Page 34 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

Site photograph of the
1935 excavations at Tomb
1001 (Shang dynasty),
Houjiazhuang, Anyang,
Henan province. Courtesy
of the Institute of History
and Philology, Academia
Sinica, Taipei.

the protection of ancient cultural relics and the prevention of unauthorized digging. Its en-
forcement authority was strengthened by the enactment in 1930 of the Law on the Preservation
of Antiquities and by the promulgation in 1931 of regulations concerning the excavation and
export of antiquities. 51
During the formation period, Chinese and foreign archaeologists, guided by their convic-
tions that the origins of Chinese culture were to be found in the environs of the Yellow River —
or, alternatively, that Chinese culture was originally transmitted from the West — concentrated
most of their efforts on the Yellow River valley and on northern China. "Palaeolithic" and "Neo-
lithic" were accepted as designations for China's early periods, a usage that has continued to
52
the present day. Human and institutional resources were decidedly limited: fewer than twenty
professional archaelogists were engaged in fieldwork through the whole of China. The forma-
tion of Chinese archaeology, however, benefited significantly from the training of its practition-
ers in the West, as well as from the work of the leading international specialists. 53
Between 1937 and 1949, large-scale excavations by Chinese archaeologists were suspended as
a result of the Japanese occupation and civil war in China. Some archaeological activities such as
surveys continued in the northwestern and southwestern regions. While Japanese archaeologists

took advantage of the occupation to render excavation-site surveys from northeastern China to
Taiwan, Western scholars were forced to withdraw from Chinese archaeology for a period. 54

1949-1976 : I N S T I T U T I O N A L I Z A T I O N
When the People's Republic of China was formed in October 1949, archaeological work was
reenergized. Administration, excavation, research, and education were systematized and gradu-
ally extended nationwide. Since 1950, Chinese archaeology has been a state-regulated enter-

33 | M O D E R N C H I N E S E A R C H A E O L O G Y