategies and Community Structure in the Early Neolithic Village of Chahai, Northeast China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101420

Jaffe, Y., G. Shelach-Lavi and R. Campbell 2022. Shimao and the Rise of States in China: Archaeology, Historiography and Myth. Current Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1086/719398

Shelach-Lavi, G., Y. Jaffe and G. Bar-Oz (2021). Cavalry and the Great Walls of China and Mongolia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(16): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024835118

Storozum, M., D. Golan, I. Wachtel, Z. Zhang, J. S. Lotze,and G. Shelach-Lavi, (2021). Mapping the Medieval Wall System of China and Mongolia: A Multi-Method Approach. Land 10(997). https://doi.org/10.3390/land10100997

Shelach-Lavi, G., Honeychurch, W. and Chunag, A (2020). Does extra-large equal extra-ordinary? The ‘Wall of Chinggis Khan’ from a multidimensional perspective. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7, 22. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0524-2

Jaffe, Y., Castellano, L., Shelach-Lavi, G., & Campbell, R. (2020). Mismatches of scale in the application of paleoclimatic research to Chinese archaeology. Quaternary Research, 1-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2020.60

Stevens, Chris J., Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Hai Zhang, Mingyu Teng, and Dorian Q Fuller (2021), A model for the domestication of Panicum miliaceum (common, proso or broomcorn millet) in China. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00804-z

Wachtel I., R. Zidon, and G. Shelach‐Lavi. 2020. Using the Maximal Entropy Modeling Approach to Analyze the Evolution of Sedentary Agricultural Societies in Northeast China. Entropy. 22(3); https://doi.org/10.3390/e22030307.

Shelach-Lavi G, Ido Wachtel, Dan Golan, Otgonjargal Batzorig, Amartuvshin Chunag, Ronnie Ellenblum, and William Honeychurch (Forthcoming 2020), Long-Wall construction in the Mongolian steppe during the Medieval Period (11th to the 13th centuries CE), Antiquity.

Shelach-Lavi G., M. Teng, Y. Goldsmith, I. Wachtel, C.J. Stevens, O. Marder, X. Wan, X. Wu, D. Tu, R. Shavit, P. Polissar, H. Xu, D.Q. Fuller (2019) Sedentism and plant cultivation in northeast China emerged during affluent conditions. PLoS ONE. 14(7): e0218751.

Li Yali, G. Shelach-Lavi, R. Ellenblum, 2019.  Short-Term Climatic Catastrophes and the Collapse of the Liao Dynasty (907-1125) – The Textual Evidence. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 49 (4): 591-610.

Shelach-Lavi, G. 2019. Archaeology and politics in China: Historical paradigm and identity construction in museum exhibitions. China Information: 33 (1): 23-45.

Wachtel, Ido, Royi Zidon, Shimon Garti, and Gideon Shelach-Lavi. 2018. Predictive modeling for archaeological site locations: Comparing logistic regression and maximal entropy in north Israel and north-east China. Journal of Archaeological Science 92: 28-36.

Shelach-Lavi, G. and Tu Dongdong, 2017. Food, Pots and Socio-Economic Transformation: The Beginning and Intensification of Pottery Production in North China. Archaeological Research In Asia.

Shelach-Lavi, G. Mingyu Teng, Y. Goldsmith, I. Wachtel, A. Ovadia, Xiongfei Wan, and O. Marder. 2016. Human Adaptation and Socio-Economic Change in Northeast China: Results of the Fuxin Regional Survey. Journal of Field Archaeology 41(4): 467-485.

Shelach, G. and Y. Jaffe , 2014. The Earliest States in China: A long-Term Trajectory Approach. Journal of Archaeological Research. 22 (4): 327-364.

Chen Bo, and G. Shelach , 2014. An Archaeological and Regional Perspective on the Fortified Settlements and the Settlement System in the Northern Zone of the Han Empire (206BCE-220CE). Antiquity 88: 222-240.

Shelach, G. 2012. On the Invention of Pottery. Science. 336:1644-1645.

Peterson, C . and G. Shelach , 2012. Jiangzhai: Social and Economic Organization of a Middle Neolithic Chinese Village. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 31:265-301 (Translated into Chinese and published in Nanfang Wenwu 南方文物 2015.4: 250-265).

Shelach, G. , K. Raphael, and Y. Jaffe. 2011. Sanzuodian: The Structure, Function and Social Significance of the Earliest Stone Fortified Sites in China. Antiquity. 85: 11-26.

Other papers can also be found in my Academia.edu site.