FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques by EAPGROUP

From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies THE TEACHING OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD TECHNIQUES

Peter Ucko Editor-in-Chief Qin Ling and Jane Hubert Editors

FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Peter Ucko, Editor-in-Chief Qin Ling and Jane Hubert, Editors

From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques Peter Ucko, Editor-in-Chief Qin Ling and Jane Hubert, Editors ISBN 9781872843704 | Hard cover Saffron Books, Eastern Art Publishing (EAP), London, England Cover: Collage of Terracotta Warriors (courtesy of Wang Tao) and field workers in the Old Oyo National Park, Nigeria. Photo: C A Folorunso First page: Zhang Chi Figure 9 (detail) Frontispiece: A student training excavation on round houses in a Bronze Age settlement at Cladh Hallan in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Photo: Mike Parker Pearson Facing page: Participants at the ICCHA Conference, School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing, 17 April 2006. Photo courtesy of Peking University Cover created by Prizmatone Design Consultancy, a division of EAP Book Design and Layout by Prizmatone Copyright © 2007. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form (graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or otherwise transferring into information storage and retrieval systems) without permission of the publisher. Additional copyright information appears as follows: Revised graphics and maps © EAP | Indices © EAP Published by Saffron Books, an imprint of Eastern Art Publishing

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Sajid Rizvi Eastern Art Publishing EAPGROUP International Media [EAP] P O Box 13666 London SW14 8WF United Kingdom

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Contributors

Foreword Zhao Hui and Stephen Shennan

Preface Peter Ucko, Qin Ling and Jane Hubert

Colour Plates

Part 1

•

Background and Theory

15-32

33-86

Chapter 1

From Concept to Practice in Field Archaeology | Stephen Shennan

Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | Wang Tao and Peter Ucko 45

Field Archaeology Training at Peking University | Zhao Hui

Part 2 • Teaching of Fieldwork Methods

87-164

Chapter 4

Field Archaeology Training in China Set within a Global Context | Qin Ling and Peter Ucko 89

Some Issues in the Training and Practice of Field Archaeology | Luan Fengshi

109

| FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Contents

Fieldwork and Training Methods in Field Archaeology at the Site of Baligang | Zhang Chi 117

The Challenges to Archeological Fieldwork Training at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria | C A Folorunso, J O Aleru and B J Tubosun 129

Teaching Field Archaeology in Korea: Issues for the 21st Century | Seonbok Yi 143

Archeological Field Training for a Variety of Different Types of Sites: From the Near Eastern Tell to the Prehistoric Settlement Camp | Marta Luciani 149

Part 3 | Assessment of Student Fieldwork

165-206

Chapter 10

Evaluating Student Fieldwork Training: A Review of Current Approaches within the UK | Dominic Perring 167

Assessment of Archaeological Skills: Implications for Theory and Practice | Sarah Colley 183

University Strategies in Teaching Fieldwork Techniques â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a View from an Independent Practitioner | Brigitte Cech 193 Contents |

Part 4 | Increasing the Content 0f Fieldwork Training 207-254 Chapter 13 14

Archaeological Science in Field Training | Dorian Q Fuller

209

Flotation Techniques and their Application in Chinese Archaeology | Zhao Zhijun

233

Archive Awareness in Fieldwork Training | Gustav Milne 239

Conservation Awareness in Archaeological Training | Gamini Wijesuriya

Part 5 | Archaeology as a World Affair

245

255-302

Chapter 17

Excavation Training in a Variety of Socio-Cultural Situations | Mike Parker Pearson

257

Concepts of the Past and International Collaboration: An Example from Mexico | Timothy D Maxwell and Rafael Cruz Antillón 267

Digging a Site, Nation beside Nation. The Case of Çatalhöyük, Anatolia, Turkey | Arkadiusz Marciniak 281

Part 6 | The Public and Archaeology

303-328

Chapter 20 21

Public Involvement in Archaeological Excavations in Southern Africa | Innocent Pikirayi

305

Recent Community Involvement in an Archaeological Site in Central Thailand | Surapol Natapintu 321

