An Emic Investigation on the Trajectory of the Songgukri Culture during the Middle Mumun Period (2900 - 2400 cal. BP) in Korea: a GIS and Landscape Approach
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Date
2020-02-27
Authors
Kim, Habeom
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This study embraces an emic view on the trajectory of the Songgukri culture in Korea. It examines how past people may have experienced the archaeological phenomenon currently understood as the Songgukri transition. That is, when the Songgukkri culture emerges and expands to major parts of the southern Korean peninsula. This phenomenological aspect of the Songugkri transition has been investigated by examining how Songgukri people maintained a sense of common belonging through visibility and movement patterns in their landscape. The study focuses on visibility and movement because the analysis of these two landscape elements can reveal the patterns of perceptive association shared among the Songgukri people. Through a series of GIS-based analyses, my study abstracts the Songgukri settler’s landscape experiences quantitatively, and then compares them by regions.
The result of my analysis yields a new synthesis on the process of the Songgukri expansion. It reveals that the intensity of Songgukri expansion varied by region. A multitude of factors, including the presence of natural barriers, the landscape preference by Songgukri people, and the mode of cultural transmission, are proposed as responsible for the regional variations of the Songgukri expansion. My study discusses how these factors may have influenced the experiences of the Songgukri migrants and the indigenous Early Mumun population during the Songgukri expansion, and explores why these regional variabilities in the expansion pattern have been observed.
My synthesis of Songgukri expansion proposes an emic understanding of the Songgukri transition. The Songgukri culture may not have been a single homogenous cultural entity. Rather there were diverse communal regional groups, which came to accept certain elements of the Songgukri material cultures for different reasons. My study suggests that the archaeological phenomenon recognized as the Songgukri transition may not be characterized as one singular process applicable to all regions at the same time.
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Keywords
GIS, Korea, Landscape Archaeology, Mumun Period, Radiocarbon Dating, Songgukri Culture