A brief discussion on the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology

Constructing China's independent knowledge system is an important mission of contemporary Chinese academic development, and all disciplines are working in this direction, and Chinese archaeology is no exception. The construction of an independent knowledge system requires a rational knowledge premise, and the subjectivity of the discipline is highlighted.

Whether archaeology has subjectivity

There are great differences in the emphasis on subjectivity in different disciplines. In the field of natural sciences, subjectivity is rarely a problem alone. In the discipline of art, subjectivity becomes the object that needs to be revealed, and art is nothing without subjectivity. If archaeology is only a discipline that studies material remains, then it is closer to the natural sciences and there is not much need to discuss subjectivity. However, archaeology is the study of human beings through material remains—from human activities to human society to human spiritual life. It can be seen that archaeology is an interdisciplinary discipline, which is at the intersection of nature, society and humanities. For this reason, subjectivity is indispensable for archaeology.

The prominence of the problem of subjectivity is also the result of the development of the discipline of archaeology, and the development of contemporary archaeology towards interpretation must pay attention to the problem of subjectivity. The roots of archaeology are ancient, but the history of modern archaeology can only be traced back to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, before that, there was epigraphy in China and antiquities in the West. The founders of modern archaeology introduced scientific concepts and methods into antiquities to understand the past of mankind through the study of material remains. They established an archaeological typology to construct a historical sequence through the evolution of the shape of the artifact, and proposed three successive eras of stone, bronze, and iron. They also absorbed the results of geology and established archaeological stratigraphy based on uniformitarianism, which was used to determine the relative early and late relationships of the remains. After the basic theoretical methods of the discipline were formed, archaeology entered the Age of Discovery with the colonization frenzy of the West, with Heinrich Sherriman in Greece, William Petri and Howard Carter in Egypt, Leonard Woolray in West Asia, and John Stephens in Central America...... Several important sites of human civilization have been excavated.

Beginning in the thirties of the twentieth century, the central task of archaeology shifted from discovering and organizing materials to interpreting them, that is, revealing as accurately as possible the information contained by material remains about the human past. Material remains do not speak for themselves, and the information it contains requires archaeological reasoning before it can be known. There are two main ways of archaeological reasoning: one is induction, the discovery and excavation of well-preserved materials, and the use of as abundant scientific and technological means as possible to analyze the materials, these methods often have a good consistency between ancient and modern, and can infer the activities of the ancients from the material residues; Process archaeology advocates the development of medium-range theories and the establishment of theoretical templates that meet the objectives of archaeology, while post-process archaeology emphasizes the method of association, which considers the factors of presence and absence. The aim of both is to obtain a richer body of human information more accurately from the material remains.

However, the deciphered information is still only a fragment of historical facts, and they do not automatically constitute a history that can be understood by the subject, but need to be organized by the subject according to certain clues, structures and principles, thus constituting archaeological interpretation. Interpretation is the stage for the subject to exert its creativity, and the issue of subjectivity has surfaced and become the focus of the development of the discipline. In fact, there are researchers who are still trying to develop interpretations and construct prehistory in the formation stage of the discipline. The British scholar John Lubbock wrote Prehistoric Times, based on ethnographic material, in which he divided ethnographic groups into different stages of development according to his understanding of the degree of development. This racist book takes the West as the main body, arranges the development of different ethnic groups according to the so-called evolutionary principle, and argues that backwardness must be eliminated, and this interpretation serves Western colonialism.

In the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, the British archaeologist Gordon Child wrote a series of works on the reconstruction of prehistory based on archaeological materials. His interpretation of prehistory focuses on economics and emphasizes the important role of technological progress. However, Childe's main purpose is to explore where European civilization came from and why it has been able to catch up, and the subjectivity of his interpretation is still Western civilization. After the rise of process archaeology, researchers have placed more emphasis on cross-cultural unity, and radiocarbon dating technology has also provided a unified time scale for the comparison of cultures in different regions, making it possible to write prehistory of the world. Judging from the existing prehistory, its organizational framework still revolves around the West, and China, as one of the world's three major civilization systems, usually occupies one-thirtieth or forty-tenth of the space. In the 80s of the 20th century, post-process archaeology emerged, emphasizing the development of pluralistic interpretations, paying attention to the historical significance of archaeological research, and interpreting them on the basis of Western society.