Appendix: Conference Programme

329

Index of Sites

333

General Index

337

Backdrop image on preceding Contents pages: Parker Pearson Figure 4. Photo: Karen Godden This backdrop image: Luciani Figure 3. Photo courtesy of www.sabi-abyad.nl

| FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Contributors

J O Aleru, Lecturer, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Brigitte Cech, Independent Researcher, Vienna, Austria Sarah Colley, Senior Lecturer, Department of Archaeology, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Sydney, Australia Rafael Cruz Antillón, Archaeologist, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Centro Chihuahua, México Caleb Adebayo Folorunso, Professor, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Dorian Q Fuller, Lecturer in Archaeobotany, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, England Luan Fengshi, Professor, Director of Oriental Archaeology Research Centre of Shandong University, China Marta Luciani, Lecturer, Orientalische Archäeologie, University of Vienna, Austria Arkadiusz Marciniak, Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Poznan, Poland Timothy D Maxwell, Director Emeritus, Museum of New Mexico, Office of Archaeological Studies, United States Gustav Milne, Senior Lecturer and Project Manager for the ‘Archive Archaeology Project,’ Institute of Archaeology, University College London, England Contributors |

Surapol Natapintu, Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Mike Parker Pearson, Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, England Dominic Perring, Director, Centre for Applied Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, England Innocent Pikirayi, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria, South Africa Qin Ling, Lecturer, School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, China Stephen Shennan, Professor and Director of Institute of Archaeology, University College London, England B J Tubosun, Lecturer, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Peter Ucko, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, England Wang Tao, Senior Lecturer in Chinese Art and Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and Department of Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, England Gamini Wijesuriya, Senior Research Officer, ICCROM, Rome, Italy Seonbok Yi, Professor, Department of Archaeology and Art History, Seoul National University, South Korea Zhang Chi, Professor, Director of Archaeology Department, School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, China Zhao Hui, Professor and Head of School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, China Zhao Zhijun, Professor, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China

10 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Foreword

t is with great sadness that we must note the passing of Professor Peter Ucko during the final editing of this book. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personal energy, intellect and efforts were crucial to the foundation of the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (University College London and Peking University), and the organisation of a conference on fieldwork training in archaeology that brought together an international cohort of scholars and teachers. Without his leadership of the Centre (ICCHA) and conference, and his dedication to international collaboration and communication, this book, with editions in both English and Chinese, would not exist. We can regard this book as a material memorial to Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision for the ICCHA and the international discussion of the practices of archaeology. It should serve us as a signpost on the road which Peter charted for us to pursue in the continuing development of the ICCHA. Professor Zhao Hui

Professor Stephen Shennan

Director School of Archaeology and Museology Peking University

Director Institute of Archaeology University College London

and

Director The International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA)

Foreword |

The conference venue at Peking University, Beijing. Photograph: Sajid Rizvi

12 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Preface

Peter Ucko, Qin Ling and Jane Hubert

his book derives from a four-day International Conference, held at Peking University in April 2006, entitled From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: the teaching of archaeological field techniques (see Appendix). We would like to acknowledge the support and contribution from Professor Gao Chongwen who, as Director of the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University at the time, hosted the conference and ensured its significant success. The conference was the first to be organised by the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (hereafter, ICCHA) set up in 2003 by University College London and Peking University. The primary focus of the conference was the examination of the relationship of archaeological theory to practice, as articulated through excavation and other archaeological field techniques. In this context it discussed the training for archaeological fieldwork that currently exists in higher education institutions in many different areas of the world. Also within this global framework it compared the different archaeological curricula offered by a range of universities and other training institutions, not least in terms of the part played by ‘scientific’ archaeology in such training. The conference also investigated what are — or should be — different training strategies for prehistoric as compared with urban sites, as well as variations in training depending on different environmental site conditions. Variations in the lengths of obligatory field training courses for undergraduate university degrees in archaeology were also reviewed, and the range of different methods of assessing student fieldwork exercises. Discussion also focused on the need to archive archaeological investigations, and how archiving techniques should feature within student training. Preface |

A further topic of the conference was the way in which members of the public (whether adults or children) are involved in excavations in different areas of the world. In some national traditions, archaeological fieldwork is restricted to the professional, in others it is also seen as a means of incorporating the amateur into the archaeological domain, and in some it is also viewed as an educative device for children. The agenda for the conference had been discussed at an earlier meeting in London of the ICCHA Working Group and Steering Committee, together with European colleagues involved in the study of Chinese archaeology and history. Although the primary orientation of the conference would remain China, it was agreed that this first ICCHA-organised conference should be overtly global in its scope. For this reason, in addition to Chinese scholars, most of the overseas invited speakers were those responsible for field training in their own universities or other institutions, either at undergraduate or at postgraduate levels. Others had extensive excavation experience in their own countries or abroad, whether of prehistoric settlement or cemetery, or of urban conglomeration and standing buildings. In all there were some 100 participants who contributed to discussion at the conference. They came from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Colombia, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, Madagascar, Poland, Russia, Southern Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Almost all the universities in China which have training in archaeology sent representatives to participate in the conference, and contributed their curricula (see Chapter 4, Appendix I). This book is more than the mere proceedings of the conference. First, not all the presentations delivered at the meeting are included here. Second, all the chapters included here have been revised by their authors in the light of discussion at the conference and in the context of the structure of this book. Finally, details of the different curricula have been culled from the individual papers, some precirculated and some presented at the conference (see Chapter 4). The conference languages were Chinese and English, and two books will be published, this one in English, and the other in Chinese. The Editors are greatly indebted to the following for their financial assistance in enabling so many foreign scholars to participate in the conference in China, and for assisting with the costs of producing these books: the Institute of Archaeology (UCL), the Simon Li Foundation, Peking University, and the SinoBritish Fellowship Trust.

14 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Colour Plates

Qin Ucko Figure 1 Distribution of the major universities for field training: 1 Peking University Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropolgy, Beijing; 2 Northwest University, Xiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;an, Shaanxi; 3 Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan; 4 Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin; 5 Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong; 6 Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi; 7 Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan; 8 Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei; 9 Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu; 10 Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian; 11 Zhongshan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong; 12 Hong Kong Chinese University, Hong Kong

16 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Luciani Figure 1 Dams on Syrian territory (after Bounni 1997, pp110-111, 113)

Colour Plates |

Zhang Chi Figures 4 & 7 Settlement of the late Yangshao Culture and Bailigang excavation in 2004

18 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Luciani Figures 3-4 Excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad. Photos: www.sabi-abyad.nl

Luciani Figure 5 Excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad. Photo: www.sabi-abyad.nl

Colour Plates |

Folorunso et al Figure 3 (Above) Fieldwork training, 2002: Track being repaired in the Old Oyo National Park, Nigeria Figure 4 (Facing page, above right) Fieldwork training, 2002: Students buying food at Igbeti Figure 2 (Facing page, below right) Fieldwork training, 2002: Students receiving briefings on the Old Oyo site. Photos: C A Folorunso

20 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Colour Plates |

Parker Pearson Figures 1, 2 & 4 Sampling the abandonment layer on a Late Neolithic house floor on a 0.5m grid at Durrington Walls near Stonehenge. Photo: Becca Pullen 2 (Facing page, above right) Sampling for soil micromorphology on a Late Neolithic house floor at Durrington Walls. Photo: Mike Parker Pearson 4 (Facing page, below right) Excavation with local archaeologists and general public at the 18th century village of Mionjona in southern Madagascar. Photo: Karen Godden

22 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Colour Plates |

Parker Pearson Figures 5, 6, 7 & 8 Students learn about heritage management as well as excavation on their field course as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. Photo: Stonehenge Riverside Project 7 (Below) Fieldwalking for sherds and other surface finds is a good way for children to learn about archaeology, as in this example from Montefeno in southern Madagascar. Photo: Karen Godden 6 (Facing page, above right) A joint Malagasy and British team excavating at the 19th century village of Laparoy in southern Madagascar. Photo: Karen Godden 8 (Facing page, below right) Test-pitting in advance of open-area excavation can involve the local community as well as professional archaeologists and students, in this case on the 16th-17th century royal village of Montefeno in southern Madagascar. Photo: Mike Parker Pearson

24 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Colour Plates |

Marciniak Figure 2 Aerial photo of Çatalhöyük East and West, Turkey

26 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Colour Plates |

Marciniak Figures 3 & 4 Çatalhöyük East, North Area, Building 5 and Çatalhöyük East, TP Area, Space 248

28 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Marciniak Figures 7 & 9 Çatalhöyük East, TP Area. Cross-section of a complex stratigraphic sequence and flotation machines

Colour Plates |

Pikirayi Figure 1 Public participation in the rehabilitation of Mapungubwe, 2003 (With permission of Coen Nienaber)

30 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Colour Plates |

Natapintu Figures 1 & 2 Housewives of Ban Pong Manao weaving bark rope into purses and handbags, and handbags on sale at Pong Manao Community Museum

32 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Part 1

Background and Theory

34 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

1 • From Concept to Practice in Field Archaeology

Stephen Shennan

he relationship between the changing frameworks of ideas that have characterised archaeology in different parts of the world since the later 19th century, and the types of fieldwork that have been carried out and the methods that have been used, is a complex one (see eg Lucas 2001). It is impossible to do justice to that complexity here. This paper will pick out some broad trends in British and North American fieldwork and look at how they relate to the prevailing archaeological ideas of the day. In particular, it will be argued that while there is a marked break between the field methods that characterise the first and some of the second half of the 20th century, roughly corresponding to the transition from culture historical to processual archaeology, the subsequent development of post-processual ideas, from the 1980s on, has been associated with the addition of new dimensions to fieldwork programmes rather than a change of approach. Those new dimensions essentially revolve around an engagement with the material stuff of the past in the present, as well as a reflection on the processes of archaeology itself. The culture history approach to archaeology has been described, usually critically, so often that there is no need for another long account here. Once it had been recognised that the material evidence of prehistory could not be seen in terms of a geological model of eras, but that it varied spatially as well as chronologically on often quite localised scales, then the key primary task of prehistoric archaeology was to identify the spatial patterns – ‘cultures’. Furthermore, the task was not just to put these in order but to align the cultures of different areas chronologically with one another in absolute terms, so that explanations of the patterns could be offered in the prevailing terms of the time. Those terms were founded on normative concepts.

Stephen Shennan | From Concept to Practice in Field Archaeology | 35

The ways people made their pottery or built their houses, the crops they grew or the animals they kept, were determined by the mental templates that characterised that particular culture and which had been passed on through the generations. The only ways they could change in a given area were through migration of other people with different mental templates from elsewhere, accounting for radical change, or through the effect of ‘inf luence’, produced by diffusion, for more gradual changes. These ideas had their consequences for approaches to archaeological excavation. Lucas (2001, pp46-47) has suggested that the Wheeler grid system, designed to achieve the best possible control of both the vertical and horizontal dimensions, was an attempt to get to grips with the need to produce the ‘chest-of-drawers’ correlated cultural sequences required by approaches such as Childe’s culture history. But the fieldwork consequences were actually much broader and more significant than this. An important feature of the culture history approach, arising from the assumptions described above, was its essentialism: cultures were seen as basically homogeneous uniform entities, arising from the shared mental templates of the people who possessed that particular culture. The consequences of this perspective were considerable (Struever 1971): [The normative archaeologist] attempts to reconstruct prehistoric cultures in terms of a series of normative concepts expressed in a list of typical artefact, feature and even settlement forms. There, a single excavation of undetermined size in a village site can be expected to yield an artefact and feature sample, from which these typical forms can be identified. Similarly, any site of a particular cultural phase, thoroughly investigated, is regarded as typifying sites of that phase (Struever 1971: p10).

