Exploring the Xia culture from the perspective of public archaeology is not only a process of collecting and understanding the specific appearance of "Xia culture" and clarifying the archeological concept of penetrating the masses, but also an examination of whether academic archaeological work is effective in giving back to the society. As a "high-tech" field of archaeological research, Xia culture archaeology appears profound and obscure in front of the public, while public archaeology has effectively built a channel for archaeologists to communicate with the public and a platform for public participation, achieving the effect of multi-party communication and providing a powerful tool for cultural heritage protection. Applying the 5W theory of communication science, so that the communication subjects, objects, channels, archaeological narratives and literary narratives of Xia culture can cooperate together, and increase the public archaeological dissemination of Xia culture, which is conducive to building a grounded ancient Chinese history, so that Xia culture archaeology can truly integrate into modern life and awaken our common "historical memory".
This article was first published in Chinese Cultural Heritage, No. 2, 2022
Huang Lotte Ishi 2019 undergraduate student in archaeology at the School of History and Culture of Henan University
Hou Weidong is an associate professor at the Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development Research Center of Henan University
At the 1977 "Dengfeng Completion Site Excavation Site Meeting", Mr. Xia Nai first proposed a brief description of "Xia culture": "'Xia culture' should refer to the culture of the Xia people during the Xia Dynasty. [1] At present, there are two most important views on the understanding of Xia culture in the academic community: One is that the Erlitou culture is equivalent to the Xia culture, represented by Mr. Zou Heng. The second is to believe that part of the Erlitou culture is the Xia culture, and the late Longshan culture in Henan, represented by the Wangwan Phase III culture, can also be classified as the early Xia culture, and Mr. An Jinhuai and Li Boqian hold this view. Xia culture archaeology is a cluster of green leaves of the tree of Chinese archaeology disciplines, so that it is integrated into the eyes of the modern general public, and it has also experienced a rich process of change, and the dissemination practice of xia culture public archaeology is still in progress. Public Archaeology and Public Archaeology are translated from "Public Archaeology", derived from the book of the same name published by the American scholar Charles McKim in 1972, who expounded how archaeology as a social public service should communicate with social development, making an important contribution to the cause of cultural heritage protection in the United States.[2] There are also many scholars who believe that "public archaeology" is not a unique Western academic patent term, in fact, this practice of placing archaeology among the public has long existed in China. This paper intends to sort out the history of the transmission and construction of "Xia culture" from the perspective of public archaeology, and use the 5W theory of communication to explore the value and significance of "Xia culture" communication in modern life.
First, a brief history of the construction of "Xia culture" from the perspective of public archaeology
Since the 1920s, archaeology has profoundly influenced the development of Chinese historiography, and a series of archaeological discoveries have greatly changed the people's understanding of the country's history on the basis of the "new historiography" since the beginning of the twentieth century. Prior to this, the "Western Sayings" of Chinese species and cultures have been recognized by some people, so the theme that archaeology hopes to solve in all walks of life is the origin of Chinese civilization. However, the ensuing upsurge in ancient history research has once again set off waves, and the ancient thought of doubting ancient culture has experienced a dormant period of ancient literature and classics in the Qing Dynasty, and a huge ancient history debate movement has been formed with the help of the new cultural movement, and the development of Chinese archaeology in the early stage is closely related to the ancient history debate movement. Liu Shipei once summed up the "two difficulties" of reading Chinese history: "The history of the ancients is absurd, and the records are divergent; the history of later generations is salty and complex, and the memories are many in succession." ”[3]
As an important part of ancient history, the Xia Dynasty once became the beginning of China's historical narrative. Compared with the academic community, the public has less direct contact with historical documents and materials, and the cognition of Xia culture relies to a large extent on the writings or conclusions of scholars after secondary processing. The "collective memory" of Xia society has been circulated in the land of China for thousands of years in a historical way, and finally formed the "historical memory" of the Xia Dynasty in later generations. Historical memory is different from collective memory, historical memory contains more emotional factors, in this regard, Wang Mingke has discussed that the most important part of the "fundamental history" of the fundamental emotional connection of ethnic groups or social groups is its "origin" part, because the origin part of historical memory strengthens the emotional foundation of an ethnic group, and is widely circulated in the narrative of "myth", "legend" or "history" and "archaeology" that are regarded as academics [4]. Xia culture is not only the historical memory of the Chinese nation, but also the "origin" part of the entire civilization process.
