Professor Yan Wenming
Chinese archaeology has undergone many changes in the past decade. This is reflected in the development of theoretical methods and the shift in academic focus, and what is the impact of these changes on the archaeological community? As a scholar, how should we adhere to the style of seeking truth from facts? We interviewed Mr. Yan Wenming, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Museums at Peking University, and asked him to share his thoughts with us.
Study the path of the heart
We see that your academic research started from Yangshao culture, and then to the national Neolithic culture, in the past ten years, you seem to pay more attention to the occurrence of agriculture and the origin of civilization, for which you also published a collection of papers "Agricultural Occurrence and Civilization Origin", so can you tell us about your research process?
My research should be counted from 1958, when the Great Leap Forward was about breaking the old box and breaking through the so-called bourgeois academic system in the university. We were given two tasks, one was to criticize the academic thought of the bourgeoisie, and the other was to compile Chinese archaeology under the guidance of Marxism. I will not criticize, after completing the compilation of the excavation report of the Guitai Temple of Handan Archaeology, I participated in the compilation of the Chinese Archaeology, and at the same time taught a course on Chinese Neolithic archaeology. The reason why I mention this is to show that when I started to do research, I considered the problem from the big picture, not from any one aspect. However, in the process of compiling, I found that many of our archaeological articles are broad and not in-depth; The archaeological report is rather crude, with contradictions and errors from time to time. There was a problem with the materials themselves, and there was not enough basic research, so I decided to start with the most basic work. At that time, there were many controversies about Yangshao culture, mainly around two questions: first, what are the types of Yangshao culture, which is earlier or later in the Banpo type of Yangshao culture and the type of temple ditch, or is it basically at the same time? Second, is the social nature of Yangshao culture patrilineal or matrilineal? There are not only two types of Yangshao culture, in 1957 when I was an intern in Handan, I came into contact with the later Hougang type and the Dasikong type, and later when we were working at the Luoyang Wangwan site, we could divide Yangshao culture into five or six periods or even more. I think that if we want to figure out the ins and outs of Yangshao culture, we should not start from the type, but from a single site. I first combed through the materials of Yangshao Village and Xiyin Village, and found that it could be re-staged. Later, I sorted out the things of the Sanli Bridge and the temple ditch site, and then studied Banpo. I found that the information in the Banpo report was very confusing, and it could be divided into at least three issues after recombing. The early period is a half-slope type thing, the middle period is something similar to the temple bottom ditch, and there is a late half-slope one. The distribution of Yangshao culture is very large, and different regions have different characteristics, that is, different regions are different in the same period, so I divide Yangshao culture into four periods, each period has a number of types, of which the fourth period is equivalent to the second phase of Miaodigou. At that time, I hesitated to put the second phase of Miaodigou in Yangshao culture, because the report of "Miaodigou and Sanliqiao" classified it as the early stage of Longshan culture. I take into account that there is still a small amount of painted pottery in the second phase of the temple ditch, and most of the pottery is still handmade, and the wheel pottery has just begun, and the Longshan culture has no painted pottery at all, and the wheel pottery is quite developed. In terms of the type of utensils, there are also small-mouth pointed bottom bottles unique to Yangshao culture in the second phase of the temple ditch. Considering that the late period of Dawenkou culture in Shandong is equivalent to the second phase of Miaodigou. As a unified consideration, the second phase of the temple ditch was put into the last phase of Yangshao culture.
The study of Yangshao culture must not stop at the cultural periodization, type, evolution trajectory and relationship with other Neolithic cultures, but also must study its society. However, if there is no basis for the previous series of studies, or if these studies are not in place or even make big mistakes, the subsequent studies will lose their basis. It is on the basis of the preliminary results of the previous series of studies that I will make a preliminary exploration of the house architecture and settlement form, burial customs and the social form reflected in the Yangshao culture, and the evolution and circulation of painted pottery. In addition to the means of production and economic form, there is no talk about all aspects of Yangshao culture. From the study of Yangshao culture, I seem to have found a key to further observe the Neolithic culture of China as a whole.
