Page 33 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China
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Soon  after, two young Chinese scholars trained  at Harvard University became  key figures
                            in the  Anyang excavations. Li Ji (1895-1979), who modestly described  himself as an  anthropolo-
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                            gist by training and  an archaeologist through  opportunity,  was selected  as the first head of
                            the  section  in December  1928, and  assumed the  direction  of the  Anyang excavations. Li had
                            taught  at Qinghua  University from  1925 to  1928, and  worked with the  archaeological team of  the
                            Freer Gallery of Art until  1930.  Li is acknowledged as the  first  native Chinese  archaeologist
                            because  of his work, assisted  by Yuan  Fuli, on the  excavation of a Yangshao culture  site at  Xiyin,
                            Xiaxian, Shanxi, in late  1926. The Anyang excavations continued  for fifteen seasons  from  1928  to
                            1937. With Li Ji's arrival at the  Anyang project in the  second  season, the  team began  to pay at-
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                            tention  to stratigraphic  sequences  of remains, traces  of pits, tombs and  buildings.  Numerous
                            artifacts and  oracle bones, architectural foundations made of pounded  earth,  sites of Shang
                            palaces  and  temples, and  Shang royal mausoleums, were excavated.
                                 The Anyang team continued  to meet with success.  Liang Siyong (1904-1954), son of Liang

                            Qichao  and the  earliest academically trained Chinese field archaeologist  (in the  strictest  sense
                            of the  word) joined the  Anyang team in  1931.  He discerned  that  the  Shang culture was later
                            than the  Longshan culture, and the  Longshan culture later than the Yangshao culture, by dis-
                            tinguishing the  three  stratigraphic orders  of the  Yangshao, Longshan, and Shang at  Hougang,
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                            Anyang, in the  same year.  During the  1934 -1935 seasons, Liang headed  the  excavations of
                            eleven Shang royal tombs  (one unfinished) at Xibeigang, Anyang. These excavations were the
                            culmination of the  Anyang undertaking, not  only because  its team was the  best  organized  and
                            engaged five hundred  workers per  day (a record  high), but  also— and  more important —
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                            because  of its discovery of structures,  scales, and  burials of the  mausoleums.  The Anyang
                            excavations confirmed that the  Yinxu at Anyang was the  true  Late Shang capital, and  also that
                            Chinese  archaeology  had  come to be guided  by Chinese  archaeologists.
                                 In the  early 19205, Emile Licent (French, 1876-1952) and  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin  un-
                            covered three  palaeolithic sites at Ningxia, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia, including the  Ordos
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                            Man  (a human incisor) and  thousands  of stone  implements.  Wu Jinding (Chinese, 1901-1948)
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                            found  the  Longshan culture at Longshan, Licheng, Shandong, in  1928  — a discovery that im-
                            mediately inspired the  investigation of the  relationship among the  Yangshao, Shang, and Long-
                            shan  cultures.  In 1936-1937, Shi Xigeng (Chinese, 1912-1939) of the  Xihu Museum unearthed
                            black pottery  and jade and  stone  objects at Liangzhu, Hangxian (currently Yuhang), Zhejiang.

                            Shi's classification of the  Liangzhu as the  Longshan culture was accepted  by scholars at that
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                            time ; since  1959,  archaeologists  have identified these  remains as those of the  Liangzhu cul-
                            ture.  In  1945,  Xia Nai (Chinese, 1910-1985) corrected  Andersson's sequence  of  prehistoric
                            cultures in the  upper  Yellow River valley. Through his fieldwork and  analysis of data  Xia demon-
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                            strated that the  Qijia culture was later than  the  Yangshao culture.  This achievement  presaged
                            his critical role  in Chinese archaeology from  the  19505 to the  19805.
                                 In  1928, the  Central Committee of Antiquities Preservation was established,  charged  with



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