Archaeology of East Asian Shipbuilding

Abstract

Abstract This book clarifies the dynamics of shipbuilding traditions evolved in East Asia, explained based on the detailed investigations of excavated ships in the region. The previous shipwreck study in East Asia regarding past seafaring, human migration, and material-culture transportation was highly focused on wreck cargo. The hull remains of individual shipwrecks have been only solely reported. This is the first comprehensive study of the early and medieval East Asian ships in the field from the viewpoint of nautical and maritime archaeological perspectives. It incorporates the archaeological examination of the hull structure and construction methods into an interpretation of the chronological development of shipbuilding technologies. Understanding the technological innovation is critique to the role of the ships that played in water transportation, maritime trade, and naval conflict in East Asian history. The author presents an extensive dataset of excavated coastal and oceangoing ships dating from the 1th century to the medieval periods excavated in China, Korea, and Japan. Three case studies of the 13th–14th century ship remains from China, Korea, and Japan are presented to identify technological innovations that occurred in shipbuilding industries along the middle and southern coast of China. Identifying such phenomenon leads to understanding three major spheres of shipbuilding traditions in the areas of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea.

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