UCL Institute of Archaeology

A world context for Chinese Archaeology

This research project asks several basic questions:

• How and when modern archaeology was introduced from the West to China?
• What is the relationship between the traditional jinshixue and modern archaeology?
• In what way, Chinese archaeology is influenced by the recent social changes and intellectual trends?
  

Built on a number of case-studies, the project emphasises the comparative approach and incorporates the original researches on the leading figures such Luo Zhenyu, Selgalen, Xia Nai, Wu Jinding, Zeng Shaoyu, and Su Bingqi.  By providing a rather complicated historical picture of Chinese archaeology, this project also aims to find a way Chinese archaeology can be integrated into the broad framework of world archaeology today.

Related outputs

Publications (since 2007):

• 2007 “Archaeological fieldwork practice and syllabuses in China and England” (with Peter Ucko) in Peter Ucko, Ling Qin and Jane Hubert eds., From concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: the Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques, London: Saffron Books, pp. 45-76.
• 2008 “Chinese archaeology within a world context” (with Peter Ucko), in Thomas Lawton ed. Proceedings of the International Symposium New Frontiers in Global Archaeology: Defining China’s Ancient Traditions, pp. 229-235, The AMS Foundation for the Art, Sciences and Humanities.

Forthcoming publications:

•  “Making new classics: the archaeology of Luo Zhenyu and Victor Segalen” (with Denis Thouard). in Sally Humphreys and Rodulf Wagner eds., Modernity’s Classics
• Translation and annotation of Su Bingqi’s The Origins of Chinese Civiization, Shengyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe