Leaving No Stone Unturned

A pottery item of the Yangshao culture, dating back from 7,000 to 5,000 years, is on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing. [Photo by Wang Kaihao/China Daily]

In 1921, experts were amazed after colorful pottery pieces were excavated in the small village of Yangshao in Henan province's Sanmenxia, which is known as one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. With the discovery of Yangshao culture, which dates back from 7,000 to 5,000 years, modern Chinese archaeology was born.

Starting from the village, archaeologists have explored all over the country in the past century. According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, over 4,400 archaeological projects were launched in China in the past five years alone.

President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, emphasized the importance of archaeology in the country's overall development at a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in September.

The 3,700-year-old Erlitou site in Henan province's Luoyang is one of the major findings in modern Chinese archaeology. [Photo by Zhao Haitao/For China Daily]

This year marks the 100th anniversary of modern Chinese archaeology, and the country's legislators and political advisers discussed achievements in the field during the two sessions in Beijing.

A series of events, such as symposiums and publishing projects, to increase public awareness of archaeology are being planned, says Liu Yuzhu, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration and a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

The compilation of a 5 million-character history of Chinese archaeology will be completed soon and the book will be released in October, says Wang Wei, president of the Chinese Society of Archaeology and a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress.

"That will be a milestone for Chinese academia and is set to benefit generations of archaeologists in the future," Wang says, adding that more than 100 academic issues are included in the book, which will be "an easily accessible and crucial reference for international scholars to understand archaeological achievements in China".

The Terracotta Warriors stand as a witness to the country's development in archaeology at the 2,200-year-old mausoleum of Qinshihuang in Shaanxi province's Xi'an. [Photo byZhu Xingxin/China Daily]

The third edition of the Chinese Archaeology Congress, a high-level symposium, is expected to be held in Sanmenxia in October.

Both Liu and Wang highlight the importance of public participation in marking the anniversary.

Mass media will play a key role.

A five-episode documentary on the history of Chinese archaeology is being planned, Wang says, and China Media Group will present a variety show, titled Chinese Archaeology Conference, that will review the greatest discoveries of the past century.

The Chinese Society of Archaeology and China Cultural Relics News, an industry paper, will organize an appraisal of the "top 100 archaeological discoveries in China of the past 100 years", and a public poll will partially decide the final list.

A relic from the Shimao site in Shaanxi province [Photo provided to China Daily]

For the anniversary, Wang also proposed to the NPC that a "national archaeology day" be set to recognize scholars' contribution to archaeology and raise people's awareness. He suggested announcing a national lifetime achievement award in archaeology to honor extraordinary achievement.

In recent years, significant archaeological discoveries have been made in China, like the 5,300-year-old Liangzhu Archaeological Ruins in Zhejiang province, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2019, and the 4,000-year-old Shimao site in Shaanxi province, which was picked by Archaeology magazine in the United States last year as one of "the decade's 10 most extraordinary discoveries".

Liu says, in archaeology, the academic focus during the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) will be on the origins of Chinese civilization, its early development and how a united country with multiple ethnic groups formed.

"We'll use archaeological evidence to prove how the Chinese civilization has developed over 5,000 years," he says.

Discussions on measures needed to break bottlenecks in Chinese archaeology were also held during the two sessions.

An archaeologist studies relics from a cemetery of Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC) in Zaoshulin site, Suizhou, Hubei province, in 2019. [Photo by Zhao Haitao/For China Daily]

Yuan Jing, a researcher with the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee, says China now has only about 600 registered "leaders of archaeological excavations" working in the field, and 1,760 institutions have archaeological licenses, which leaves a huge gap in the study of the booming archaeological findings around the country.

"Some archaeologists have to work over 300 days a year in the field. They are too exhausted to categorize the findings and display their significance to a wider public," Yuan says.

He proposed that central government departments related to education, finance and human resources draft plans to nurture young talent and improve salaries in archaeological work.

An aerial photo of Taosi site excavation taken in 2020. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Liu, director of the NCHA, says a more dynamic system nurturing archaeology-related expertise will be explored in the 14th Five-Year Plan. For example, vocational education will play a bigger role in training relevant technicians, and "stronger presence of social forces "will be seen in archaeological work.

"The measures will keep a balance between protection of cultural relics and economic development," he says.

Thanks to the public's rising consciousness about relic protection in recent years and officials' efforts at the two sessions, some issues will be resolved.

For example, Nanjing in Jiangsu province promulgated the country's first city-level rule in 2019, which specifies that well-planned archaeological research needs to be done before land is transferred for urban construction. The rule is set to avoid economic loss or damage to heritage sites when relics are accidentally discovered during urban construction. It will also avoid disputes between archaeologists and developers because of their conflicting schedules.

An archaeologist studies animal bones unearthed from Liangzhu site at the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in 2019. [Photo by Wang Kaihao/China Daily]

A similar policy has been adopted by some other cities, and is partially attributed to a proposal by He Yun'ao, a member of the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC and an archaeology professor at Nanjing University, during the two sessions in 2018.

"When the country's development reached this level after decades of fast economic growth, archaeology, which decodes where we come from, naturally attracts society's unprecedented attention," He says. "An updated legal system can lead us to greater achievements."

In the past century, Chinese archaeologists may have honed their skills amid one difficulty after another. Naturally, their horizon is wider today. More archaeologists have joined cross-border programs not only in neighboring countries, but also in faraway cradles of civilization like Egypt, Central America and Eastern Europe. China has joined 44 such projects in the past five years, according to the NCHA.

During this year's two sessions, the Nanjing University professor called for more funding. "Many scholars have to raise funds by themselves for overseas research, making it difficult to carry out in-depth work," he says.

"A national fund particularly for such programs will bear more academic fruit."

He also handed in a proposal to enhance archaeological cooperation along the Silk Road by establishing a multilateral platform to include more international scholars. "A strengthened dialogue among archaeologists in different countries will help to build a shared future."