This is the group of the Early China Roundtable, an informal organization that encourages the study of early China (Qin Dynasty and earlier). The primary function of this organization is to organize one or more meetings a year in which scholars present and discuss papers on early China. This online group is intended to facilitate both the organization of these meetings and the more general goal of encouraging the study of early China by providing a central mailing list, archive, and website. Postings and "uploads" to this group's site should primarily be in the form of enquiries (I particularly hope people will feel free to ask questions that they want specialists in other disciplines to answer for them) and announcements (e.g., meetings and topics of the Early China Roundtable, sessions on early China at various professional meetings, new paleographic discoveries, tables of contents of recent books, etc.). This is not intended as a discussion group, so the moderator may politely direct exchanges to another forum if they start to turn into debates.

Membership is open to anyone with academic credentials. Specifically, to join this group you must meet one of the following criteria: (1) have a doctorate; (2) be in a graduate program; or (3) have published an article on China in a "scholarly" book or journal. Membership is not limited to scholars from any particular academic discipline or methodology. A partial list of the disciplines relevant to this group would include the anthropology, archaeology, history, language and literature, philology, philosophy, religious studies and sociology of early China.