May 7-8, 2026

Workshop – Eurasian Food-Metal Vision:
Placing Ancient China in a Global Context

Locations:
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University

Introduction:
This workshop brings together two scholarly communities whose research has advanced understanding of trans-Eurasian connections between the third and first millennia BCE and their influence on ancient China. Recent scientific innovations in archaeobotany, isotopic studies, archaeogenomics, proteomics, and metallurgical analysis have documented the eastward spread of wheat, barley, sheep, cattle, horses, and dairy traditions into China, alongside the westward movement of millets. Parallel work has traced the transmission of bronze casting and metallurgical practices across Eurasia. While these processes often occurred in overlapping contexts, their interconnections remain insufficiently explored.

A key focus of the workshop is the migration dimension—distinguishing cases where cultural and technological transfers occurred without large-scale gene flow from those shaped by significant population movements. Evidence suggests that many food and metal innovations in ancient China were adopted and transformed within indigenous frameworks, often independent of substantial demographic shifts, in contrast to expansions such as the Yamnaya or Anatolian dispersals.

Adopting a “Food-Metal” framework, the workshop will investigate the socio-technical and symbolic mechanisms linking agricultural and metallurgical change. It aims to identify shared patterns in the movement of people, goods, and ideas, situating ancient China’s historical trajectories within a global context and fostering an international, interdisciplinary research agenda.

Organizer:

Xinyi Liu, Washington University in St Louis

Speakers:

Li Feng, Columbia University
Xinyi Liu, Washington University in St. Louis
Miljana Radivojević, University College of London
Roderick B Campbell, New York University
Zhang Fan, Peking University
Martin Jones, Cambridge University
William Taylor, University of Colorado Boulder
Melissa Ritchey, Washington University in St. Louis
Christina Carolus, Pennsylvania State University

Schedule:

Thursday, May 7
9:00-9:15 Arrival at 403 Kent Hall

9:15-9:30 Introduction (Xinyi Liu and Li Feng)

9:30-10:20 Xinyi Liu
Invention of Time: Symbolic Presentation of Seasonality in Bronze Age Political Economy

10:30-11:00 Coffee & Tea Break

11:00-11:50 Miljana Radivojević
The First Industrial Age: Bronze Age Metallurgy and Its Legacy of Carbon Emissions

12:00-13:30 Lunch Break (at venue)

13:30-14:20 Roderick B Campbell
The Big Picture: Key Issues in the Economic Entanglement of Metallurgy and Agriculture in Early China

14:30-15:20 Fan Zhang
From Fengtu: Materiality, Practice, and Civilization

15:30-16:00 Coffee & Tea Break

16:00-17:00 Martin Jones
Settlement, Matrimony and Exchange: Exploring the various tempos of Trans-Eurasian interactions in prehistory

Friday, May 8
9:30-10:20 William Taylor
Horses and Domestic Plant and Animal Exchanges across Mongolian Inner Asia

10:30-11:00 Coffee & Tea Break

11:00-11:50 Melissa Ritchey
Localized Management of Domesticated Crops in Central Asia Facilitated Bronze and Iron Age trans-Eurasian Dispersals

12:00-13:00 Lunch Break (at venue)

13:00-13:50 Christina Carolus
Unearthing the Origins and Impacts of Ancient Agriculture on the Inner Asian Steppe

14:00-15:00 Discussion