Cultural Ecology and Archaeological Fieldwork In North America, the key theoretical development that had the effect of gradually changing the nature of archaeological fieldwork was Steward’s cultural ecology (Steward 1938). This emphasised adaptation and the links between the way in which different societies obtain a living from particular environments, of course strongly affected by the specific potentials offered by those environments, and other social institutions of the societies concerned. An early example of its impact was Willey’s Virù Valley survey in Peru (Willey 1953), carried out in 1946 with the aim of reconstructing changing settlement patterns and explaining them in terms of ecological and social factors. In Britain, parallel but independent developments were being taken forward by Graham Clark in the 1930s, in the context of his studies of the British and North European Mesolithic. These studies were inf luenced by the rapidly increasing knowledge, especially due to pollen analysis, of the environmental changes that took place in northern 36 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Europe after the end of the last Ice Age. Changes in mesolithic assemblages came to be explained as the effect of changing environments, not of invasion or diffusion (Smith 1994: p41). Here, though, it was not simply a matter of going from concept to practice. Smith (1994) argues that Clark ’s ideas shifted as a result of his work with the Fenland Research Committee, one of the first multidisciplinary fieldwork groups, which was tracing the relationship between site and find distributions and the complex environmental history of marine transgressions and retreats of the East Anglian fenlands. This work was itself linked to similar developments in southern Scandinavia. Clark’s excavation of Star Carr in the late 1940s and his interpretation of the site in the excavation report (Clark 1954) came to be one of the canonical examples of an ecological approach to prehistory, while his ‘Prehistoric Europe: the Economic Basis’ (Clark 1952) was already explicitly using an ecosystem perspective. Thus, many of the features regarded as characterising the subsequent New Archaeology were already in place by 1960 and, indeed, one of the classic adaptation-oriented fieldwork projects began in that year, MacNeish’s Tehuacan Valley project (MacNeish 1964), an interdisciplinary project whose aim was to find the origins of maize agriculture but which encompassed far more than this. Operating at all scales from the regional to the micro-analysis of organic remains, it produced a sequential series of settlement pattern maps together with a synthetic account of the adaptive patterns characterising the successive phases and the changes from one phase to the next. The New Archaeology took this approach further by insisting more comprehensively on the systemic nature of culture. In other words, cultures should not be considered as lists of traits to be compared in terms of how similar or different the lists are. They are made up of different subsystems, which are linked to one another, such that change in one element of a subsystem can have ramifications elsewhere in the subsystem, but also, because of the links between subsystems, on the system as a whole. One of the main aims of archaeology must therefore be to use archaeological data to reconstruct such subsystems and explain how and why the links between them lead to change. One of the major implications of this systems-thinking was the rejection of the type-site concept and the essentialism of traditional culture history. The different activities making up the cultural system go on in different places and are affected by different factors, so no one site or limited set of evidence will tell us what we need to know. A hunter-gatherer settlement system is made up of different types of site occupied at different times of the year and different activities go on at them. In complex societies the social, economic and political activities that are central to their operation take place at different locations; we cannot understand centres without knowing about their hinterlands or their relations with other centres. Struever (1971) spelled out in detail the enormous implications for field Stephen Shennan | From Concept to Practice in Field Archaeology | 37

