This is a lost manuscript.
In 1993, Chen Xingcan, a member of the Faculty of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of the Institute of Archaeology, submitted an article to an industry newspaper about a letter from Childe to Soviet archaeologists published in the fourth issue of the journal Russian Archaeology in 1992. In the letter, Childe frankly and pertinently evaluated the achievements and limitations of archaeology in the Soviet Union, which is worthy of reference for Chinese colleagues and readers who are interested in archaeology. Mr. Chen Xingcan's article was not published that year, and the original manuscript was also lost by the newspaper. Many years later, the manuscript reappeared on the online platform, was found by friends, and has now been returned to its original owner. This article will be included in Chen Xingcan's "Archaeological Essays" (4), which will be published soon. This release is authorized by the author.
1992 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the British archaeologist V.G. Childe (1882-1957). In 1992, in memory of this famous scholar who had a profound influence on the field of archaeology in both the East and the West, a letter from Child was published in the Moscow journal Russian Archaeology (No. 4). This letter was sent from London on 16 December 1956 by Childe to the Soviet archaeologist A.B. Alckhovsky. The letter sharply criticized Soviet archaeology. Although this ill-timed letter was sent more than 30 years late, it still seems to us today to be so intimate and touching.
In the letter, Childe first spoke highly of the achievements of Soviet archaeology. He said that he had been reading Soviet prehistoric archaeology since 1926. "Particularly pleased with such outstanding achievements as the identification of the remains of houses from the Upper Paleolithic period, the comprehensive disclosure of the ruins of the village of Tripoli, and the study of microtraces of the use of flint and bone tools" by Semenov. But on the whole, he said, "I have to admit that I am quite disappointed with this."
Young Child (Australia)
Childe's critique focuses on the following areas. One is the discovery of technology. In this regard, he argued, "Soviet archaeology lagged far behind not only Britain, but also Czechoslovakia and even Germany." In particular, he noted that, as far as information reporting is concerned, "it is the responsibility of the excavator to publish a clear and rich planar section in order to represent all the details he can observe". This is because "it often happens that other researchers are able to discover important phenomena that are not recognized by the excavators through the reported flat profiles." But the planar profiles of Soviet archaeological reports are often neither adequate nor clear. In the excavation of the burial mound, he did not think that any report was as complete as the flat-section image of the 1915 Olderman Report, and it was much inferior to the reports of Britain and other Western countries. Childe believed that burial materials were "at least of considerable importance for understanding the ideology of the tomb builders," yet Soviet archaeologists did not seem to have studied the phenomenon of burial mounds systematically, and rarely explicitly described or represented them in planar sections.
Compared to the tombs, Childe argues that "at least the remains of the houses are reported worse". In particular, he pointed out that the report of Constantine I, published in 1940, did not publish an accurate floor plan. "The few copies of the 'longhouse' floor plan (without a section) are worthless and suspicious." He argues that "the so-called 'longhouses' may actually be just 12 or 13 small roundhouses in a row". The chronology of the construction is different and slightly overlapping. He also suspects that many of the cave remains identified by Soviet archaeologists may also be just garbage pits around above-ground structures.
Li Ling, Chen Xingcan, An Jiaming, Zhang Hanmo and other translators discuss the four books "Interpreting Child".
The second is the issue of chronology. Childe argues that without the control of stratigraphy aided by distribution maps, it is unreliable to determine the typology of relative dating. "It is even more doubtful to apply it to the analysis of ornamental motifs or pottery forms." He pointed out that Bryusov had already shown that Pašek's last "period" of Tripoli culture was by no means chronologically a period, but only a regional cultural phenomenon. It is only in the case of a more detailed distribution map that it is possible to indicate whether the other periods, particularly the first culture period of Pašek, are indeed not endemic types. He also argues that "metal tools and weapons may provide a reliable chronology if there are many coexisting relics and ideal burial combinations", conditions that do not exist in the Caucasus, yet Jessen's five periods seem to be a no-brainer.
Chen Xingcan, director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
"Absolute dating is reliably guaranteed by the correspondence with the historical civilizations of the Near East, but this correspondence must be accurate." However, the axes and swords now excavated from Ushatov do not resemble any of the types that can be dated in the Aegean or the Near East—the form of the sword is peculiar, it resembles the type of southern Spain or southern France, but it is not cool, and the latter cannot be dated. Thus he argues that "Tripoli's latest culture is completely incapable of deriving a basis for its generation". He also pointed out that some Soviet scholars compared the age of the vessel with the Near East only on the basis of its similarity, but the shape of the latter vessel has rarely changed over the past 1,000 years and has no dating value.
In terms of the application of the natural sciences, Childe notes that archaeologists in Britain, Denmark and other countries, with the help of aerial photographs, "have discovered and described furrows, field layouts, and cattle pens for ancient farming, thus revealing many aspects of the agricultural economy from prehistory to the Middle Ages", however, he asks, "Has such an achievement ever been achieved in Russia in the European part?" Childe also found that pollen analyses published by the Soviet Union were not easily compared with those of the Baltic countries and the United Kingdom. The methodology, refined by Danish and British scholars, is also not found in the pollen analysis charts of the Soviet Journal of Archaeology.
On the question of the nomenclature of cultures, Childe pointed out that archaeological cultures must be a group of reproducing qualities that reflect all aspects of human activity with typical characteristics—including tools and weapons, houses and tombs, ornaments and ornaments, and so on. However, in this regard, he believes that Soviet scholars have taken different names for archaeological cultures, such as the earthen cave tomb culture, some use the type of tomb, and some use the form of pottery, so that there are many misunderstandings among researchers. This is what he has consistently opposed.
March 30, 1993 in Lilou Village, Ruzhou, Henan