UCLA

This dissertation demonstrates the central role of mortuary ritual in the development of the first complex polities or state-level societies that emerged on the Korean peninsula in the Iron Age. Historians and archaeologists generally characterize this period as a transitional phase of gradual consolidation in which the scattered groups described in Chinese sources are seen as incipient forms of the first kingdoms in the southern portion of Korea in the fourth century: Paekche 百濟, Silla 新羅, and a number of smaller iron producing centers collectively referred to as Kaya 加耶. Though recent research has offered a number of innovative ways of viewing the Iron Age, I argue that the prevailing text-based evolutionary development model obscures the diversity of cultural groups on the peninsula and the complex interaction among them and with neighboring regions.

Using cemetery data from the Early Iron Age and Proto-Three Kingdoms period (ca. fourth century BC to third century AD), I examine the role of mortuary ritual in the social development of the Yŏngnam region (southeastern South Korea), the eventual core of Silla and Kaya. The evolution of this ritual is understood initially as the result of expeditious and short-term decision making rather than a coherent belief system until a more internally consistent practice developed out of the interaction between emerging elite groups. I argue against the idea that tombs and cemeteries in Yŏngnam reflect merely the political centralization of the period as tools of legitimization for peninsular elites. Instead, rituals and cemeteries played a central role in shaping the ideology of what would become the historically known polities of the Korean Three Kingdoms Period and served as the foundation for the political centers of Silla and the Kaya groups.

Chapter 1 introduces the question and the theoretical and methodological background of the project. Chapter 2 provides a summary of the geography and an in-depth survey of the archaeology of Yŏngnam before assessing the major historical and archaeological theories of social development for the period. Chapter 3 deals with cemetery composition: types of tombs and their origins, intra-site and inter-site organization, and the segment of the Iron Age population selected for burial in these areas. With a more solid understanding of cemetery structure, Chapters 4 through 6 examine the mortuary practices of Yŏngnam from several different scales. Chapter 4 situates grave goods in their production, economic, and ritual context and reassesses the `meaning' of prominent prestige goods in elite tombs. Chapter 5 reconstructs and categorizes the mortuary practices at several representative sites. Chapter 6 then situates cemeteries and ritual practice in a broader context, looking at regional patterns of mortuary practice and exploring the relationship of mortuary practices to conceptions of authority and living communities. Chapter 7 applies the findings of previous chapters to the major topics in Iron Age archaeology: the nature of social development, the validity of the historical record, and the place of the Korean peninsula within East Asian and world archaeology.