The First Emperor's Home Base: Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnicity in Ancient China

Archaeologists working in China often correlate archaeological finds with ancient ethnic groups, thereby attempting to define the latter through material traits. In this lecture, Lothar von Falkenhausen, Professor of the History of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles, illustrates some of the issues and pitfalls at stake in this practice, taking as an example the northwestern regional polity of Qin, the home base of the First Emperor of China. He will examine how Qin differed from its neighbors in continental East Asia, how one might interpret the observable differences, and what “Chineseness” signifies in a Qin context.