Since the mid-2000s, the transition of Early to Middle Bronze Ages has been hotly issued in Korean archaeology. Various stands relevant to the issue can be broken down into two dichotomized models, indigenous development and importation models. Both h...
Since the mid-2000s, the transition of Early to Middle Bronze Ages has been hotly issued in Korean archaeology. Various stands relevant to the issue can be broken down into two dichotomized models, indigenous development and importation models. Both have simultaneously explanatory strength and weakness but recently indigenous development model is winning support, because the proponents of the model have made efforts to develop complementary reasoning for its incipient from. One of the efforts is attempt for explaining on the shift of subsistence-economic strategy and cultural divergence during the transition, so-called ‘stage of Pre-Songgukritype assemblage.`` Overexploitation and adaptive radiation in teh final stage or Early Bronze Age is key factor of the hypothetical explanatory model. Despite its novelty, we can find also logical unfairness and rack of actual proofness based on systematic data analysis from the model. I critically review its explanatory power and examine analyzing stone-tool assemblages from Early Bronze, Pre-Songgukri-type and Songgukri-type habitation sites. The results of analysis reveal that the hypothesis could not be compatible with real data. Subsistenceeconomic strategies, such as agricultural strategies pursued at Pre-Songgukri-type habitation sites were unlikely to be inconsistent, and might have been similar to ones at Songgukri-type sites. Besides the results of quantitative data analyses, information from recent excavation project shows that the hypothesis cannot properly explain what the strategies of subsistence economy during the transition of Early to Middle Bronze Ages were like. I do not agree with importation models, but indeed point out that the indigenous ones also are not enough to understand socioeconomic changes in the transition.