Research Interests and Projects:

• The Archaeology of China with special emphasis on the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Northeast China.
• Intercultural interaction and the genesis of local identities in China during the pre-imperial era.
• Current field research: Co-PI of the Archaeological field project, The Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Community in Northeast China. (The Hebrew University, Jilin University, Liaoning Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) in Western Liaoning province, China. The genesis of the Qin state and empire (with Dr. Yuri Pines).
• Co-PI of the Archaeological field project, The Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Community in Northeast China. (The Hebrew University, Jilin University, Liaoning Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) in Western Liaoning province, China. Co-PI, Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project (University of Pittsburgh, Jilin University, Hebrew University) in the Chifeng area, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. the project combines the regional survey of areas not yet covered with test excavations and the mapping of sites. In addition,  the researchers conduct geological work and reconstruct the paleo environment of this region in an attempt to understand the local trajectory of socio-political changes. (http://www.pitt.edu/~chifeng/)

Higher Education

• 1996-1997, Post-Doctorate, Lady Davis fellow, Department of East Asian Studies, The Hebrew University.
• 1994-1995. Ph.D. dissertation research, Peking University, Beijing, and archaeological field work in the Chifeng area, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
• 1991-1996, Ph.D. in Chinese Archaeology, Department of Anthropology and Asian Studies, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Graduation August 1996.
• 1990-1991, Student Exchange Program for Chinese Studies, Southwest China Teachers University, Chongqing, Sichuan, China.
• 1986-1989, BA, Departments of Archaeology and East Asian Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Cum Laude.

Research Grants

Positions at the Hebrew University

• 2007-2010 - Vice Dean for Research, Faculty of Humanities
• 2006 - Director of the Louis Frieberg Center of East Asian Studies
• 2003 - Chair, Department of East Asian Studies
• 2000 - Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities, Department of East Asian Studeis
• 1997 - Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities, Department of East Asian Studies

Positions in Other Academic and Research Institutions

• 2004-2005 - Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA.
• 1997-2004 - Vice President, Society for East Asian Archaeology.

Other Academic Activity

• 2010-2013 - Member of a Scholion Research Group, “Archaeologies of Memory: Founding, Decline and Destruction.”
• 2008 - Member of the editorial board of Historia (the Journal of the Israeli Historical Society).
• 2008 - Organizer, (with Yuri Pines), International Workshop, “The Birth of Empire: The State of Qin Revisited.” Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, December 10-19, (co-sponsored by the Israeli Science Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Studies).
• 2006 - Organizer (with Michal Biran and Reuven Amitai) International Workshop, “Eurasian Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change”, June 6-8, 2006. Institute for Advance Study, Jerusalem.
• 2001 to present - Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of East Asian Archaeology.
• 2000 - Academic Organizer of Second Worldwide Society for East Asian Archaeology Conference. University of Durham, England.
• 1998 to present - Co-PI, Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project (University of Pittsburgh, Jilin University, Hebrew University) in the Chifeng area, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. 

Courses Taught in the Last 5 Years:

Bachelor's degree courses:

• Introduction to the History and Culture of Traditional China (46102)
• The Formation of Chinese Identity (46101)
• Art and Architecture in China (46320)
• China Rediscovered: Art and Archaeology in China (46300)
• Technology and Society in China (46214)
• China and the Silk Road (46217)
• China during the Age of Revolution 1900-1949 (46410)
• Introduction to Chinese Art (46135)

Master's degree courses:

• China on the Crossroads: The First Empire (46879)
• The Silk Road: China and the Outside World during the Pre-Modern Time (46215)
• Personal and Group Identities in China (46860)
• From China to Crate during the Bronze Age (43816)

List of Publications:

Dissertation

“The Emergence of Complex Society in Northeast China from the Fourth to the First Millennia B.C.: A Perspective from the Chifeng Area in Inner Mongolia.” University of Pittsburgh, Advisor Prof. Katheryn M. Linduff.

Books

 

2012 - Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Region, (as on of the PIs of the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project). Center for Comparative Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh.

• 2009 - Shelach Gideon and Yuri Pines (Yitzhak Shichor chief editor). Kol Asher mi-takhat le-shamaim: Sin Ha-Keisarit (All under Heaven: Imperial China [in Hebrew]), Volume 1: Mekorot Ha-Keisarut Ha-Sinit (Origins of the Chinese Empire); Volmue 2: Ha-Keisarut Hamukdement (the Early Emperial Period), Tel-Aviv: The Open University Press.
• 2009 - Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE. London, Approaches to Anthropological Archaeology Series, Equinox.

• 2004 - Regional Archaeology in Eastern Inner Mongolia: A Methodological Exploration (as member of the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project), Kexue chubanshe, Beijing.

