Former Assistant Professor, Anthropology
It is with great sadness that we share the news of the death of our colleague, Ling-yu Hung, on April 26, 2018 in Taiwan after a long battle with cancer. Ling-yu joined IU’s Department of Anthropology as an Assistant Professor in 2012 after completing her Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, an M.A. in Archaeology from Peking University, and a B.A. in Anthropology from National Taiwan University. She was greatly admired as a colleague and friend, enhancing the quality of the department and maintaining an active research agenda despite her illness. During Ling-yu’s brief time on campus, she influenced many students and deepened the university’s connections with archaeologists in China and Taiwan.
Ling-yu Hung was an anthropological archeologist who specialized in the early complex societies of China and the prehistory of Taiwan. Her research was cutting edge in applying geoarcheology and GIS technologies to the understanding of ancient communities. She had extensive fieldwork experience and conducted detailed ceramic analyses of Northern China’s Yangshao-Majiayao pottery, with a particular emphasis on craft specialization, ritual practice, and cultural interaction during the Neolithic period (ca. 7000–4000 years ago). At the time of her death, Ling-yu was planning a monograph on Majiayao culture, and she was involved in a multidisciplinary project in the middle Tao River Valley in northwestern China.
The recognition and respect accorded Ling-yu by her colleagues are reflected in her impressive record of invited talks and professional lectures at venues around the world. Her intellectual legacy endures through her many publications in Chinese and English. Ling-yu received prestigious grants and fellowships to support her work, including a grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange and the An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. During her year at Harvard in 2015-16, Ling-yu drew on her expertise in Chinese Neolithic pottery to help mount the Harvard Art Museum exhibition, Prehistoric Pottery from Northwest China. She carefully chose the objects and provided the specialized knowledge necessary to create an extraordinary exhibition that showcased the variety and beauty of early Chinese ceramics. According to the museum curator who organized the exhibit, Ling-yu’s contributions have inspired widespread recognition of the research potential of Harvard’s early Chinese ceramic collection.
The Anthropology faculty and students are grateful for the privilege of having known and worked with Ling-yu. She will always be appreciated for her calm and thoughtful presence, her kindness, and her generous collegiality. Her openness to new ways of thinking and her passion for knowledge will be remembered with affection and respect.
A departmental tribute is being planned for October 15, 2018 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM in the Federal Room, Indiana Memorial Union. We will gather at 4:00 PM; remarks will begin at 4:30 PM, followed by a reception.
Geographical areas of specialization
China; Taiwan
Research Interests
Chinese archaeology; prehistory of Taiwan; craft specialization; ceramics; ritual practice; cultural interaction; geoarchaeology; the application of GIS in archaeology
My archaeological research focuses on trajectories of social change and the development of social complexity. My specialized methodological approaches encompass ceramic analysis (including physicochemical methods), mortuary analysis, ethnoarchaeology, geoarchaeology, and spatial analysis with the application of geographic information systems (GIS). I have extensive field experience in archaeological excavations and surveys in China and Taiwan.
My research in northern China mainly concerns the sociocultural processes involved in the expansion and development of elaborately painted Neolithic Yangshao-Majiayao pottery (ca. 7000–4000 years ago). Since the 1920s, the Yangshao-Majiayao painted pottery and its related cultural traits have received great attention in various theories about the formation of Chinese civilization, the role of these objects in mortuary rituals, possible cross-regional contacts and trading networks, and many other questions that I continue to explore with new datasets and approaches.
Building upon my dissertation research, I am preparing a comprehensive monograph of the Majiayao Culture complex. Meanwhile, with my colleagues from different institutes, I am developing a multidisciplinary investigation of environment, population, and technology in the middle Tao River Valley, Gansu, northwestern China during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. My role in this international project is to examine the materials and techniques involved in ceramic manufacture across a 4000-year period. We hope that the Tao River Project will enlarge our understanding of early globalization and the development of social complexity in ancient China.
2014 Hung, Ling-yu, Jianfeng Cui, and Honghai Chen. Emergence of Neolithic Communities on the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau: Evidence from the Zongri Cultural Sites, in The Crescent-Shaped Cultural-Communication Belt: Tong Enzheng's Model in Retrospect: An Examination of Methodological, Theoretical and Material Concerns of Long-Distance Interactions in East Asia, edited by Anke Hein, pp. 65–78. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
2012 Ho, Chuan kun and Ling-yu Hung. Report on Excavation and Survey of Archaeological Sites in Mt. Ali Township, Jiayi County. National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung. (in Chinese)
2012 Hung, Ling-yu, Jianfeng Cui, and Honghai Chen. Immigration, Trade, Emulation, and Innovation: a Study of Late Neolithic Pottery from the Remote Zongri Site, A Collection of Studies on Archaeology — Essays in Honor of Mr. Wenming Yan for his 80th Birthday, Vol. 8: 242–262. (in Chinese)
2011 Hung, Ling-yu, Jianfeng Cui, Hui Wang, and Jian Chen. A Provenance Study of the Majiayao Painted Pottery found in Western Sichuan Province, Southern Ethnoarchaeology, Vol. 7: 1–58. (in Chinese)
2011 Hung, Ling-yu. Pottery Production, Mortuary Practice, and Social Complexity in the Majiayao Culture, NW China (ca. 5300-4000 BP). PhD diss., Washington University in St. Louis. http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/589
2006 Hung, Ling-yu and Chuan kun Ho. New Light on Taiwan Highland Prehistory, Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 26: 21–31.
2006 Arco, Lee, Katherine A. Adelsberger, Ling-yu Hung, and Tristram R. Kidder. Alluvial Geoarchaeology of a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in the Lower Mississippi Valley, U.S.A. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 21(6): 591–624.
The College of Arts