"Yangshao Cultural Studies" Book Shadow (Cultural Relics Publishing House, 2009)
This requires a lot of specific work. I spent a lot of time researching the Neolithic culture in the areas north of the Great Wall, the Ganqing region, the Shandong region, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, and even Guangdong, and finally made a comprehensive study of the Neolithic culture of the whole of China and wrote "The Unity and Diversity of Chinese Prehistoric Culture". That article included a lot of my thoughts, for the first time the cultural genealogy since the Paleolithic was comprehensively sorted out, the chronological periodization, local division, cultural relations, all aspects were discussed, and for the first time the whole Chinese prehistoric culture was put forward in the framework of the genealogy, in which several ideas were mainly reflected: first, Chinese prehistoric culture is both diverse and related; It's not a general connection, it's a core and a body, a center and a periphery, and I describe it as a double-petaled flower-like structure. Of course, the heart of the flower was slowly formed later, and the core position of the Central Plains was slowly reflected later, and it was not very obvious in prehistory. However, the double-petaled flower is very clear, the main body is the Yellow River and the Yangtze River basin, and there are different cultural fauna on the periphery, which is basically the same as Mr. Su Bingqi's idea of "cultural flora type", but I have the overall grasp that this "double-petaled flower" pattern is not a simple few fauna. This pattern had a great influence on later cultures. The pattern of the origin of Chinese civilization is also the foundation laid at this time. Second, I noticed the characteristics of China's topography and the differences in the natural environment of different places. The whole topography of China is characterized by barriers on the periphery, and the environment in the core area is the best, which is prone to cultural centripetal effect. It is not impossible to communicate with the outside world, but only to maintain a limited level, so the "outside" of Chinese culture cannot be established. When we say "diversity", we also say that the natural environment is different in different places. This is my way of looking at the natural environment in relation to cultural development. Considering the influence of the natural environment on prehistoric culture, I have divided China's prehistoric economic and cultural zone into three parts, namely, the rice farming agricultural economic and cultural zone, the millet farming agricultural economic and cultural zone, and the hunter-gatherer economic and cultural zone. It is not just a question of economic type, but of economic culture, which has a great impact on culture. For example, to make paddy fields, the fields must be flat, there must be ridges, water can be closed, irrigation and drainage, which is much more complicated than dryland agriculture, so the stability of residents in paddy field agriculture is relatively strong, and the village will not be very large; It doesn't matter if the dry land in the north is relatively extensive in the early days, and the soil is so decayed that it will be abandoned, and if you find a new place, it will cause the movement of people. But compared to hunting nomads, dryland peoples are also relatively stable. If there is a snow season, a large number of livestock die, the most convenient way to hunt nomads is to rob the agricultural peoples in the south, this is the case in Chinese history, the northern nomads robbed the south, and then a big Great Wall came out, and a large number of people in the Central Plains migrated to the south, such as the later Eastern Jin Dynasty and the south, there was no southern ethnic group to move north on a large scale, and this is the historical fact.
