| Abstract: |
Introduction: Through millennia, East Asian regions, including the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, the Korean peninsula, and the Japanese archipelago have developed through beneficial interactions. Cultural, political, socio-economical exchanges among these regions have been recognized in this regard. However, the development of shipbuilding technologies is yet to be fully argued in terms of a trans-regional perspective. The formation of material culture and ideology has been sustained by shipping across the major seas of East Asia: the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. The seagoing ships often carried people and cargo from multiple national origins. The movement of human goods within the regions have been traced beyond national borders. The history of shipbuilding technologies, however, has been pursued only within the confines of national history (Ishii 1957
Kim 1994
Xi et al., 2004). This paper addresses the dynamics of the East Asian shipbuilding traditions over centuries in the light of technological innovations, diffusion, and hybridization at a regional level. A conceptual framework to elucidate the historical dynamics of the shipbuilding tradition will be constructed with a trans-regional perspective. The shipwreck archaeology of seagoing ships from China, Korea, and Japan will be reviewed with special attention for their structural details and construction methods, which contribute to the understanding of the 'Yellow Sea shipbuilding tradition', 'East China Sea shipbuilding tradition', and 'South China Sea shipbuilding tradition' (fig. 1). A chronological and spatial linkage of these shipbuilding traditions will be discussed in an attempt to broaden the significance of the archaeologically discovered hybrid ships in the Southeast Asian waters.
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