Reviews in:

• Antiquity 2000 vol. 74: 732-733 (By Gina L. Barnes).
• American Antiquity 2001 vol. 66 (1): 169-170 (By Sarah M. Nelson).
• Journal of Anthropological Research 2001 vol. 57: 226-228 (By Yun Kuen Lee)

Articles

• 2012 - Shelach, Gideon.  On the Invention of Pottery. Science 336: 1644-1645.
• 2012 - Peterson, C. and G. Shelach, “Jiangzhai: Social and Economic Organization of a Middle Neolithic Chinese Village.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31:265-301.
• 2011 - Zhang, Jia-Fu (PI), Xiao-Qing Wang (PI), Wei-Li Qiu (PI), Gideon Shelach (PI), Gang Hu (PI), Xiao Fu (PI), Mao-Guo Zhuang (PI), and Li-Ping Zhou (PI).  “The paleolithic site of Longwangchan in the middle Yellow River, China: chronology, paleoenvironment and implications.” Journal of Archaeological Science. 38: 1537-1550.
• 2011 - Shelach, Gideon. “I processi di interazione interregionale tra la tarda Età Neolitica e l'inizio dell'Età del Bronzo in Cina, in La Cina” (Interregional Interactions during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze), in M. Scarpari (ed). The Chinese Civilization: from Its Origins to Contemporary Times; Vol. 1, Prehistory and the Roots of Civilization in China. Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore, pp. 489-557.
  2011 - Shelach, G., K. Raphael, and Y. Jaffe. 2011. “Sanzuodian: The Structure, Function and Social Significance of the Earliest Stone Fortified Sites in China.” Antiquity. 85: 11-26.
• 2010 - Avni Y., Zhang Jiafu, G. Shelach, and Zhou Liping, “Upper Pleistocene –Holocene geomorphic changes dictating sedimentation rates and historical land use in the valley system of the Chifeng region, Inner Mongolia, northern China.” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. 35: 1251-1268.
• 2010 - Peterson Christian and Gideon Shelach, "The Evolution of Yangshao Period Village Organization in the Middle Reaches of Northern China’s Yellow River Valley". In Becoming Villagers, M. S. Bandy and J. R. Fox (Eds.), Amerind Foundation and the University of Arizona Press.
• 2008 - "Violence on the Frontiers? Sources of power and socio-political change at the easternmost parts of the Eurasian steppes during the early first millennium BCE". In Bryan Hanks and Kathryn Linduff (eds) Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia. Cambridge University Press.
• 2008 - He Who Eats the Horse, She Who Rides It? Symbols of Gender Identity on the Eastern Edges of the Eurasian Steppe. In Kathryn M. Linduff & Karen S. Rubinson (eds), Are All Warriors Male? Gender Roles on the Ancient Eurasian Steppe. Lanham: Altmira, pp. 93-109.
• 2006 - “Economic Adaptation, Community Structure, and Sharing Strategies of Households at Early Sedentary Sites in Northeast China”, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 25(3): 318-345.
• 2005 - “Power, Identity and Ideology: Reflections on the Formation of the State of Qin (770-221 BCE)” (with Yuri Pines), in M.T. Stark, ed. An Archaeology of Asia. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, pp. 202-230.
• 2005 - “Using the Past to Serve the Present: Comparative Perspectives on Chinese and Western Theories of the Origins of the State” (with Y. Pines), in: Shaul Shaked, ed., Genesis and Regeneration: Essays on Conceptions of Origins, Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, pp. 127-163.
• 2004 - “Evolution or Continuity? Marxist and Post-Marxist Paradigms for Gender Archaeology of the Chinese Neolithic Period” in K. Linduff and Sun Yan, eds. Gender and Chinese Archaeology. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek, pp. 11-27.
• 2004 - “Early Pastoral Societies of Northeast China: Local Change and Interregional Interaction during c. 1100 to 600 BC”, in R. Amitai and M. Biran, eds. Mongols, Turks and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Outside World. Brill, Leiden. pp. 15-58.
• 2004 - “Early Complex Societies in NE China: The Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project” (with K. Linduff and R. Drennan),  Journal of Field Archaeology 29 (1-2): 45-73.
• 2004 - “Gongyuan qian yiqian nian yilai zhongguo dongbei diqu youmu shenghuo fangshi de xingqi – quyu wenhua de fazhang ji qi yu zhoulin diqu de hudong” (Chinese), Bianjiang kaogu yanjiu. 3: 237-262.
• 2004 - “Ideology, Politics, and the Development of Archaeological Research in China” (Hebrew), Zmanim. 85: 54-65.
• 2002 - “Dui zhongguo dongbei chifeng yizhi de geju jinxing kaocha de chubu baogao” (Chinese) Kaogu yu wenwu 2002 (2): 43-50.
• 2001 - “Apples and Oranges? Cross-Cultural Comparison of Burial Data from Northeast China”, Journal of East Asian Archeology, 3 (3-4): 53-90.
• 2001 - “Interaction Spheres and the Development of Social Complexity in Northeast China”, The Review of Archaeology 22 (2): 22-34.
• 2001 - “The Dragon Ascends to Heaven, the Dragon Dives into the Abyss: Creation of the Chinese Dragon Symbol”, Oriental Art, 47(3): 29-40
• 2001 - “Prehistoric Dragons from Northeast China”, Orientations, 32 (4): 62-65.
• 2000 - “The Earliest Neolithic Cultures of Northeast China: Recent Discoveries and New Perspectives on the Beginning of Agriculture”, Journal of World Prehistory, 14 (4): 363-413.
• 1999 - “Newly Acquired Chinese Bells Teach Us About Ancient Chinese Music”, The Israel Museum Journal. 17:58-59.
• 1998 - “Settlement Pattern Study in Northeast China: Results and Insights on Potential Contributions of Western Theory to Chinese Archaeology”, Antiquity. 72: 114-127.
• 1996 - "The Qiang and the Question of Human Sacrifice in the Late Shang Period", Asian Perspectives. 35(1): 1-26.
• 1994 - "The Emergence of Social Complexity in China During the Early Bronze Age: A Comparative Study of the Erlitou and the Lower Xiajiadian Cultures", Asian Perspectives. 33(2): 261-292.