When studying the society of Yangshao culture, we paid attention to the problem of settlements. When I began to analyze the Banpo settlement, I felt that I had no clue and had no idea where to start. It's better to start with a cemetery analysis. It was in 1958~1959 that two early cemeteries of Yangshao culture, Yuanjun Temple and Hengzhen Village, which were mainly composed of joint burial tombs, were excavated, and a heated discussion was launched on the social organization and social nature reflected by them. As soon as it was dug up, some people thought that a tomb was a family, a row was a clan, and a sixth row was a tribe. At that time, Mr. Su said: "These tombs can't just be viewed from the plane, because it is impossible to bury so many tombs at one time, and there must be a process for the formation of cemeteries, is there no difference between morning and evening?" Later, when the relationship between the artifacts and the tombs was broken, it was found that it could be divided into three periods. So the whole cemetery was divided into two large groups, and there could only be two clans. There are three duplex tombs in the horizontal array, and there are several smaller tombs in the large tomb, and there are several separate tombs. At that time, there was a lot of controversy, some said that the whole cemetery was a tribe, a duplex burial tomb was a clan, and a small burial tomb was a family. Some people think that the whole cemetery is a clan, a duplex joint burial tomb is a matrilineal family, and the small one is a dual family, which is only from the plane to see the relationship. I arranged the unearthed artifacts of each tomb and found that it can also be divided into three phases, and the entire cemetery can be arranged in a sequence. If the entire cemetery is a clan, a duplex tomb is still a clan. Ordinary joint burial tombs are also in the middle of this sequence, indicating that small joint burial tombs can be divided or not, and the more people who died, the more they can be divided, and the few can not be divided. Clans cannot be separated, families can be divided or not, it can be seen that at that time, it was not yet the time to emphasize the family, and it is certain that the entire cemetery is the burial of the dead of a clan in a certain period.
The excavation site of the cemetery of Yuanjun Temple
Then tidy up the things in Jiang Zhai. I pointed out that there were several levels of organization and several levels of ownership at that time, and I did not just talk about a few levels of organization. A village must have a plan, it certainly can't be without an organization, there are 5 groups of houses under it, each group is an organization, and each group of houses represents a difference between the collectives, and they have their own economy. There are pottery kilns on the periphery, probably for the entire village. But not all economies can be observed, for example, how hunting is carried out and how farmland is divided. It is only from some of the materials that it can be seen that there were different ownership systems at that time, some were based on villages, some were based on a group of houses, and there was no ownership of a single house occupant, but only a semi-consumption unit. I seldom use the term "matrilineal" or "patriarchal" in my study of society, and the relevant research in the academic world is very far-fetched, not to mention that the development of the whole society is mainly the development of ownership, not the patriarchal or matrilineal. My research on settlements has borrowed from the thinking of Western settlement archaeology, but my actual operation characteristics are not exactly the same as theirs, and I have done it according to the reality of Chinese archaeology. Settlements are related to the environment, and I also pay more attention to the study of the environment, which is related to the economic form, to agriculture, and to the origin of later civilization. Several of the world's earliest civilizations occurred in the center of agricultural origin, so I studied civilization and agriculture at the same time.
Agricultural origins
There are many discussions on the theory of the origin of agriculture abroad, among which L. Binford put forward the theory of the marginal zone in 1968, and later K. Flannary developed the theory of the edge, in the 80s, you proposed that the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are the center of the origin of rice agriculture, and when discussing the mechanism and model of the origin of rice agriculture, you agreed with the "edge theory", so how is this theory reflected in China's prehistoric agriculture?
My idea of "marginal theory" was repeatedly expressed as early as 1988~1989, and was formally put forward in 1997 in "New Progress in the Study of the Origin of Rice Cropping". At that time, the most popular theory about the origin of rice cultivation was the "mountain origin theory", and before that, it was Vavilov's "Indian origin theory" in the former Soviet Union, and I said in 1982 that the Yangtze River basin was an important origin area, not the only one, and there was no evidence for the "mountain origin theory", and I was very clear about these two points. Later, after a series of discoveries, Chengbei River, Pengtou Mountain, Eighty Towers, and many areas of the entire Dongting Lake have produced rice, which is earlier than Hemudu. Later, the discovery of Jiahu Lake, Jade Toad Rock, Xianren Cave and Bucket Ring Ruins pushed the age forward step by step. I am most interested in the Yuchanyan site, although there are only a few grains of rice, the key is that part of it is like wild rice and part of it is like cultivated rice, we are looking for this thing, and the things that coexist with it also show that it should be so early, and then it can be dated to the end of the Paleolithic Age before 12000BC, so I am more confident that the Yangtze River basin is the origin of rice agriculture.