In short, the development of archaeology has increasingly focused on interpretation, and interpretation is inseparable from the subject. Since modern archaeology originated in the West and is supported by a Western-centric international system, the existing interpretations are Western-centric. Chinese archaeology must break free from the shackles of Western-centrism and establish its own subjectivity.

What is the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology

The research object of the humanities and social sciences is the human society or the people themselves, and the relationship between the humanities and society in which the researcher is located will affect his understanding of the research object, and as a stakeholder, the research purpose of the researcher must also be related to the research object, so there will be a problem of subjectivity in the humanities and social sciences. The richness and diversity of human civilization all have their own value for existence, and acknowledging the subjectivity of the humanities and social sciences is also beneficial to mankind as a whole.

Archaeology focuses on material remains, but the ultimate goal is to study people themselves. At the level of the study of concrete material remains, archaeology is similar to the natural sciences, facing objective objects and reconstructing historical facts. However, once the study of archaeology enters the social and human level, it becomes a humanities and social science. In the 60s of the 20th century, process archaeology emerged, and the American archaeologist Louis Binford once advocated the development of archaeology into a science similar to geology, and the two disciplines were equally concerned with the historical process and based on experience. If archaeology is only a discipline that studies material remains and has nothing to do with human beings themselves, then his claim is undoubtedly reasonable, but archaeology is not such a discipline. The material remains themselves are left by specific groups of people with different cultural backgrounds at different stages of history. More than half a century has passed, and the development of archaeology has not gone as he wished, but as early as the 80s of the 20th century, a "humanistic turn" took place.

The subjectivity of Chinese archaeology should be closely related to the history and reality of Chinese, Chinese culture and Chinese society. Archaeologists grasp the historical significance of material culture from reality. Archaeologists live in reality, and there is no perspective that transcends reality. Claims that deny the subjectivity of archaeology tend to assume that there is a perspective that is absolutely objective and universal, and that both people and society must follow absolute truth. This idea has long been bankrupt in practice, but it still has its roots in archaeology and some other fields of humanities and social sciences.

We usually use "Chinese civilization" to refer to the history and reality of Chinese, Chinese culture, and Chinese society, and the premise of this general term is that there is a significant continuity in Chinese civilization. Archaeological research has proved that as early as the early Paleolithic period, East and Southeast Asia, with China as the core, was a relatively independent cultural system. After entering the stage of agricultural origin, there were three major prehistoric agricultural systems in the world: the Western system centered on West Asia, the Eastern system centered on North China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the New World system centered on Central and South America. Among them, the agricultural origin of the New World system is relatively late, and the system is incomplete due to the lack of large mammals suitable for domestication. On the basis of the three prehistoric agricultural systems, three major civilization systems were formed, and the civilization system of the New World was relatively fragile because of the incomplete agricultural system and the geographical location that it was difficult to communicate with other civilizations, and was powerless to resist in the face of Western colonial aggression, and has basically disappeared. From the perspective of the history of human civilization, China is one of the poles in the cultural system of the East and the West to the civilization system of the East and the West. In recent years, archaeological research on ancient DNA has shown that the people living in this land of contemporary China have been divided into two groups, the north and the south, as early as more than 10,000 years ago. Historical continuity and cultural pattern constitute the historical basis of the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology.