archaeology of adopting a systemic perspective, starting with the fundamental requirement that projects have to be based on regions rather than individual sites, and that it is necessary to characterise the range of variation between sites in a region as well as relevant aspects of the region’s environment in the period in question. More than that, however, just as different parts of a region will have different kinds of site, so different activities will have taken place in different parts of sites, thus the strategies for investigating sites must be based on gaining a view of internal variability. All these requirements have enormous implications for the amount of money and the nature of the staff and facilities needed to answer archaeological questions. Lone scholars have to be replaced by interdisciplinary teams with specialised training and access to specialist facilities. Struever concluded (1971: p11): Until the intellectual advances of these past few years are matched by advances in actual research performance – in part through changes in the institutional structure within which archaeology operates – much of the potential contribution of the new concepts and methods for dealing with specific problems like the description of subsistence-settlement systems, assessing prehistoric population densities, and analyzing the structure of interaction spheres, cannot be realised. Two years later Redman (1973) proposed the use of a generic multi-stage research design to address the aims spelled out by Struever while keeping costs to a minimum, starting with general reconnaissance of a region, going on to the intensive survey of selected areas, preferably with a probabilistic element, followed by the controlled surface collection of selected sites. Only the final stage would involve the excavation of a very limited number of sites selected on the basis of the surface evidence. In some regions at least, the growth of Cultural Resource Management provided the funding to realise some of these ambitious aims. Large-scale CRM landscape projects strongly based on survey were not only compatible in their aims with the systemic objectives of New Archaeology but also led to the development of new methodologies, such as shovel-testing and coring, to achieve them. All this was in place by the 1970s, much of it, as we have seen, significantly earlier. Also in place was the increasingly sceptical attitude to making inferences about the past from archaeological evidence exemplified by Clarke (1973). What has happened since then? Has the rise of post-processual archaeology since 1980 had a major impact on field archaeology practice in the way that cultural ecology and the New Archaeology did twenty years earlier? One way of addressing this question is to examine the objectives and methods of Ian Hodder’s Çatalhöyük project in Turkey, started in the 1990s and specifically designed to put a post38 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

processual agenda into practice in a field project (and see Chapter 19). Since one of the main features of post-processual archaeology is its emphasis on the importance of meanings and symbolism, it is unsurprising that understanding the environmental, economic and social context of the remarkable paintings, and other symbolic elements for which the site is famous, is the main research focus of the project: Central questions concern the origins of the site and its early development, social and economic organisation and variation within the community, the reasons for the adoption and intensification of agriculture, the social context for the early use of pottery, temporal trends in the life of the community, trade and relations with other sites in the region (http://www.catalhoyuk.com/mission.html) An important part of the project has been a regional site survey designed to establish whether there were any other contemporary settlements around Çatalhöyük and what preceded and succeeded it in the region (http://www. catalhoyuk.com/newsletters/02/regional.html). Palaeoenvironmental research has also been important, as a basis for reconstructing environmental change and for understanding the relationship between the formation of the site mound and the history of alluviation in the basin in which it is situated (http://www.catalhoyuk. com/archive_reports/1996/ar96_05.html). Other aspects of the fieldwork have included a gridded site surface collection survey to characterise artefact densities and soil micromorphological studies designed to identify activity areas and microstratigraphic sequences within buildings, including histories of plastering and painting. (http://www.catalhoyuk. com/archive_reports/2004/ar04_22.html). In short, while the project certainly shows more concern with identifying ritual and meaning and special deposition activities than Struever would have expected, we are basically in the same world of aims, methods and assumptions about what a field project should do and why. Indeed, in the scale of its funding and its interdisciplinary team the Çatalhöyük project must come very close to the ideal New Archaeology field project specified by Struever in 1971. What is the key to this continuity of approach? Most generally it is, of course, an acceptance of the idea of an ‘archaeological record’ as a source of information about the past, despite some of the more extreme statements that have been made at various times by post-processual archaeologists. More specifically it derives from a continuing allegiance to a broadly systemic approach to understanding the past and the archaeological record, albeit one extended to include symbolic dimensions given little attention in the early 1970s. Stephen Shennan | From Concept to Practice in Field Archaeology | 39

The Rise of ‘Heritage’ What then, if anything, is the difference between the 1970s and the 2000s in terms of the kinds of things that well-funded field projects aim to do? I would argue that the difference lies in the ‘heritage’ dimension of present-day projects, their acknowledgement of the rôle of material from the past in the present. Over the last thirty years perceptions of the significance of archaeological sites and their contents have shifted. They have become less important as sources of information about the past and more important as a special kind of material stuff existing in the present with which people can interact in different ways for different reasons, and invest with their own meanings. Those meanings generally have a basis in the fact that the archaeological material comes from the past, but the specific meanings imputed may have little or no foundation in the specifics of archaeological evidence. There are many reasons for this shift. Some are internal to archaeology itself. The attacks on archaeological objectivity that characterised some strands of post-processual archaeology, and the associated argument that interpretations were determined by interests in the present, undermined the idea that archaeologists were in any sense more authoritative interpreters of the archaeological record than anyone else. But this trend itself is symptomatic of wider social, political and intellectual trends leading to the questioning of the authority of ‘experts’ in many different spheres, in part associated with shifts in political power within society. For example, the growing political power of Native Americans led to the successful questioning of the rights of archaeologists over both ‘archaeological’ material and archaeological interpretations. For archaeologists to be able to continue their work they have had to engage in dialogue with members of the indigenous communities who claim rights in the contents of sites and museums. If these disputes and challenges to what archaeologists traditionally do have been at their most stark in the context of shifting relations with previously powerless indigenous groups, similar issues have increasingly arisen in the more homogeneous societies of western Europe, often in the context of new localisms and nationalisms (Jones 2006), but also new fringe groups, such as ‘neo-pagans’, who have themselves become part of the political process campaigning for their interests (Bender 1998; Wallis 2003; Graves 2006). The result has been that archaeologists too have increasingly had to become involved in the political process, enlisting public support for the validity of their discipline as well as for its funding, and arguing for the benefits it brings, including financial ones. Interestingly, in the United States, Stuart Struever was one of the pioneers in engaging with the public, founding the Centre for American Archaeology at Kampsville and then the Crow Canon Archaeological Center, dedicated to informing the public about archaeology (http://www.saa. org/publications/saabulletin/13-4/SAA6.html#service; https://www.crowcanyon. org/about/history.asp). However, while this model of engagement with people 40 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

outside the discipline remains important, it is increasingly being overtaken by a different one: one in which archaeologists no longer have a special authority based on their academic expertise but are one constituency among many with an interest in the ownership, handling and meaning of the ‘heritage’ material in the present. Where there are differences of interest, the outcomes of arguments are determined by political power, inf luenced by broad currents of social and cultural ideas, rather than academic archaeological justification; or rather the archaeological justifications no longer have the political power they once did. At Çatalhöyük we can see all these different aspects of modern archaeology as heritage in action. Thus, “The ultimate aim of the project is to provide the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism with a well planned heritage site/’ (http://www. catalhoyuk.com/mission.html). This involves detailed consideration being given to the complex conservation requirements as well as the way in which the site is presented to visitors, using a variety of different methods to enhance the experience of visitors to the site, including reconstructions and computer-based methods. Beyond these relatively well-established and conventional approaches, however, there are others, such as the introduction of art installations. In some societies at least, present-day artists are increasingly responding to stuff from the archaeological past, as well as to the processes of archaeology, and art works now have a significant place in providing people with new perspectives on the rôle of the stuff from the past in the present (and see Renfrew 2003), a topic that is increasingly of interest to archaeologists themselves (and see the recent Leskernick project in southwest England (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leskernick/intro1.htm). On the other hand, it is hard to take seriously claims that artists as such have anything to say about the interpretation of the stuff as archaeological record, for example those made by Adrienne Momi: I was invited to add my voice as a professional artist and mythologist to the multidisciplinary interpretation of Çatalhöyük. My methodology consists of creating temporary installations on archaeological sites. The intention is to ‘listen’ to the land with a sensitive ear to hear the myths that may reveal themselves. Part of the collective unconscious, they tell the stories of the people who lived in that landscape (http://www.catalhoyuk.com/newsletters/08/turning01.html). This raises the issue of multivocality and the new need to include in dialogue groups with many different interests, that have their own reasons for visiting the site and believing it to be important, in some cases based on specific archaeological interpretations. In this particular case the group in question are the so-called Goddess Community. These are women who believe in the interpretations of the early farming communities of southwest Asia and southeast Europe as peaceStephen Shennan | From Concept to Practice in Field Archaeology | 41