Book Reviews and other Publications

• 2008 - “Neolithic Cultures” a chapter in China: The World's Oldest Living Civilization Revealed. John Makeham (ed.). London : Thames & Hudson.
• 2008 - Shelach Gideon and Yuri Pines. "The Xia Dynasty," "The Shang Dynasty," and "The Zhou Dynasty." chapters, in China: The World's Oldest Living Civilization Revealed. John Makeham (ed.). London : Thames & Hudson.
• 2008 - "Book review: Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of the Western Zhou 1045-771 BC, by Li Feng", The Journal of Asian Studies, 67 (1): 281-284.
• 2005 - “Book Review: The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C. – A.D. 907, by Charles Holcombe”, Asian Perspectives, 44 (2): 381-383.
• 2002 - “Book Review: The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia. Mair, Victor. H. (ed), Washington D.C., Institute for the Study of Man, 1998” Journal of East Asian Archeology. 4 (1-4):
• 2001 - "Guest Editors' Preface to the Special Section" (with F. Allard), Journal of East Asian Archeology. 3 (3-4): iii-ix.
• 2001 - “Early Xiajiadian culture”, “late Xiajiadian culture”, entries for Encyclopedia of Prehistory, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press, New-York, 25-31; 127-131.
• 1998 - “Book Review: The Archaeology of Northeast China: Beyond the Great Wall. S.M. Nelson (ed.), London and New York: Routledge,  1995”, Journal of Asian Studies. 57(3): 858-859.