The cemented plate of the bone cone was unearthed at the T9 site of Yuchanyan, and rice was found in the interlayer
Why is the Yangtze River basin the origin of rice agriculture? Because a large amount of wild rice is not in the Yangtze River basin, but in South China, Southeast Asia and India, the Yangtze River basin is located on one side, not none, but very little. Until now, the largest rice production area in the world has been the Yangtze River Basin. To the south of the low latitude, not only wild rice, but also a lot of other wild resources, there is not a long winter, the Yangtze River basin must have social needs, food resources are scarce. In winter, the isotherm of the temperature in January is 4 degrees Celsius in the Yangtze River, and it moves a lot southward to Hunan, which is tongue-shaped. Why is this, because Hubei was originally Yunmengze, and later was the Jianghan Plain, there are no mountains, to the south is a Dongting Lake, is an outlet, the temperature is low, the winter is long, it is cold, the food is relatively scarce, you need to find a food that can supplement the winter food, the best thing is that it can be stored for winter after the autumn harvest, and rice is very suitable for this requirement. In South China or further south, even if there is a lot of wild rice, people do not necessarily eat it, wild rice is successively yellow and ripe, easy to thresh, harvest and processing are difficult, not a last resort will not be cultivated. There is not enough food in the Yangtze River basin, so it needs to be cultivated. Others say that I make a fuss on the edge, but I say that it can be called "marginal origin theory". I didn't take into account Binford's "fringe theory", I don't agree with him, he is not studying the origin of rice, but the origin of West Asian wheat. The agronomist Harlan found that the earliest agriculture was not in the areas where wheat and barley were located, but on the periphery, and Binford wanted to theoretically explain this, believing that the areas rich in wild resources were areas where the population was concentrated, and that the more people would migrate to the periphery, while the marginal areas were scarce and cultivated when there was nothing to eat. This is his method of analysis, which may have some truth, but it is not very convincing. You say that I agree with him, but I don't agree with him, and I am proceeding from the actual situation in China. What's more, not all agriculture originated at the edge of the distribution of wild ancestors, for example, millet and millet may not be marginal, whether it is the marginal origin to be specifically analyzed.
In the study of the origin of agriculture, you think that there are two centers in the origin of agriculture in China, namely a dry farming center in the north and a rice farming center in the south, so what is the relationship between these two agricultural systems? Do they interact with each other? If so, how?
There are only three agricultural origins in the world, and I mean cereal agriculture, and it is cereal agriculture that has had a major impact on human civilization, and nothing else. There are only three centers of cereal agriculture: West Asia, Central America and China. China actually has two centers, and they are next to each other. After millet was cultivated in the north, it was also planted in the water-scarce areas in the south. It has been found in prehistoric sites in Taiwan and Yunnan. Rice is also cultivated in the north, and as long as there is sufficient water, many remnants of rice equivalent to the stage from Yangshao to Longshan have been found in the Yellow River Basin, but after all, it is not dominant. When the two crops are planted at the same time, there is a close relationship between people and cultures, and people in the north are under pressure from more northerners to run south and grow rice. If there were no paddy fields in the south, then there would be no rear in the north, and the evolution of the whole history would be different. In the history of China, the most economically developed is not the Yellow River basin but the Yangtze River basin, which is the land of fish and rice, with relatively developed silk, lacquerware, and porcelain. Because of economic support, civilization is not easy to collapse. The ancient Chinese civilization is the only civilization that has not been interrupted at present, and it has something to do with it. These two areas have a large base, and the origin area and the early development area are also large, so the base is large and can complement each other. Agriculture in West Asia first arose in the valley of the two rivers and then spread to Egypt and Pakistan, giving rise to three civilizations, but these three civilizations could not complement each other. Chinese civilization has different origins, but in the end it will merge into one large civilization, which is related to the penetration of two agricultural areas, and conversely, if the two agricultural areas are far apart, one civilization will not be formed.
If a civilization has different local characteristics, the content of the civilization will be rich and vigorous. The foundation is a characteristic of Chinese civilization, which can withstand the impact of external forces, which is related to the origin and development of agriculture.