The construction of the historical memory of the Xia culture from the perspective of public archaeology was mostly reflected in popular science and general knowledge historical works in the early days. A significant feature of the construction of new historiography at the beginning of the 20th century is that historians such as Liang Qichao, Xia Zengyou, Lu Simian, Zhang Yinlin, Qian Mu, Fan Wenlan and even Chen Yinke all once or tried to compile a general history of China as their priority, and such general history works constitute the public's perception of Xia culture. However, different scholars' understanding of the ancient history of the Xia Dynasty is different, and Feng Youlan once divided the historical circles into three schools of "believing in the ancient, doubting the ancient, and interpreting the ancient" according to the attitude towards the ancient history. [5] The Xia Dynasty has long been a key point in the analysis and cognition of the history of faith and mythology by scholars and the public, believing in the existence of the Xia Dynasty and believing that the Xia culture can be sought, and the "Xia Dynasty History of Faith" has become an important basis for scholars and the general public to understand.
The discussion of Xia culture under the ancient history discernment movement in the Republic of China period is directly related to the people's cognition of Xia culture. In 1922, Gu Jiegang, who had emerged in the academic circles, was entrusted by Hu Shizhi to compile the "National History of Modern Junior High School Textbooks", and for the first time systematically sorted out the history of antiquity under his skeptical ancient thoughts, and he expounded his writing ideas in "The Discussion of the Law of Compiling National History Textbooks in Middle Schools": "It is better to make the historical system incomplete than to make the selected materials untrue and not concise", "from Pangu to Zhou Gong and Confucius, they should be greatly deleted and deleted", "Since the Shang Dynasty, there have been historical materials that can be trusted", "" Although it seems too suspicious that we should not 'deceive ourselves', we can only do so" "As for the legends from ancient times to the Xia Dynasty, we can also choose to record them in the middle of the 'appendix' so that students know that the history books that have been passed down have such and such records." [6] Participation in education is one of the most important activities that Gu Jiegang believes is to start, and this work for the public is directly linked to the national fortunes in Gu Jiegang's view: "To transform politics, we must first transform society; to transform society, we must first make the people of the whole country have the opportunity to receive education." [7] As an educator, he devoted himself to society in the style of "preaching" and participated in the formulation of policies, so the "National History of Modern Junior High School Textbooks" became Gu Jiegang's reform experiment, which listed the pre-Shang Dynasty as an "era without history", and the history of the Xia Dynasty undoubtedly became a highly scrutinized cloud of doubt. In this book, Gu Jiegang compiles the history of the Xia Dynasty into the "Antiquity - Before Qin" section, starting with the flooding of the Yao Shun Period, mixing the historical events of the Xia Dynasty recorded in the literature, and explaining its historical significance, such as the Zen system is "the natural result of the times", Shaokang Zhongxing is "the evidence of the cornerstone of the hereditary system"[8], revealing Gu Jiegang's evolutionary view of history, at the archaeological level, only mentions the newly unearthed oracle bones as an introductory material for the political form of the Shang Dynasty, limited by the times and materials. Gu Jiegang introduced that Xia culture is also difficult to escape the past historians, only using the modern scientific theories and critical ideas under his own understanding to explain the old history of the literature, while the change in archaeology's view of public history during this period is more reflected in the "prehistory" with "prehistoric remains".
Subsequently, in 1923, Gu Jiegang proposed in the "On the Ancient History Book with Mr. Qian Xuantong" that "an animal cast on Yu or Jiuding"[9] and quickly set off a storm in the academic circles and society, which can be said to be a major impact of modern society on the cognition of Xia culture. Scholars such as Liu Andu and Hu Yanren also refuted it, but later Mr. Gu Jiegang himself gave up this hypothesis and admitted that the hypothesis was wrong and the material was insufficient. There is also an interesting thing during this period, Mr. Lu Xun in his 1935 novel "Li Shui" satirized Gu Jiegang, Lu Xun's novel is so widely circulated that many people even think that the view that "Yu is a worm" originated from Lu Xun, first of all, putting aside the discord between Lu Xun and Gu Jiegang's previous personal relationship, in fact, this also reflects the suspicious ancient school of innovative views scattered into a side of society: Yu and Xia culture, as historical memory, has long strengthened the emotional foundation of the national ethnic group, and the public does not care about "history" and "archaeology" in fact. The so-called scientific narrative methods such as discourse, as in Lu Xun's novels, argue that "Yu is a worm" is meaningless, and the spontaneous emotional factors in historical memory and romantic narratives may be more precious.
Although the Skeptical School had an impact on the cognition of Xia culture, Mr. Gu was always "Doubtful Yu" rather than "Doubtful Xia", and also paid attention to the reconstruction of ancient history, and he agreed with Mr. Li Xuanbo, believing that "archaeology is the only way to explore Xia culture" [10]. In the 1930s, he cooperated with Mr. Tong Shuye in "Xia Shi kao", and focused on "Yu Gong" to prepare for the special research of Xia culture. In 1931, Mr. Xu Zhongshu published "On Xiaotun and Yangshao", which for the first time used field archaeological data to study the problem of "Xia culture" contained in traditional documents. In 1933, Fu Sinian also made "Yixia East and West Theory" on the basis of Mr. Xu, which caused a wide range of influences for a long time. As early as the 1920s, Mr. Zhou Qichang wrote the book "The Origin and Distribution of Human Beings (Science Series)" (1927) that dabbled in archaeological achievements, introducing to the public the archaeological knowledge that had just been established in the land of China, since the scientific excavation of Yin Ruins in 1928, Mr. Fu Sinian, Li Ji, Dong Zuobin and others began to pay attention to the dissemination of archaeological results to the public. Modern Archaeology and the Excavation of Yin Ruins, the Expansion of Oracle Bone Research and other appendices are in the Anyang Excavation Report (1933) and are open to the public. In 1934, the Archaeological Society was established, and its journal "Archaeological Society" published Zheng Shixu's "Popular Archaeology Series Editing Plan" in the first issue, Zheng Shixu taught for a long time, feeling the obscurity of paleography and Jinshi archaeology, proposed to compile a set of popular archaeological books, which is the practice of intentionally combining archaeology with social benefits and national identity feelings, which can also be said to be the abuse of Chinese public archaeology. In Zheng Shixu's editorial plan, he believes that any discipline should be popularized at the same time as specializing, and popularizing archaeology is a way to bring "antiques" into "science", and there are very few popular books on Chinese archaeology, only some simple relevant translations are issued, and the ancient fossils, northwest, Yangshao, and Yin ruins found in China in the past decade should be "supplemented according to reports or correct news"[11], but because the excavation of the remains related to the Xia culture is still blank, the "Popular Archaeology Series Editing Plan" does not mention it.
After the founding of New China, the people became the masters of the country, and in 1950, Mr. Su Bingqi published "How to Make Archaeology the Cause of the People", which upgraded archaeology to "the cause of the people".[12] Problems in the Present Archaeological Work (1953) and What I See from This Exhibition (1954) included "mass" in the focus of archaeological work. Public archaeology during this period made great strides. At the same time, Jia Lanpo, Mr. Zheng Zhenduo, etc. also responded to the call and published a large number of popular science works that meet the reading needs of the general public, such as "From the Development of Ape Man Brain to Modern Human Brain", "The Former Residence of "Beijing People"", and "Reference Atlas of Chinese History". In addition, a number of large museums such as the China History Museum were completed, a large number of cultural relics and excavation results were opened to the public, and public archaeology began to spread to film and television (such as the 1958 excavation documentary "Underground Palace" about the ming dynasty emperor's tombs). At the same time as the publicization of the archaeological cause, the archaeological excavation of the Xia culture has finally made great progress, from 1953 to 1956, the remains of Dengfeng Yucun, Zhengzhou Luoda Temple, and Luoyang Donggangou have been discovered one after another, which is highly suspected to be the remains of the Xia culture, in 1959, coinciding with Mr. Xu Xusheng's completion of the investigation of the "Xia Ruins", the Erlitou site and the previous remains of the discovery constitute a chain of clues, and then the excavation of the Erlitou site opened a new chapter in the exploration of the Xia culture. After the 1950s, the achievements related to Xia culture began to be published in major newspapers and periodicals, which had a wide impact on the public, such as "A Brief Discussion on the Problem of Studying Xia Culture" ("New Construction", 1960), "On black pottery culture and non-Xia Dynasty culture" (Guangming Daily, January 17, 1957, 3rd edition), "Is there a Xia Dynasty in the end?" (Henan Daily, September 21, 1961, 3rd edition), "Where is the City of Yang in Xiadu?" (Henan Daily, September 28, 1961, 3rd edition), "Where is Xia Du Shu Huan?" (Henan Daily, October 5, 1961, 3rd edition), "Shaokang Zhongxing" and Qianyuan (Henan Daily, October 8, 1961, 3rd edition), "How to Identify Excavated Xia Dynasty Cultural Relics" (Henan Daily, October 29, 1961, 3rd Edition), "Discussion on the Cultural Nature of the Xia Dynasty" (Guangming Daily, February 10, 1962, lth Edition), etc. These popular science literature with the help of newspaper platforms is a direct practice of public archaeology of the Xia culture.
The Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project at the turn of the century is a hot word for the public to recognize the archaeology of the Xia culture. Launched in May 1996, the Xia Shang Zhou Dynasty Project brought together 100 experts from various disciplines, and in October 2000, the "Xia Shang Zhou Dynasty Project 1996-2000 Stage Achievement Report • Simplified Version", "Simplified Version" put forward a relatively clear Framework of the Xia Dynasty, which was widely used by subsequent books and media products, and almost became the only standard for the public to understand the Accumulation of Xia Culture. However, the "Simplified Version" is still controversial in academic circles, and Western scholars often have doubts about the Xia Dynasty Xinshi theory, so there are more criticisms of engineering. The general historical works "Harvard History of China" and "Cambridge Ancient History of China", which are widely praised by the public at home and abroad, are not lehes, and even start directly from the Qin and Han Dynasties. This skeptical concept also exists in China, and due to the development of the Internet, the emerging network platform has become a major position for the public to discuss archaeological work. In the online media at that time, public archaeological work was insufficient, and all kinds of rhetoric were muddy. Since its publication in November 2000, the Internet has sparked the first debate on the Xia Shang Zhou Dynasty Project. At this time, both the academic community and the public realized that the exploration of Xia culture was still in a stage of debate. The Erlitou culture, which has been studied for nearly forty years in the project, is still a major focus, and the Erlitou site, as the largest, most complex structure, richest excavated relics, the highest grade, the most advanced level of productivity, the most obvious characteristics of the times, and the most clear nature of the Duyi site in the exploration of the Xia culture so far, is an important representative of the Xia culture From Shaokang Zhongxing to the Shang Tang Dynasty, which has been spread for a long time and has basically become a "synonym for Xia culture" in front of the public.
In the past ten years, the development of communication networks and media has been rapid, and emerging media such as Weibo, WeChat, and short videos have given Xia culture a good platform for public archaeology dissemination. When the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project and the Archaeological China Project are in progress, the national economic and cultural level and the importance of cultural heritage are constantly improving, and the study of Xia culture has also entered a period of rapid development in the field of public archaeology.
Second, the analysis of the transmission structure of Xia culture from the perspective of public archaeology
When studying public archaeological communication, we can borrow the theory of communication. In 1948, Harold M. In The Structure and Function of Communication in Society, D. Laswell proposed the famous 5W mode of communication: Who says what, through what channel, and what effect is achieved by To whom. [13] This model has made a significant contribution to the development of communication, analyzing the structure of communication in five specific terms, clearly revealing the linear propagation process. The spread of public archaeology can also be analyzed in the 5W model. In the case of Laswell's 5W theory, the subject, object, channel, effect, and content of communication is the main part of our analysis.
(1) The structure of the communication subject and the credibility of the source
Communication subjects often master communication tools and platforms, determine the value of information content, and are in an advantageous position in the entire communication process. In most public archaeological communication practices, the main body of its dissemination can be divided into two major communicators: institutional platforms (such as media newspapers) and specific archaeological cultures (such as related sites). Specifically, the institutional platform determines the credibility of the communication source, and the archaeological culture enriches the value of the communication content in the narrative process. Professional authority is a necessary condition for good credibility and effect, especially archaeology with a strong degree of professionalism, when disseminating public archaeology, the communicator should have good authority, therefore, public archaeological communicators are mostly dominated by official authoritative media, universities, and major archaeological research institutes. Specific archaeological culture is a necessary component of rich content, for a long time archaeological work in front of the public to form a number of symbolic labels, most of these labels are related to the exploration of the unknown interesting, whether you can rely on these symbol labels for dissemination is also very important. For example, CCTV-10 filmed a series of exploration and archaeological in progress program "Exploration of Erlitou", relying on CCTV and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, two major communicators, combining brand effect with professional authority, forming a strong credibility of the source, and achieving a better public archaeology broadcast effect. Another propagator of its archaeology and culture narrative is selected to the Erlitou site, and even pays attention to its representative excavated cultural relics turquoise dragon, using the symbolic label of the Xia culture, the Erlitou site to develop interesting and mysterious archaeological narratives about the "Xia Dynasty", "Huaxia" and "Dragon", a site with mysterious ancient history drawn by the turquoise dragon, so that the history of the Xia Dynasty is no longer limited to words but becomes concrete, and the sense of plot is also spontaneous.
From this point of view, a good public archaeological communication of Xia culture should be composed of a more professional and authoritative institutional brand + a figurative archaeological culture "Xia Dynasty image". This kind of communication subject structure is relatively popular, not only has a high credibility of the source, the communication effect is good, but also has more specific and rich content, and the audience is more willing to accept it.
(2) Positioning and differentiation of communication targets
The target of communication, that is, the audience, is the other end of the communication process, and analyzing its nature helps to improve the efficiency and pertinence of communication. As the name suggests, public archaeology spreads a wide audience, but if group image analysis is carried out, differences can still be glimpsed. The following is intended to use some search engine keyword data for reference.
Figure 1 In January 2021, "Xia Dynasty" and "Archaeology" keywords searched for population attributes (Source: Baidu Index)
Documentaries, new media, and newspaper communication methods have filtered out a part of the audience. Specific to the keywords, the audience group is more prominent in such characteristics as gender, region, education and so on. In general, the audience for the dissemination of public archaeology summer culture is still mainly young and middle-aged people who have received high school, undergraduate education or above, especially the male group is more. In addition to the interestingness, the necessary scientificity is the characteristic of public archaeology, and it is impossible to talk about "archaeology" without completely abandoning the scientific nature, so in the audience, it is still necessary to take the higher education group as the basis for positioning. On this basis, how to enhance the attention of young people and female groups in the public archaeology of Xia culture should also be an important direction for the next stage of work. In the data analysis of relevant regions, in addition to the greater influence of the capital and the more developed coastal economic areas, when receiving archaeological information about the Xia culture, there are more people in Henan and Shandong, and it can be inferred that due to the influence of regional history, the Central Plains region is deeply involved with the Xia culture, and has always been an important foothold for the public archaeological dissemination of the Xia culture. Therefore, cultural dissemination based on regional culture, the integration of public archaeology of Xia culture into the construction of local cultural tourism, and finally breaking through the limitations of regional culture are also a problem that needs to be studied.
Figure 2 Geographical Distribution Index of Cultural Keyword Search Population in summer 2013-2021 (Source: Baidu Index)
Figure 3 Geographical distribution of the popularity of today's headline summer culture keywords in January 2021 (source: huge arithmetic)
In addition, in the current Internet environment, for the audience is not only based on gender, age, education to define the label, all kinds of subcultural groups emerge in an endless stream, worthy of attention, this is from the "popular" to "differentiated" trend, the network subculture group as a communication audience, to make "active pandering", is a new idea, how to grasp the "breaking the boundary" between the audience is very important. The Internet buzzword "out of the circle" reflects the importance of "breaking the boundary", "circle" is a small, closed group with specific interests and hobbies and value identity generated in the Internet environment, and the communication channel of "out of the circle" is to unite two unrelated audience groups for effective communication, and the communication efficiency is greatly improved. For example, the Henan Museum recently launched a set of public archaeological cultural and creative products "Archaeological Blind Box", which combines the popular concept of "blind box" with cultural relics, hides "miniature cultural relics" in the soil, and players use "Luoyang shovel" to "excavate" to experience the unknown brought about in the archaeological process. This set of cultural and creative products has effectively attracted young people, broken the circle of "archaeology" and "blind box hobby", and achieved excellent communication effect. Therefore, when considering the face of the audience, it is also possible to take the initiative to define the communication audience as different "circle" labels, and guide the concept of "out of the circle" to the public archaeological summer culture communication channel.
(3) The integration, two-way nature, and real-time mobility of communication channels
Public archaeology media mainly include traditional printed paper media such as newspapers, periodicals, etc., as well as electronic media such as radio, film, television, and mobile Internet media of emerging new media. Among them, the most influential is the newspapers and periodicals with earlier development and complete system, as well as the strong mobile new media at present.
In the traditional print media, periodicals and newspapers are a major channel for public archaeological dissemination due to their certain immediacy, short distribution cycle and strong continuity. Looking at the relevant domestic newspapers and periodicals, in addition to the archaeology professional journals and mainstream newspapers and periodicals with strong professionalism, some newspapers and periodicals represented by "Mass Archaeology" and "China Cultural Relics News" are based on the public, which is both scientific and professional. Founded in 2013, Popular Archaeology is a relatively short time, but it is the first scientific popularization cultural journal with professional authority for the public in China. Sponsored by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, China Cultural Relics Daily has a long history, integrates news, science and knowledge, with rich pictures and texts, elegant and popular appreciation, and faces the society. With these two newspapers as representatives, it is possible to carry out literature statistics on the public archaeological dissemination of the Xia culture.