(University of Helsinki)
Discourses of Altaic and Suvarṇabhūmic connectivity with Korea, and their diversification of Korean archaeological interpretation
68th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Bangkok 2026
It is no secret that Korean archaeological interpretation has labored under ethnonationalist paradigms and (early) state-centric historiographical tradition, while in the domain of public history it is regularly obstructed by pseudohistory. In recent years, a small number of leading Korean scholars have responded to these challenges; their work complicates conventional narratives of early Korea through foregrounding diversity and nuance. Among several strategies they employ is to situate Korea in broader trans-Asian and world archaeological frameworks exploring the archaeology of regions that either extend or are located beyond the conventional boundaries of early Korea, and highlighting connectivity between those regions and the archaeology and peoples of the Korean peninsula.
Two prominent regions within this “Korean early Asia” discourse include the trans-Asian steppe, and Southeast Asia (Suvarṇabhūmi). Owing to inclusion of Korean language in the Altaic language hypothesis in the early twentieth century, the trans-Asian steppe has been a longstanding topic in Korean origins discourse. Today, popular history and advocates of pseudohistory maintain the Altai region as an ancient homeland of proto-Koreans. By contrast, the critical discourse, that is the subject of this study, dispenses with diffusionary models, and instead highlights evidence of politico-material connectivity and small scale movement. Southeast Asia, meanwhile, constitutes a previously under-studied region in Korean scholarship. Although it lacks the same degree of connectivity to Korea as the trans-Asian steppe, glass beads found in southern Korea provide evidence of indirect contact. At a meta-level, Suvarṇabhūmi provides a range of parallel trajectories and points of conceptual comparison with Korea and northern East Asia.
Korean early Asia discourse frames connectivity between the two distinct Asian regions and Korea in terms of Steppe and Maritime Silk Roads, and a shared terminology of “networks.” This study analyses the affordances of these frameworks in Korean archaeological discourse, and how specific subtopics, material data and interpretations employed in the discourse function to diversify and de-nationalise conventional “Korean” history.