So what is the relationship between the two in origin? Could it be that after the emergence of rice cultivation in the south, people in the north began to grow dryland crops under the influence of the agricultural ideas of the south?
I can't tell if the origins of the two kinds of agriculture inspired or influenced each other, but some gentlemen used to say that rice farming in the south may have been influenced by dryland agriculture in the Central Plains, but now you say the other way around, could it be that the south influenced the north. Because cultivated rice in the south was produced very early. There is still a long gap from the jade toad rock to the Pengtou Mountain culture. By the time of Pengtou Mountain, the dry farming in the north has been very developed, and there must have been an agricultural origin for a long time before that, but we have not found it yet, it is impossible that the people who have rice cultivation in Cishan came, and they planted millet under the influence of agricultural thoughts, and if so, it is estimated that millet will not be planted. Millet started as a dogtail grass, and I couldn't eat anything, so I couldn't eat it. I just said that the Yangtze River basin is not easy in winter, and the Yellow River basin is even more unhappy, it must be the "population pressure" that foreigners like to mention. People are forced to find dogtail grass, is it possible that it is not delicious for a period of time and does not plant, and after a period of time it is not eaten and planted again, so repeatedly, it is planted, cultivated for a period of time, the quality of planting has also improved, there will always be this process. In addition to a logical kind of thinking, it is necessary to find ethnographic materials as a reference, and it is difficult to explain the origin of such an early thing so clearly.
Carbonized rice husks contained in pottery shards at Pengtou Mountain site in Lixian County, Hunan
We note that you are particularly concerned about the question of the origin of agriculture, so what do you think is the progress of our research on the question of the origin of agriculture compared to the previous ones?
The progress was too great, An Zhimin paid attention to this in the forties, and some agronomists also paid attention to it in the thirties and forties, but there were no archaeological materials at that time, so it could only be a speculation. Agronomists speculate from a different perspective than we speculate, and they speculate from the distribution and transfer of modern plant germplasm. However, agriculture itself is a cultural phenomenon, and there can be no agriculture without people's participation, so it must be considered from the perspective of human behavior and social development. The best way to do this is to study the tools and crops that have been found in archaeology relatively early, which can be difficult. The earliest agriculture may not have had agricultural tools, so it is difficult to tell the origin entirely by agricultural tools. Now there is a lot of progress in the research of rice, but there are also many problems, for example, rice is divided into two subspecies, one japonica rice and one indica rice, so when did the differentiation begin? Some agronomists proposed that wild rice should be divided into japonica type and indica type, and the Chinese agronomist Zhou Shilu believed that each had its own wild rice, and japonica rice had japonica wild rice, and indica rice was domesticated from indica wild rice. Wang Xiangkun and his colleagues did a lot of experiments and found that many of the later wild rice was cultivated rice wild, or wild rice absorbed the pollen of cultivated rice, which was affected by modern pollen and deformed, so it is wrong to speculate that the rice in the origin stage is problematic to take the current wild rice. He divided rice into homozygous and secondary forms, which is hardly conclusive. Zhang Wenxu, who is also an agricultural university, put forward the concept of "ancient rice", believing that wild rice is indica and japonica after cultivation, and he gave this "ancient rice" a subspecies. If this problem is not well solved, the question of origin will not be completely solved.
In the future, there will be more archaeological discoveries, and scholars who did Neolithic archaeology in the past did not know the things of the Paleolithic when they saw them, and those who did the Paleolithic tools were not familiar with the things of the Neolithic. The origin stage is to be in between, requiring the experience of scholars on both sides, it is best to have an archaeological team, people from both sides participate, and there should also be agronomists to participate, and the current archaeology of Yuchanyan is like this.
Exploring the source of civilization
We know that the recent 11th Five-Year Plan civilization exploration project is actively launched, what do you think about this project? Where do you think the current breakthrough in the exploration of the origins of civilization is?
