Page 31 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

Hardstone owl; height 34.1
3
(i3 /s); Shang dynasty; exca-
vated in 1935 from Tomb
1001, Houjiazhuang,
Anyang, Henan province.
Courtesy of the Institute of
History and Philology,
Academia Sinica, Taipei.

als in the 19205. His idea of the origin of Chinese civilization in alien cultures, on the basis of
certain similarities between them, is understandable, but, we now know, incorrect. 33
Andersson also initiated and guided the Zhoukoudian excavation, a find that drew inter-
national attention. At the suggestion of). Megregor Gibb, professor of chemistry at Peking
University, Andersson visited Zhoukoudian, Peking, in 1918. Andersson did not find the actual
site and did not arrange the excavation until he sent his new assistant, the Austrian palaeontol-
ogist, Otto Zdansky, to Zhoukoudian in 1921. During another visit in 1921, Andersson noticed
flakes of quartz, and, guessing that they might have been used as cutting implements, he asked
Zdansky to complete the excavation. Zdansky unearthed two hominid molars during short-term
excavations that same year and in 1923. The Zhoukoudian excavations lasted much longer than
Andersson initially anticipated and eventually uncovered the world's richest and most compre-
hensive early Palaeolithic remains. 34
In 1926, Andersson announced this discovery at a reception to welcome the Crown Prince
35
of Sweden, Gustaf VI Adolf (1882 -1973). Andersson suggested that the Zhoukoudian excava-
tion should be taken over by the Survey, in cooperation with Davidson Black of the Cenozoic
Laboratory at Peking Union Medical College, and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. This
rewarding Sino-foreign enterprise lasted more than ten years until it was halted in 1937 by the
Japanese invasion. The Zhoukoudian excavation spawned the first generation of Chinese palae-

30 X I A O N E N C YANG