Papers and Conferences

• 2011. “Who Eat My Acorn? On Acorn Consumption and the Beginning of Agriculture in China.” The 10^th Annual Meeting of Asian Studies in Israel, Jerusalem, May 24-26, 2011.
• 2010. “Memory, Amnesia and the Formation of Identity Symbols in China.” The 75^th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology (SAA), St. Louis, USA. April 14-18, 2010.
• 2010. “On Memory and Objects.”, The Annual Tong Enzheng Memorial Lecture, The Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University, 8.4.
• 2010. “Long-Range Interaction, Economic Change and Identity Formation: Archaeological Perspectives on Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China.” Invited lecture at the Department of Archaeology, Leiden University, 18.3.
• 2009 - “Settlement Patterns, Environmental Condition and the Beginning of Agriculture and Sedentary Life-Way in Northeast China.” International Symposium On Environmental and Social Changes in Ancient China, Shandong University, China, 15-19 October 2009.
• 2008 - Co-Orgenizer of workshop: The Birth of Empire: The State of Qin Revisited. Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, December 10-19, 2008 (co-sponsored by the Israeli Science Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Studies).
• 2008 - “Collapse or Transformation? Anthropological and Archaeological Perspectives on the Fall of the Qin”, The Birth of Empire: The State of Qin Revisited. Workshop at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, December 10-19, 2008.
• 2008 - “Ecological Conditions and Changing Patterens of Human Adaptation in the Chifeng Survey Region”, Fourth Worldwide Conference of the Society for East Asian Archaeology (SEAA), Beijing, China, June 2-5.
• 2008 - “From the Younger Dryas to the Yellow River: The Relevancy of West Asian Correlations between Environmental Change and the Beginnings of Agriculture for an Understanding of East Asian Prehistory” (With Leore Grosman). The 73rd Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology (SAA), Vancouver, Canada. March 26 - March 30, 2008.
• 2008 - Organizer of panel “Subsistence, Settlement, and Society: Formative East and SE Asia in Comparative Perspective.” The 73rd Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology (SAA), Vancouver, Canada. March 26 - March 30, 2008.
• 2007 - "שליטה בטכנולוגיה או טכנולוגיה של שליטה? מבט ארכיאולוגי על המונופולים הקיסריים של תקופת חאן" הכנס השנתי של לימודי מזרח אסיה בישראל, אוניברסיטת חיפה, 12.6.
• 2007 - "מעל ומתחת לפני האדמה: קבר הקיסר הראשון של צ'ין ועיצוב תפישת המונומנטליות בסין הקיסרית" הכנס השנתי ה 31 של החברה ההיסטורית הישראלית, תל-אביב, 28.3.
• 2006 - “Weapons, Ornaments and Food: The Creation of Pastoralist Identity on the Borders of China during the First Millennium BCE”, Invited Paper, Eurasian Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change, Institute for Advance Study, Jerusalem, June 6-8.
• 2006 - “Who Ride the Horses and Who Eat Them? Food and Gender Identity in Northeast China During the First Millennium BCE” (in Hebrew), Fifth Annual Meeting of the Israeli Association for East Asian Studies, Tel-Aviv, 11-12/7.
• 2006 - “Violence on the frontiers? Sources of power and socio-political change at the easternmost parts of the Eurasian steppes during the late second and early first millennium BCE”, Invited Paper, New Research Directions in Eurasian Steppe Archaeology, Conference organized by the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Russian and East Europian Studies, University of Pittsburgh, February 10-11.
• 2005 - “The Upper Xiajiadian Culture: Long-range Interactions and Local Processes in Northeast China ca. 1100-600 BC”, Ancient China and the Steppe: Exchange Beyond Dynastic Borders, A Bi-annual Symposium in honor of Hsu Cho-yun, University of Pittsburgh, April 8.
• 2005 - “Economic or Identity Change? Archaeological Perspectives on the Northern Frontiers of China, ca. 1100-600 BCE”, East Asian Archaeology Seminar, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.
• 2005 - “Early Neolithic Communities in North China: Site Structure in Comparative Perspectives”, Society for American Archaeology 70th annual Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 30-April 3.
• 2004 - “The Pre-History of Northeast China: What did we Learn from 10 Years of Archaeological Research?”, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton Universtiy, November 17.
• 2003 - “The Rise of Pastoral Adaptation in Northeast China During the First Millennium BC: Local Processes and Interregional Interactions”, Long Term Archaeological Processes, International Academic Conference organized by the Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University and by the Inner Mongolia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology, E’jina qi, Inner Mongolia, October 9-14.
• 2002 - “Beyond the regional survey: Complementary methods used in the regional study of the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project” 17th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, Taipei, Taiwan, September 9-15
• 2001 - “The Chifeng Regional Project: Methodological and Theoretical Issues of Systematic Surveys” Settlement Evolution and Early Civilization, Center for the Study of Chinese Archaeology, Beijing University, China, December 11-13.
• 2000 - “Using the Past to Serve the Present: Comparative Perspectives on Chinese and Western Theories of the Origins of the State” (with Yuri Pines), Genesis and Regeneration, conference held by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, December 18-20.
• 2000 - Academic Organizer of Second Worldwide Society for East Asian Archaeology Conference  University of Durham, England
• 2000 - “Apples and Oranges? Cross-Cultural Comparison of Burial Data from Northeast China”, Second Worldwide Society for East Asian Archaeology Conference  University of Durham, England
• 2000 - “An Archaeological Look at the Early Pastoral Societies of Northeast China: An Inter-regional Interaction c. 1100-600 BC”, International Workshop on Euro-Asian Nomads and the Outside World, The Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem
• 1998 - “Changing Lifeways in the Beifang, China: International Co-operative Project  (University of Pittsburgh, Jilin University, Hebrew University)”, The 63rd annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Seattle, with Prof. K.M.Linduff.
• 1997 - “The Turtle and the Dragon: Symbols in Chinese Art”, Lecture at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July 8, 1997.
• 1996 - "Potential Contributions of Western Archaeology: Insights from fieldwork in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia." Symposium on the Internationalization of Chinese Archaeology in the Twenty-first Century, University of California, Los Angeles.
• 1996 - "Active Periphery: a view on center-periphery interaction from Chifeng, Inner Mongolia." East Asian Archaeological Network Meetings, Hawaii.
• 1993 - "Interregional Interaction and the Emergence of Social Complexity in North China During the Late 3rd and Early 2nd Millennia BC." The Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC.