Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Wu Xiaopan
Xu Hong is a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and a professor and doctoral supervisor at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He was the director of the Xia Shangzhou Research Office of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the leader of the Erlitou Task Force, and has long been engaged in archaeological research on early Chinese cities, early countries and early civilizations.
In recent years, he has published a series of archaeological works for the public, such as "Interpretation of Early China" ("The Earliest China", "Why China", "Dadu Without a City", "East Asian Bronze Tide"), "Archaeological Chronicle at the End" ("Discovery and Reasoning", "The Confusion of Sanxingdui"), especially on early China, which has attracted widespread attention.
Xu Zhiyuan, writer, founder of One-Way Space and creator of "Thirteen Invitations", had a conversation with him about archaeology——
Xu Hong (right) talks with Xu Zhiyuan
How do literary youth become "hardcore archaeologists"?
Xu Zhiyuan: When you first saw those artifacts, did you feel novelty?
Xu Hong: Speaking of which, I didn't come to major in archaeology at first, I wanted to become a literary youth back then.
Xu Zhiyuan: You must have gone to college in 1980, right? What kind of literary youth does 17-year-old Xu Hong want to be?
Xu Hong: It was a literary era, and several major literary magazines read it. Writers such as Zhang Xianliang and Liu Xinwu have read a lot of idle books. Now I really don't want to take the time to read any fiction, even if I have a little time, I prefer to read non-fiction biographies.
Now it seems that literature still belongs to youth. When I was in middle school, I also had a literary group with a few classmates, and I really had a dream of being a writer.
When I applied for volunteers, many teachers hoped that I could apply for pragmatism, and my first choice actually applied for the Chinese Department of Peking University, and the National People's Congress, Fudan, Nankai, and Jida University let me apply from the second to the fifth choice.
Of course, non-first volunteer people don't, only Shandong University called me when enrolling, saying we want you, can you go? At that time, the teacher in charge of admissions said, if you want to come, we will arrange for you to enter the archaeology major, and the archaeology major is very sought-after. Later, after I went in, I learned that the history department of Shandong University enrolled 20 people, and there were 70 or 80 people who applied for archaeology.
Xu Zhiyuan: Why did you choose archaeology later?
Xu Hong: The graduation internship is in Houma, Shanxi, a very good place, which is closely related to my future specialization. The graduation internship is a watershed, some students are completely injured, and some have become hardcore archaeologists, and I belong to the latter.
At first, I had a literary dream, but after I was assigned to the archaeology major of the history department, I also asked my teacher if I could change careers, but at that time, it was not possible.
Xu Zhiyuan: So you are a very reluctant, unexpected archaeologist.
Xu Hong: Many archaeologists are like this. Mr. Zou Heng used to study law, and my supervisor, Professor Xu Pingfang, actually studied journalism. At that time, my consideration was that since I couldn't learn anything else, I could only go in this direction, and gold would always shine, so I forced myself to learn and drill myself.
By the internship in Houma in 1983, I had become a hardcore archaeologist, and many classmates wished for less internship, but after I returned to school to apply for graduate school, I took a train back to Houma with a teacher, and when it was freezing and snowy, I picked up another detective, rode a bicycle back and forth every day, and just did it.
Does archaeology require a lot of imagination?
Xu Zhiyuan: What was the situation of archaeology in the early 80s of the 20th century?
Xu Hong: At that time, it was a node where Chinese archaeology could be divided into the first 30 years and the next 30 years. When we went to university, foreign things came in within two years, and the archaeology of the first 30 years was basically a local exploration in China, which was isolated and basically out of touch with foreign academic circles.
In the 80s, with the restlessness and vitality of the whole society, we worked hard to absorb traditional archaeology, new archaeology, processist archaeology, and post-processist archaeology.
Now it seems that whether I understand these things or not, I feel that they have given me great nourishment and helped my previous and current development.
Xu Zhiyuan: Tell me about your feelings when you go to Houma. It became a watershed, some escaped archaeology, and some stayed firmly. After you went to the excavation site, what made you more determined to do it?
Xu Hong: People who don't like archaeology have to ask them why they don't like it, there are many reasons. Why do you like people? For me personally, the first is the beauty of discovery, this curiosity about the unknown.
Archaeology is not a discipline that allows you to see the head at a glance, but to search from the top down, there will always be surprises. Isn't everyone interested in archaeology largely because it satisfies our human curiosity?
Another is the beauty of speculation. We have always prided ourselves, and others have said so, that archaeology is science and engineering within the liberal arts. Some joke that literature "has one material that says ten things", history "has one material that says five things", and archaeology "has one material that says one thing".
But the archaeologist must also have imagination, otherwise you are a tasteless scholar. "Bold hypothesis, careful verification", want to seek verification, imagination is not rich, definitely not.
Xu Zhiyuan: When did you clearly realize that archaeology requires a strong imagination?
Xu Hong: I realized this relatively late. Archaeology is an explanatory science, an empirical discipline, more inferences and hypotheses, which cannot be verified.
What can we prove? What can be proved is the judgment based on experience, which is not very problematic to empirically, but there are times when it is misjudged.
