Page 33 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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-
43
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-
44
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,
45
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 —
46
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
47
Man (a human incisor) and thousands of stone implements. Wu Jinding (Chinese, 1901-1948)
48
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
49
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-
50
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

32 | X I A O N E N C YAN G