At the end of the 70s of the 20th century, archaeologist Su Bingqi took the lead in proposing that Chinese archaeology should study major issues such as "the origin of Chinese culture, the formation of the Chinese nation, and the formation and development of a unified multi-ethnic state", which is basically the same as the connotation of "Chinese civilization" in the general sense above. Since the 80s of the 20th century, the exploration of the origin of Chinese civilization has been a representative topic of Chinese archaeology. The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties project, the Chinese civilization exploration project, and the "Archaeological China" major projects continue to advance, giving full play to the advantages of the system, carrying out large-scale field work, and organizing multidisciplinary research, representing the highest level of Chinese archaeological research, and exerting extensive influence inside and outside the discipline.

From the perspective of the background of the development of disciplines, after the reform and opening up, China has more frequent exchanges with other countries in the world, Chinese culture and various cultures, exchanges have strengthened self-identity, and more opportunities for cultural comparison have also promoted the reflection of their own culture. Over the past decade, China's rapid development has further strengthened its cultural identity. In this sense, the archaeology of the origin of Chinese civilization is an inevitable choice of the times.

In the early 80s of the 20th century, the discovery of Niuheliang site provided an opportunity for the exploration of the source of Chinese civilization, and a series of important discoveries such as Shijiahe site, Taosi site, Liangzhu site, Shiyuan site, Nanzuo site and so on, provided a material basis for the archaeological research on the origin of Chinese civilization. At the same time, the types of archaeological and cultural fauna in China have been established and continuously improved, providing a necessary spatio-temporal framework for exploring the origin of Chinese civilization. Driven by internal and external factors, the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project has become a benchmark for the development of Chinese archaeology. In turn, it contributes to our attention to the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology.

Reality and prospects

The attention to the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology and even the subjectivity of Chinese scholarship can be traced back more than 100 years, that is, the question of "ancient and modern China and the West". What is the future of Chinese scholarship? Is there a "relationship between ancient and modern" or "between China and the West" between Chinese scholarship and modern scholarship from the West? It is against this background that there has been a profound contradiction in the subjectivity of modern Chinese archaeology since its birth. If it is only the relationship between ancient and modern, there should be no subjectivity of Chinese archaeology, and everything should be converted to "modernity". This is not the case, and the humanistic and social science nature of archaeology determines the subjectivity of this discipline. In the practice of archaeology, we can clearly see how world archaeology is constructed outside of Chinese archaeology. It is also defined by the West, which in modern times has defined the "world" and even the subject by virtue of its first-mover advantage. Any knowledge must be "censored" by the West before it can enter the world's academic system. When the development of modern Chinese scholarship is still in the dependent stage, it is not capable of discussing the issue of subjectivity. Now, the time has come to discuss it.

Contemporary archaeology is moving towards interpretation, Chinese archaeology has also ushered in unprecedented development, the background of the discipline has also undergone profound changes, and the Chinese nation is once again at the forefront of the process of world civilization. Returning to Chinese history, culture and society has become an inevitable choice for the development of Chinese archaeology, and the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology must be recognized and valued. If the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology is not recognized, the outcome can only be assimilation or abandonment. Acknowledging the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology is not the same as denying the subjectivity of Western culture and Western archaeology. Because exchanges require a subject, and without the subject, there will be no mutual learning among civilizations. To solve the problem of "ancient and modern China and the West", we must first recognize the existence of China and the West, and then on this basis, learn from each other's strong points.

After establishing this understanding, it means that Chinese archaeology should first study "the origin of Chinese culture, the formation of the Chinese nation, and the formation and development of a unified multi-ethnic state". On this basis, we will study the problems of world archaeology. We should learn from all the beneficial achievements of human civilization, look at the world from China, and define our own "world archaeology", not that because there is already world archaeology, we no longer need to define ourselves, because subjectivity is irreplaceable. The existing world archaeology is the definition of the West, and this is their perspective. We can learn from them, but we can't take their perspective as ours.

At present, the construction of China's independent knowledge system has become an important task of Chinese academics. Whether from the perspective of history, reality or the future, China cannot be a dependent of the established system. We must be soberly aware that to talk about Chinese archaeology in isolation from the subjectivity of Chinese archaeology is to seek fish from the wood and put the cart before the horse.

Source: Guangming Daily

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