Foreign scholars make suggestions to Chinese archeology

From English People daily: Foreign scholars make suggestions to Chinese archeology

On the afternoon of April 28, many top archeologists from different countries shared their views on Chinese archeology at a high level "Symposium on Chinese Archeology and the World Archeology" at Peking University Centennial Auditorium to warmly celebrate the 90th anniversary of the School of Archeology and Museology.

The School of Archeology and Museology under the Peking University is 90 years old in 2012 since the founding of the Archaeology Laboratory in 1922. As the cradle of Chinese archeology, Peking University not only has cultivated more than 2,000 talents of archeology and museology for China but also has been leading the Chinese archeological theory and practice.

Jessica Rawson

The traditional cooking promoted and improved the technology of Chinese bronzes and metal fabrication, making China ahead of the world in terms of this kind of technology and cooking arts.

Ofer bar Yosef

An important problem for the Paleolithic research of the future China is whether China can find Neanderthal fossils.

Stephen Shennan

He suggested that the Chinese archeology should pay more attention to the demographic study.

Lothar von Falkenhausen

He hoped that the field of Chinese archeology can appropriately cooperate with more foreign scholars to let Chinese archeology as an important part of world archeology.

Jessica Rawson, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, gave a speech on "Early China and Its Innovative Technologies." Her research covers all areas of Chinese art archeology. Rawson compared the food processing tradition of China with that of the West Asia and said that the traditional cooking of the West Asia and China deeply affected the cultural development with each other. Chinese potteries are mainly used as cook meals, which reflected the cooking tradition in early China. The emergence of high-temperature ceramics in the Shang and Zhou dynasties shows that China had mastered the high temperature control technology, which brought rapid development of the bronze ware and iron ware in early China and formed the metallurgy different from the West Asia. The difference indicated the different rituals and beliefs between China and the West Asia. The traditional cooking of China promoted and improved the technology of Chinese bronzes and metal fabrication, making China ahead of the world in terms of this kind of technology and cooking arts.

Ofer bar Yosef from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, made a more forward-looking speech called "Chinese Paleolithic and Early Neolithic in the Next 20 Years." In his view, an important problem for the Paleolithic research of the future China is that whether China can find Neanderthal fossils. Another important issue is the impacts of people's lives and behaviors brought by the origin of agriculture and after the agriculture revolution. In the next 20 years of archeological activities, Chinese archeologists need to find more details about the transition period from Paleolithic age to Neolithic age and make a breakthrough in the issue of the origin of agriculture by making use of multi-disciplinary research. The agriculture and the economic life may be the bridge to understand the transition from the Paleolithic age to the Neolithic age.

Stephen Shennan, director of the Institute of Archaeology of the University College London and a theoretical archeology professor, stressed in his report that the study of cultural history should be regarded as a sport, finding the laws of the sport and making a quantitative analysis to it. For example, the cultural variation is similar to the biological variation and the inheritance and variation mechanism are both natural selection and human selection. Therefore, the cultural heritage is related with the positive selection. He believes that the analysis method of Su Bingqi, a Chinese archeologist, can separate different cultural elements including emblazonry and shape of wares and the types in different areas. This method has a profound influence on understanding the origin of Chinese civilization.

Different from other archeologists, Stephen Shennan specializes in statistics. He suggested that the Chinese archeology should pay more attention to the demographic study.

"Viewing the Current Chinese Archeology from the International Position" is a speech made by Lothar von Falkenhausen, a professor of the Institute of Archaeology and the Department of Art History of the University of California, Los Angeles. He highly valued his study in the School of Archeology under the Peking University in the 1980s and was impressed with the lessons by Zou Heng and Yu Weichao. Falkenhausen who can speak in English, Chinese, Japanese and German told the transition of Chinese archeology in the West from an unpopular research to a research obsessed by many Western scholars.

He also told the development of Chinese Archeology from traditional epigraphy to modern archeology. He said that the world archeology has undergone several normal transformation but these new ideas and methods are not widely used in China.

Falkenhausen hoped that more Chinese scholars can participate in archeological research abroad and Chinese archeologists can appropriately cooperate with more foreign scholars to make Chinese archeology as an important part of world archeology.