Archaeology itself is a process of trial and error, such as what is that round bottom jar for? We say that it is boiling water and porridge, which can be analyzed according to the residue of the inner wall, but a large number of things cannot be empirical, and they all belong to the level of inference and hypothesis.
Imagination should be necessary, some inferences and hypotheses are implemented through scientific means, and some will always be secret. I think that's the beauty of archaeology.
Where was the earliest China?
Xu Zhiyuan: 1996 was the beginning of the Xia Shang and Zhou Dynasty Project?
Xu Hong: Yes, at that time. Including the excavation of Yanshi Mall, it is an integral part of the Xia Shang and Zhou Dynasty Project.
When I was in the Yanshi Mall, I was responsible for the excavation area of more than 1,000 square meters, with two technicians and one or twenty migrant workers, which is now equivalent to a daughter-in-law who has survived for many years. I was 36 years old when I took over Erlitou, and I was 40 years old when I found out that the earliest Miyagi was having SARS.
Xu Zhiyuan: Will one day do a deeper dig to show and describe the daily life of the people in Erlitou?
Xu Hong: Yes. If it is only a document, it is such a thing as the emperor and the talent, even if it enters the historical period with very rich literature, many details of the daily production and life of the ancients have not been written. As soon as the results of archaeology came out, they greatly enriched the cognition of folk content, similar to anthropology.
For example, Erlitou, now we are excavating the palace area as much as possible under the premise of limited manpower and material resources, but we have also begun to excavate the living quarters of civilians. "The Earliest China" has already mentioned that the Erlitou people like to eat barbecue, and the bones of various pigs and cows have traces of burning, which we have excavated.
Xu Zhiyuan: It's just a group of Erlitou people sitting here at night skewers, right?
Xu Hong: That's right. For example, boiled vegetables and steamed dishes should be available, and things like steamers are called rhineous dishes, but stir-frying is not yet. There are also bone needles, bone hairpins, and bone hairpins were used by men and women to tie their hair at that time. In our big report, these things are relatively rich.
Xu Zhiyuan: What was the reason for Erlitou's sudden demise?
Xu Hong: That's so interesting. According to the records, it was Shang who destroyed Xia, and it stands to reason that the destruction of the country should be a mess, destroying palaces, tombs and so on, but now according to archaeological findings, Erlitou was not abandoned due to war or violence, but felt like China's earliest national high-tech industrial base - Erlitou copper casting workshop as soon as it ended, a new workshop on the side of Zhengzhou Mall rose, this kind of time correspondence, people feel that it has a little strategic shift nature.
Maybe the merchants were earthen buns at the beginning, like this kind of palace building, these movable assets, immovable property, these ceremonial systems, almost completely inherited the erlitou, may be like Confucius said, "Yin because of the summer rites, the gains and losses, can be known."
In ancient Chinese history, a backward culture and backward ethnic group occupied the Central Plains, became the master, and was culturally assimilated by the Central Plains culture.
How do you determine the value of an artifact?
Xu Zhiyuan: Let me ask a vulgar question, how do you determine how much these artifacts are worth?
Xu Hong: If you look at the utensils behind us, there have never been similar artifacts in the Panjiayuan market, these things are not afraid of stealing, and those who rob tombs only steal valuable things. To be honest, I really don't understand treasures, I have only seen real ones, not fake ones; Only know the historical value, not the market value. Where the door of Panjiayuan Market opens, I really don't know.
Interlaced like a mountain, that's true. This kind of thing is interesting to say, when my daughter was in kindergarten, the teacher asked her parents to fill out the form, and when she saw that it was an archaeologist, she said that there was a friend who collected antiques, can you show it?
I said I really don't understand. I went to meet with a hard head, and people said, how did you come by bicycle? When you dig, you take away two pieces, don't you have a house, is there still a person like you in this world? He admired me, and of course he despised.
In the field of archaeology, there are very few cases of self-theft, and people live purely. This is the case with the old gentlemen in the archaeological community, since Mr. Li Ji, they have not collected cultural relics themselves, which is an unwritten rule in the entire archaeological community.
Xu Zhiyuan: What is your sense of mission?
Xu Hong: There is a sense of mission, but for me, I am now in a more detached mentality of playing learning, not that I am for enlightening and educating a generation of new people, but really I have already got out of that climbing stage, not for manuscript fees, for titles, for what position, so that I can do learning with a more relaxed attitude.
So I want to think about myself what is most worthy of pursuit and what is most cherished. Now I especially want to follow the path of Mr. Zheng Yefu and Mr. Li Zero, not to apply for any project topics in my personal name, and not to be too restricted and restrained.
It is said that the United States has done such an interview, asking those elderly people what stage of life they would most like to return to. Most people's answer is that back around the age of 50, life has been out of the climbing stage, but the body has not weakened enough to take care of itself. I'm in that mindset right now and I'm enjoying my life.
The original article was published in the A6 edition of Yangcheng Evening News on September 10, 2023
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Responsible Editor | Wu Xiaopan
Edit | Sun Xuge
Proofreading | Li Songqing