Bücher der Reihe Routledge Studies in the Early History of Asia

This book provides an overview of elite theatre in Ming China. It is based on an exploration of the original historical records, and includes comparisons with other forms of ancient theatre, and examines of the details of theatrical performance.

Drawing upon the latest evidence in genetics, linguistics and archaeology, this exciting book examines the history of the peopling of East Asia, and investigates the ways in which we can detect migration, and its different markers in these fields of enquiry.

This iconoclastic work on the prehistory of Japan and of South East Asia challenges entrenched views on the origins of Japanese society and identity.

The contributors to this book outline the historical background of, and the lingua-cultural conditions that led to, widespread literacy development in premodern and early modern East Asia, where reading and writing for formal purposes was conducted in Literary Sinitic, or wenyanwen.

Using archaeological evidence, the author investigates the prehistories of Austronesian migrants to Taiwan and their connections to contemporary peoples in Taiwan. Due to its unique geographic location, Taiwan has played a significant role in various peoples' maritime migrations and the process of cultural interactions for tens of thousands of years. Within the history of humankind, Taiwan has also evidenced a high degree of cultural continuity. Paleolithic people had already settled on the island at least 30,000 years ago, but Taiwan only entered the historical period as recently as the 17th century. Before this, there was a long and continuous development over the prehistoric period. To this day there are at least 20 different indigenous ethnic groups on the island, totalling over half a million people, all of whom speak Austronesian languages. Investigating the archaeology of abandoned villages, Kuo takes the Paiwan and Sanhe cultures as key case studies of these groups. This book provides valuable insight for historians and archaeologists of Taiwan, and scholars of prehistoric Austronesian migration.