Resettlement strategies and Han imperial expansion into southwest China: a multimethod approach to colonialism and migration

Abstract

Abstract Discussions on colonialism are pervasive in western scholarship but are hardly ever applied to the archeology of China. The present paper shows how concepts of colonialism and migration research can be successfully applied to understand Han imperial expansion into southwest China and how the Chinese material can in turn contribute to developing theories and methods of colonialism research further. Taking the Shamaoshan cemetery as a case study, the present paper combines archeological, textual, environmental, and isotope data to gain insights into strategies and processes of Han imperial expansion into southwest China. The insights gained here show that the long-accepted story-line of simple “Sinicization” and political control is far from accurate. Instead, it took over a century of cross-cultural exchange with immigrants and locals adopting each other’s customs to varying degrees. While in the beginning the Han seem to have taken a top-down approach to “civilizing” the region through their elites, the present study suggests that in the end it was the lower levels of society that intermingled most intensively and helped integrate migrants and locals successfully. Moving away from the exclusive focus on exceptional graves and large sites, the present study thus shows the great value of approaching small, poorly equipped graves with new methods, combining isotope research with a nuanced analysis of burial remains. Evaluated together with the evidence from the well-known exceptional graves, lesser-known settlement material, and historical accounts, the Shamaoshan case study has made it clear that various types of contact, colonial and otherwise, play out quite differently within different social groups and historical situations. This study thus proposes a multisource, multimethod approach that moves away from a narrative dominated by the history-writing elite segments of the colonizing force to a multivoiced account integrating local and outside perceptions at various social levels, an approach that might successfully be applied in other parts of the world.