Yufei Deng

Research Interests

Chinese archaeology, Early Imperial China, transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age, craft production, center and periphery

Yufei (Chinese: 邓雨菲) is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in archaeology at Harvard University. She is primarily interested in Southwest China during the late Bronze Age to the early imperial era. Her research focuses on the dynamics between center and periphery through a lens of craft production, culture contact, and identity construction.

Yufei received a BA in history with a major in archaeology from Nanjing University in 2021 and an MA in archaeology from the same university in 2024. Her previous research focused on spatial design and ritual practices in Han tombs, as well as the spatial relationships between cemeteries and settlements along the lower Yangzi River during the Han dynasty. Yufei has done excavations in China and Russia and helped to catalog artifacts from archaeological sites in Jiangsu province.