Identity formation in a border area.

Funerary sites in south-western China, dated from the third century BCE to the second century CE, display distinct combinations of local and non-local elements. The existence of mixed patterns has usually been interpreted within a cultural-historical framework or with reference to ethnic groups recorded in ancient historical records. This article focuses on three cemeteries in Baoxing (Sichuan province), located along the western frontier of a newly established prefecture under the Qin and Han imperial administration, and interprets the acquisition, combination and reinterpretation of non-local elements in grave goods and burial structure in relation to ongoing processes of identity formation. These were taking place in a phase of intense contact in the period immediately preceding the formation of the first Chinese empire in the third century BCE, and during a period of arguably decreasing control by the Han administration in the second-third century CE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]