Because of this, I "returned" to the archaeology profession

It's 2022, and there are very few people who say that "archaeology is not the official tomb robbery" and "why do you archaeology team dig the graves of people's ancestors".

After all, in the era of public archaeology, along with various forms of science popularization, the public's understanding of archaeological work is becoming more and more comprehensive.

In the past, most people would focus on the exquisite cultural relics unearthed, or be influenced by novels, films and televisions on the theme of tomb robbery, and fantasize about the thrilling excavation work.

Nowadays, with the announcement of the progress of archaeological work, many people have begun to pay attention to very "academic" issues, and want to fully understand the ancient people's food, clothing, shelter, and spiritual outlook.

Like what:

Without written records, how can prehistoric sites be dated?

What did prehistoric humans eat? Is there a difference in diet between men and women?

For these questions, it is difficult to find answers by relying on traditional archaeological methods, so there is a new branch of scientific and technological archaeology.

2021 New Knowledge Answer Main Xiang Muru, it is this type of major that I studied during my college years.

Although he rarely participated in archaeological excavation sites, he "traveled" through various technical means in the laboratory, trying his best to spell out the truth of the picture of the life of ancient people.

What is "Techno-Archaeology"?

Xiang Muru studied "Cultural Relics and Museology" at Zhejiang University, and the following also involves archaeology, cultural relics protection, cultural relics identification, museology and other professional courses.

Because undergraduate is a large-scale training mechanism, so in the first and second years, literature, history and philosophy need to study all, and then choose specific majors according to interests.

When it comes to archaeology, many people naturally think that there will be a lot of extracurricular practice, but after Xiang Muru took a class on scientific and technological archaeology in college, he felt that his entire cognition had been subverted:

"It's all a new frontier."

Most people think of archaeology

Scientific and technological archaeology in practice

Xiang Muru said: In prehistoric times, there was no writing at all, how to explore the ancients' food, clothing, shelter and transportation through interdisciplinary methods?

"What everyone eats causes the stable isotopes in the bones to be consistent and circulating in the food, but the exchange stops at the moment of death."

When the bones of prehistoric times are dug up, stable isotopes are extracted, and different foods are located, the diet of prehistoric humans can be inferred.

If we further explore whether there are gender differences in the stable isotopes in the human skeletons in the site, we can infer the social characteristics of the time."

Purely scientific means gave Xiang Muru a "quite big shock".

Xiang Muru also gave an example:

For example, such inconspicuous things as pottery pieces, tomb robbers are generally treated as garbage, and they do not look at it.

"Traditional" archaeologists will try to restore pottery pieces, to classify typology, and even to study the temperature at which it was fired and what materials it was fired.

But now, we can analyze the traces or residues of the pottery piece through some scientific and technological means to know what it was originally used to hold.

In addition to the scientific and technological analysis of bones and pottery pieces, scientific archaeology has also solved the controversy between the evolutionary theory of multiple regions and the origin of a single region, that is, the famous Eve theory:

"All of us in modern times are descendants of the same woman who lived in Africa 200,000 years ago, thanks to molecular archaeology in technoarchae that provides theoretical support."

Online "Return to Archaeology"

Somewhat regrettably, after graduating from university, Xiang Muru did not work in archaeology, but devoted himself to the Internet and did things that were not very relevant to his original profession.

Doing work that is not professionally correct is nothing new at the moment, not to mention archaeology, which has always been considered an unpopular discipline.

Previously, the choice of archaeology major by the left-behind girls in Hunan has also aroused heated discussion, and many people believe that this profession has "no money".

Reality and ideals, the moon and sixpence, are dilemmas in front of many people.

But for Xiang Muru, life can be parallel in two lines.

Xiang Muru joined Zhihu in 2014, and until he won the honor of 2021 New Zhi Answerer, he still called himself a "little transparent".

When the list of new knowledge respondents was announced last year, he was very surprised, and he did not expect that such an unpopular respondent of popular science could be recognized by everyone.

He analyzed the reasons, "maybe it's niche enough, it's differentiated enough."

Xiang Muru recalled the scene in the early years of doing science popularization in Zhihu, "What is recognized as common sense in your profession, share it, everyone will find it very interesting."

Some topics that were originally unpopular have received high praise and attention in knowledge, which has inspired me.

"But not all archaeology-related topics, I can answer."

Especially after focusing on real work, I left my original profession and gradually forgot my original self.

However, the curiosity and curiosity of netizens have become the connection between Xiang Muru and archaeology, "forcing" Xiang Muru to "return" to archaeology.

He not only opened a personal column in Zhihu, but also published his own book "Watching the Archaeological Scene" through Zhihu.

The book was first written in 2018, tinkered with in the middle, and finally came out in early 2021, showing how archaeologists have combined various common sense and knowledge to solve complex problems.

How did archaeologists infer that the owner of the tomb was Liu Bei's ancestor Liu Sheng, the King of Zhongshan Jing, through the bronze inscriptions unearthed in the Mancheng Han tomb and the five baht money of the Han Dynasty?

How can archaeologists use humble clay pots to prove that in China 9,000 years ago, there was already a group of people who learned to drink?

How did archaeologists argue from the side that the famous Oates Iceman died by evading pursuit based on the pollen of the plant?

A stone that falls in the water

After Xiang Muru published the book, he asked himself to answer such a question.

"What's so interesting about archaeology?"

He replied ," mutilated.

"The basis of archaeological research lies in the relics excavated, but you think that the history of mankind is so long that what can withstand the torrent of time is only a drop in the ocean.

So archaeology can only make effective speculations, and we can never use archaeology to spell out all the truths of the ancients, but we can try to get closer to the truth.

With the development of science and technology, archaeology has become more and more powerful, constantly absorbing the essence of other disciplines to arm and upgrade itself."

It can be seen that Xiang Muru truly loves the discipline of archaeology, and the so-called "forced return to professionalism" is only an opportunity, and the love in his heart is awakened.

In the interview, Xiang Explained the origin of his pen name.

Mu Ru is derived from the Zhejiang dialect and "translated" into Mandarin with the meaning of "Tie Huan".

However, this iron man has a heart full of literature and art.

Through his homepage, we can also see that literature and art are also his favorites.

He has a column called "There is a difference", which is a poem from Gu Cheng, and in addition to sharing archaeological knowledge, he also likes to share some art exhibitions.

Once, he also shared in Zhihu that he took a 3-hour train ride and a 2-hour mountain road just to see the grottoes that were not open to the public...

In the opening column of his column, he also recalled his college career, when he liked to read Maugham's books, "The Moon and Sixpence", "The Shackles of Human Nature", "The Veil", and "Blade".

"At that time, I was young and crazy, and I always had a little illusion about the world, always thinking that I was a person who did great things.

So every time I watch Maugham, it's like playing chicken blood, shouting every day to pursue his dreams to change the world.

Later, as the days passed, the edges and corners of my heart seemed to be gradually smoothed out.

However, the most touching sentence when watching "Blade" has always remained in my heart:

When a stone falls in the water, the world will be different."

Xiang Muru is the iron stone.

Author: Four Pills