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Preface
Kwang-chih Chang
Description: The Archaeology of Ancient China
The Archaeology of Ancient China
~When I was a graduate student in archaeology in the 1950s, one of my most treasured worldly possessions was V. Gordon Childe’s The Dawn of European Civilization, one of the more progressive archaeological writings of the time. The trouble was that revised editions kept coming out, and it was always painful to have to dip into the meager income of a...
Author
Kwang-chih Chang
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1986, 1977, 1968, 1963 by Yale University
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20251
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Preface
When I was a graduate student in archaeology in the 1950s, one of my most treasured worldly possessions was V. Gordon Childe’s The Dawn of European Civilization, one of the more progressive archaeological writings of the time. The trouble was that revised editions kept coming out, and it was always painful to have to dip into the meager income of a graduate student to purchase the same book over and over again. Finally, in 1957, I bought the last edition revised before Childe’s death in the same year, and I thought to myself that at least I didn’t have to buy another new edition. But I was wrong. No, I didn’t have to buy another edition by Gordon Childe, but I still had to acquire new editions of books on the same subject by other archaeologists. Textbooks simply have to keep up with the progress in the field.
This is many times more true in Chinese archaeology. While European archaeology has at least a century of history behind it, modern archaeology began in China only sixty years ago, and since then archaeologists have had to contend with various wars and upheavals. Only during the last thirty-five years, and especially the last thirteen, has the archaeological energy of this old civilization been released, and the outcome is a plethora of new data needing digestion. The third edition of this book, published in 1977, was written in 1975, ten years ago from this writing. During these ten years there has been an information explosion in Chinese archaeology. New data and the new problems they have brought to the fore have rendered the previous edition obsolete.
This edition of The Archaeology of Ancient China bears very little resemblance to its previous reincarnations, since it has been rewritten from the ground up. The first major change is that in this edition I no longer intend to cover the whole field and cite every last available reference. The framework is flexible enough—I hope—to accommodate new data from the next decade without fundamental change. Another major change is that the volume now ends with the rise of civilization and no longer includes the very rich and complex period of ancient history after about 1000 B.C. The reasons for this are three independent books, all published by Yale University Press under its Early Chinese Civilizations series, for which I serve as general editor, that deal with the Shang, Western Chou, and Eastern Chou civilizations respectively.
The Introduction is essentially a reprint of an article entitled “Archaeology and Chinese Historiography,” published in World Archaeology 13 (1981), 156–69. I thank the editors of World Archaeology for their permission to use it here. The Epilogue is reprinted with permission from Symbols (Peabody Museum and Department of Anthropology, Harvard University), Spring/Fall 1984, 1–4, 20–22.
I have many people to thank for helping me to bring this edition out. First of all, I thank the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities for financial assistance that enabled me to undertake the research and writing of the book. The Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities have during the last decade sponsored my research in China, which lies at the base of every line written in this volume. None of the above, however, is to be blamed for my views, which are my own responsibility totally.
For my views I have benefited from many archaeologists and historians in China, too many to be named and thanked individually here. During the last thirty-six years they have toiled selflessly in a profession that brings them neither profit nor glory, only intellectual satisfaction for themselves and genuine admiration and gratitude from the rest of us. This book is dedicated to them.
In the preparation of the manuscript I have been assisted by many friends and colleagues. Jeannette Kyoko Miyamoto, my research assistant, helped in numerous ways and typed the final manuscript. Nancy Lambert-Brown was responsible for all the new maps and figures. Nicole Rousmaniere did most of the photographic work. Hillel Burger took the color photographs of the Pan-shan pot used on the dust jacket. Stephanie Jones at the Yale University Press copyedited the manuscript with care and wisdom. The index was compiled by David Goodrich. They all have my sincere thanks.