Many coins from China’s Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) —including Wushu coins, Banliang coins, and coins called huobu and huoquan—have been discovered at sites of the Samhan period. In particular, many of the sites where such coins have been found are located on the various islands that dot the western and southern coast of the Korean peninsula, indicating that these islands played an important role as stations for exchange. All of these coins were minted between the first century BCE and the early first century CE, and thus demonstrate the active maritime interactions that occurred between foreign states around the time that the Lelang Commandery was established in 108 BCE.