The Archaeology of Korea

by Sarah Milledge Nelson

Sarah Nelson's book surveys Korean prehistory from the earliest paleolithic settlers, perhaps half a million years ago, through the formation of the Three Kingdoms and on to the creation of United Silla in AD 668, when the peninsula was largely united for the first time. The author treats the development of state-level societies and their relationship to polities in Japan and China, and the development of a Korean ethnic identity. Emphasizing the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521407834
• ISBN13: 9780521407830
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 324 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

a non-expert review

Ok, so before I picked this book up I didn't even know what Jomon-pottery was, and while I read this book I had to make frequent reference to wikipedia. However, I really did learn a lot about the archaeology of Korea while I read it. I guess due to the nature of the evidence, pottery was covered in special depth, and other kinds of artifacts were related to the pottery. I especially appreciated the cautious speculations about religion in stone-age and bronze-age Korea; that's why I read the book. Now, when I visit a museum here in Korea, even if I can't understand the labels, I know what I'm looking at pretty well: that's another big bonus for me. It's a few years old now. I think that genetic work probably sheds some light on the migrations into the peninsula, and there must've been a lot of archaeological research since this book has been written. Soon, I hope, North Korea will open up a bit and more research will go on there; the sites there are probably very interesting. I hope a more updated version comes out sometime soon. The bibliography was also very helpful to me. I have no idea what a well-informed scholar would make of this book, however; and when I read reviews by people who don't know about things that I know about, I can tell... UPDATE: I've now discovered Gina L. Barnes' "The Rise of Civilization in East Asia: The Archaeology of China, Korea and Japan." I highly recommend it. It's easier to read, somehow inherently more interesting, and the regional coverage adds a lot of useful context. It spans a greater time period with less detail, but its fascinating insights really do make up for the loss of detail. Unless for some reason you are definitely interested in Nelson's book, I recommend Barnes.