ABSTRACT
This opening chapter lays out the chronology and processes of state formation on the Korean peninsula. Seven case studies of states as recognized in the Korean historical literature are reviewed and evaluated against a framework of Western anthropological theory of chiefdom-state transformation. The mainstream historical perspective based on the concept of walled city (guo) as a basic definition of an Eastern state is clarified and challenged anthropologically. With this framework in place, the different periods of state formation can be archaeologically assessed in succeeding chapters. The review, first written and published in 1990, has been revised and brought up to date through 1999. Western-language works on Korean state formation are given in an extensive bibliography (Appendix 1B) and are bolstered by references to Korean- and Western-language background works in the chapter references, marked in the text as [in Ref. List]. A chronological chart for state events is given in Appendix 1A.
