About Lance Pursey

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Birmingham, where I completed my PhD in 2020. Both my PhD and postdoctoral research are part of the AHRC Research Project ‘Understanding cities in the premodern history of Northeast China, c. 200-1200’. My PhD thesis collated epigraphic sources to identify patterns in epitaph production and correlate them to political events and broader social changes in the two centuries of Liao rule in Northeast Asia. I am currently investigating social stratification and population distributions in 10th to 12th century Northeast Asia, using a methodology that incorporates archaeological sources and fieldwork, close reading of textual sources, GIS and DH prosopography. My BA was in Chinese studies with Japanese at the University of Sheffield, and my MA was in Daoist Studies at Sichuan University in the PRC. My general research interests include: Kitan studies, Medieval Chinese religion, National Identities in Asian History, Landscape Archaeology, Northeast Asian Archaeology, Prosopography and Chinese Historiography.