Wen Yadi
温雅棣

Wen Yadi is an associate professor at the Institute of Culture and Heritage, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China. She received her B.A. in History from Renmin University of China and obtained her M.Phil. in History and Archaeology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She was a Ph.D. candidate at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on prehistoric jades in Northeast Asia. Raw materials, production technologies, sociocultural contexts and values of jades from China and Russian Siberia are analyzed in a comparative perspective. It is expected to outline the origin, long-distance exchange, and spatiotemporal distribution of jades as an enduring symbolic vessel in this region. The relationship between Upper Paleolithic personal ornaments and Neolithic jades within Eurasia will also be discussed. Her proposed research in the near future will focus on methodologies and materials from Mesoamerican archaeology, especially Mesoamerican jades and jade-using communities. Her long-term research interest is the study of jades from Asia and Mesoamerica, both for comparative purpose and as separate fields.