You say that the project of exploring the source of Chinese civilization is about to start, but it is not accurate. Exploration of the source is not a project, the project is to be counted as work, and the study of the origin of civilization cannot be counted as work. Some people in the central government feel that the origin of civilization is very important and are ready to support it, which is very good, but it is not appropriate to engage in large-scale corps operations and projects. At present, many units and individuals are conducting research, and a lot of results have been produced. If you really want to do it, you can set up a fund and an expert group, and then everyone can apply for it, either in the name of an individual or a unit, and if you agree, you can give a certain amount of financial support, which can play a certain role in promoting.
Speaking of breakthroughs, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has published a book "Essentials of Research on the Origin of Chinese Civilization", in which it can be seen that many people have carried out research in many aspects, and now how to make a breakthrough, I think it is still necessary to rely on field archaeology, to find the main sites, to find the central sites at each stage, and to carry out exploration and excavation. Because only the central ruins or capital city can represent the highest level of social development at that time. But it will take a long time, a lot of manpower and material resources, and even constantly improve the level of archaeology to be effective. Anyang Yinxu is the first and most important work we did, have you figured it out now? Besides, Zhengzhou Mall, the cemetery has not been found, if it is the capital, where is the king's tomb? Where is the text? Is the palace area clear? It's not clear. Erlitou ruins, now many people think that it is the summer capital, it is a town, even if it is, the literature records that Taikang lives in the city, Houyi lives in it, Xia Wei lives in it, where do so many kings live in the middle? The current carbon 14 years of Erlitou suddenly dropped a lot, and the first phase of Erli was not the beginning of Xia, Taikang was the son of Qi, and it was the early Xia Dynasty. If the early ones are not in Erlitou, it doesn't look like a pour. So what? Now there is a Yanshi Mall, what is the relationship between the Yanshi Mall and the Zhengzhou Mall, it is still not clear, there is no cemetery, no writing, and there are few bronzes. Chase forward to Tao Temple, Shijiahe, these are relatively large city sites, more than these two city sites, the content is too much, not very clear. This work should be planned in archaeology, and the more focused sites should first be explored in detail, and on this basis, key excavations should be carried out, and the excavation should be multidisciplinary and participatory, and the excavated things should be more detailed. On this basis, you can have a basic view of the society at that time. These are still only at the archaeological level, how to combine them with documents, how to combine them with legends? Of course, there is still a lot to be done. At present, some people still propose to carry out the "Five Emperors Project," which is impossible. It's a good thing that some people up there pay attention to the origin of civilization, but they don't know how difficult this problem is, and we can't ask people to do that. But as a scholar, you have to seek truth from facts, and you have to tell people not to do any engineering, this cannot be done. However, we can increase support in all aspects to promote academic research to achieve better results.
Book Shadow of "Searching for the Source of Civilization - Yan Wenming's Selected Works" (Capital Normal University Press, 2017)
So is the topic of "Settlement Evolution and Early Civilization" as your research group leader an effort to contribute to the project on the origin of civilization?
In 1987, I explored the specific process of civilization in my investigation of the evolution of Neolithic settlements across the country. Now this topic should be a continuation of that research. My personal strength is limited, so I invited colleagues from the front line of field archaeology in all aspects, such as Guo Dashun, Tian Guangjin, Zhao Hui, Zhang Chi, Han Jianye, Luan Fengshi, etc., all of whom are very accomplished scholars, to summarize and sort out the existing data and sort out a basic idea. The views are basically the same, while trying to keep the characteristics of individual research as much as possible. Not a conclusive thing. If it can basically reflect the current level of research. It would be nice to have some reference value for everyone.
So does the study of this topic also illustrate the diversity of the origins of Chinese civilization?
