China

Archaeology in China

The practice of archaeology in China has been rooted in modern Chinese history. The intellectual and political reformers of the 1920s challenged the historicity of the legendary inventors of Chinese culture, such as Shennong, the Divine Farmer, and Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor. At the same time, scientific study of the prehistoric period was being sponsored by Western archaeologists and paleoanthropologists. The establishment of the Academia Sinica (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in 1928 enabled Chinese scholars to study Chinese archaeology for themselves, and preparations were made for large-scale excavations. Notable work was done under the direction of archaeologist Li Chi (Li Ji) at Anyang, in Henan province, but this was suspended with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. The civil war of the late 1940s and the subsequent social disruptions further delayed any resumption of systematic archaeological excavation and publication. However, as the Cultural Revolution waned in the mid-1970s, work began again in earnest, and the China Association of Archaeology was established in 1979. A modernizing nation began to produce scholarship, increasingly informed by scientific analysis, in a quantity and quality commensurate with its size and its traditions of learning.

Principal sites of prehistoric and Shang China.Adapted from A. Herrmann, An Historical Atlas of China (1966); Aldine Publishing Company