Now many people are beginning to understand that the origin of Chinese civilization is pluralistic, and the origin of each place has its characteristics, so it is necessary to do a case study and not a general package. However, individual cases are not isolated, they are interconnected. For example, the Liangzhu culture is very important to the study of the origin of civilization, so we can't just study the Liangzhu culture, it must be studied before and after. The development of this culture in Zhejiang is related to the culture outside, and it cannot be isolated. Chinese civilization is pluralistic and interconnected, and only by clarifying this issue can we have a basic grasp of the origin of civilization, otherwise it will be a pot of porridge. In the past, historians mostly believed that Xia Shang was in the same vein, but now that we consider it from the perspective of the whole of China, it is obvious that we cannot say that Xia Shang and Zhou are in the same vein. Xia is in a very small place, there are Yi in the east, Miao Man in the south, and there are many other cultures in the west and north, some of which can be found in history, and some of which cannot even be found, but in archaeology, many cultures can be found, so how do these cultures interact? When there is summer, there is business, what is the relationship between summer and business? If there is business, there will be Zhou, and what is the relationship between business and Zhou? Not exactly a vicarious relationship. Moreover, there were many cultures around the Xia, Shang and Zhou periods, such as the Yueshi culture in the east and the Siba culture in the west; During the Shang period, there were Sanxingdui in Sichuan and Oceania in Jiangxi, and these documents are not recorded, and their existence will naturally have an impact on Shang culture. If you don't understand these cultures, it will be difficult to understand the business culture itself very clearly, and isn't it the same when you get to Zhou? Several great countries in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, each of which was the cultural center of the Neolithic Age, Qilu: Dawenkou - Longshan - Yueshi; Chu: Daxi-Qujialing-Shijiahe; Yan: Hongshan - Xiaoheyan - Xiajiadian; Yue: Songze - Liangzhu - Maqiao. The formation of cultural regionality was already present in the Neolithic period, and was also manifested in a largely unified state. A modern politician should pay attention to preventing division, but also to prevent excessive unity, if the society is too unified, it will die. Isn't this conclusion derived from archaeology important?
Theory and Methodology
What do you think are the major changes in the theory and method of Chinese prehistoric archaeology in the last decade or so? What do you think is the future trend of archaeology in China?
The theories and methods of Chinese archaeology were transmitted from the West, and in the past, we were in the style of epigraphy, which was not the basis for the development of modern archaeology. Liang Siyong studied at Harvard University, and Xia Nai and Wu Jinding studied at the University of London. The founders of Chinese archaeology, Li Ji and Liang Siyong, did not copy the West because they both had a background in traditional Chinese culture, and after returning to China, they excavated Yin Ruins and other sites, and encountered the most cutting-edge problems in Chinese history from the beginning. Their work is very successful, but the basic genealogy of the Neolithic culture has not been clarified, and some work has been done in the late Shang period, which is not clear in the early Shang period, and even less clear in the Xia. It was good to be able to do that at the time, after all, archaeological work is not an easy task. After the fifties, archaeological work was spread throughout the country, mainly concentrated in the Yellow River Valley, and the research was seriously influenced by dogmatism, using a simple framework of social development history, Shang was a slave society, the front was a primitive society, and the Neolithic was matrilineal patrilineal. It is unscientific to divide the social system according to the family lineage, and many people don't talk about it anymore, which is a great progress.
Now everyone's thinking is active, but foreign dogmas have emerged, believing that everything that is foreign is good, but in fact, many of them do not match the actual situation in China. There is also the fact that they are unconventional, they are not systematic at all, and they do not respect the research of their predecessors, which will not become the mainstream.
Archaeology is still the study of history, and it is necessary to use archaeology to restore Chinese history step by step, grasp this direction, explore realistically, and establish our own theories in the process of exploration. I'm optimistic about the development of archaeology right now, and it's impossible for everyone to have the same idea. There is a comparison of different ideas, and in the comparison, you can see which road can go and which one can't.
In terms of method, we are not worse than foreign countries, and we have a lot of our own creations and explorations, such as the method of finding the edge of the ruins and the method of recognizing the soil, which was developed by Mr. Shi Zhangru in Anyang. The highest level is to make a carriage, to show the carriage that is completely rotten and leaves only traces.
Archaeological Theory, Methods and Practice (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2015)
Nowadays, the scale of capital construction is getting bigger and bigger, and the field work is very rough, which is a common phenomenon, but there are still some people who are thinking about how to improve the field work. This is inevitable in a certain historical period, and there will always be some work done very coarsely, and some work done very finely. Some scholars have conducted in-depth research on archaeological methodology, and have made many new explorations in stratigraphy, typology, and archaeological culture, and have made significant progress in how to study prehistoric society through archaeological remains. The recently translated and published book of Lenfrew's Archaeological Theory, Methods and Practice, which has a great influence on the Western archaeological community, collects a lot of materials, especially in scientific and technological archaeology, and talks about many specific methods. But what exactly is archaeology, he proposed earlier that archaeology as anthropology, archaeology as history, and archaeology as science, three aspects are leveled, and archaeology is pulled by a troika, which is not very good. Archaeology is the study of history, and some anthropological theories, methods, and concepts can be used, but it does not belong to anthropology. Science and technology are widely used in archaeology, and there will be more and more in the future to extract more and more accurate information. But isn't the purpose of extracting information to illustrate the history of the time? This overarching goal cannot be obscured. I don't think they have as much control over this as we do. Of course, they have a lot of things that we can refer to, and Chinese archaeology must learn from the good things of foreign countries, and we should not eat the bad ones alive. If there are any good methods from other disciplines, we can also borrow them.
Passing the torch from generation to generation
Academic progress needs to be passed on from generation to generation, how do you think our younger generation should carry on the past and forge ahead into the future?
Your question is good, because now some people think that there is no need to pass on the torch, and some articles have been written by people in the past and he doesn't know, even if people write them now, he can also ignore him, and he may not be as good as others if he starts again, which is very bad. Everything must have a inheritance, and inheritance must be learned. I often talk about studying the history of archaeology, and I can get a lot of inspiration from history, such as the relationship between Yangshao culture and Longshan culture, Liang Siyong wrote "Xiaotun Longshan and Yangshao", he was a great authority at that time. Yin Da also wrote "Analysis of Longshan Culture and Yangshao Culture", Yin Da was a student of Liang Siyong, but he wrote better than Liang Siyong's writing, why? Liang Siyong respected Anderson's authority too much, he wanted to give him a round, but he didn't make it clear for a long time. Yin Da said that according to the stratigraphic relationship between Yangshao and Xialongshan in the five sites found in northern Henan, he said that Yangshao Village should also have two sets of things, Yangshao and Longshan, and Yangshao there should be earlier than Longshan. Now it seems that he was right. The reason why I often cite this example is that as a young person, we should not only respect the views of the old gentlemen and seniors, but also pay attention to whether our own methods are correct or not. There should be a method of processing the data itself, which is in line with the methods that do not conform to archaeology, and the methods that do not conform to stratigraphy and typology. If it fits, you have to be confident, and don't be afraid to break through which old gentleman's point of view. The old gentleman's views are also divided, which one do you listen to? I often tell my students not to agree with me just because I'm your teacher, and if I'm wrong, you still have to disagree. So learn to be able to learn. Scholarship is passed down step by step, and there should be a minimum of respect for the old gentleman's views. Don't learn mechanically, inherit the past and open up the future, and carry on the future. You have to use your brain, you have to practice, and you have to participate in field work. The practice of archaeology is unlimited, and the development of archaeological methods will also be unlimited, but the basic principles will not change, and the development of some details is not unlimited. In addition to learning from the elders in your own country, there are also peers or foreign countries that can also learn from them. All in all, build on your own practice. When researching a problem, it is important to start with the big picture and the details. It is necessary to have a macroscopic framework of thinking, and we cannot lose the watermelon without seeing the sesame seeds, and blur the purpose and direction of the research. Now there are more basic materials, computer information is more convenient, and foreign or domestic counterparts are more likely to obtain materials, which is a very good condition, and I believe that there will be faster and greater development in your generation.
This article was originally published in Southern Cultural Relics, No. 2, 2006