loving matriarchies with a religion based on a Mother Goddess, put forward by the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (eg 1989). The site is particularly important to them because they see the wall paintings and plastic art of the site as documenting the existence of that religion. The issues that are raised by interacting with such groups are clearly seen in the dialogue between the site’s director and a member of the Goddess Community on the Çatalhöyük website (http://www.catalhoyuk. com/library/goddess.html). Some members of that community clearly regard the site primarily as a place of worship, and they are not prepared to accept the authority of the archaeologists’ interpretations because they assume these are biased. In keeping with the idea of multivocality, Ian Hodder, Director of the Çatalhöyük project, wants to include them in “the whole process of understanding the site” on the grounds that the archaeologists potentially have something to learn from their very different perspective, but he goes on to say, “Of course, it is important that alternative interpretations are well grounded in the data from the site” (http://www. catalhoyuk.com/library/goddess.html). Whether he and members of the Goddess Community would have the same criteria for what is ‘well-grounded’ is very much open to question. Ultimately, though, that may not be the point. Just as modern Druids are allowed to hold ceremonies at Stonehenge when there is no reason to believe that any of what they do and believe bears any relation to the prehistory of the monument, even if they think it does, so there is no reason to object to the Goddess Community treating Çatalhöyük as a shrine. Nor is any of this very different from members of any of the long-established religions venerating certain places where they think special events happened which, to any rationalist view, are entirely mythical. The latter tends to be less controversial because the believers were there first. The archaeologist is the interloper at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Conclusions Anglo-American ‘scientific’ field archaeology, concerned with trying to obtain information about the past, has changed little in the last 30 years and in this sense post-processual approaches have made little difference. What has changed is the social/cultural/political climate in which it is carried out, which now places much more emphasis than previously on ‘heritage’, the stuff from the past and its rôle in the present. This has considerable practical implications for the kinds of activities that any field project now needs to undertake. As Çatalhöyük and many other projects show, treating archaeological material as information about the past is not incompatible with its rôle as ‘heritage’ in the present. Nevertheless, now that our societies increasingly give priority to the implications of interacting with the material stuff of archaeology in the present, as opposed to treating it as a source of evidence about the past to be approached in a scientific fashion, archaeologists have become simply one interest group among many who make a claim to it and 42 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

invest it with meaning. This does not mean that archaeologists should abandon their goal of attempting to find out about the past, and their claim that they have a scientific basis for treating the stuff in the present as a basis for doing so. On the contrary, if they do abandon these goals there is no need for society to take them very seriously at all, still less to give them money, or allow their goals sometimes to prevail over those of others who would prefer archaeological investigations not to be carried out.

References Bender, B 1998: Stonehenge: Making Space. Oxford: Berg. Clark, J G D 1952: Prehistoric Europe. The Economic Basis. London: Methuen. — 1954: Excavations at Star Carr. An early mesolithic site at Seamer near Scarborough, Yorkshire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke, D L 1973: ‘Archaeology: the loss of innocence.’ Antiquity 47, pp6-18, Gimbutas, M 1989: The Language of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper. Graves, A B 2006: Review of Wallis (2003), Shamans/ Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, alternative archaeologies, and contemporary Pagans. Assemblage 9 (http://www.assemblage.group.shef.ac.uk/issue9/graves.html). Jones, S 2006: ‘”They made it a living thing, didn’t they….”: the growth of things and the fossilisation of heritage,’ in R Layton, S Shennan and P Stone (eds), A Future for Archaeology: the Past in the Present, pp107-126. London: UCL Press. Lucas, G 2001: Critical Approaches to Fieldwork: Contemporary and Historical Archaeological Practice. London: Routledge. MacNeish, R S 1964: ‘Ancient Mesoamerican Civilization.’ Science 143, pp531-537. Redman, C L 1973: ‘Multistage fieldwork and analytical techniques.’ American Antiquity 38, pp61-79. Renfrew, C 2003: Figuring it out: What are we? Where do we come from? The parallel vision of artists and archaeologists. London: Thames and Hudson. Smith, P J 1994: Grahame Clark, the Fenland Research Committee and prehistory at Cambridge. M Phil dissertation, University of Cambridge (http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~pjs1011/grahame-clark+fenland-researchcommittee.pdf ). Steward, J H 1938: Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. Struever, S 1971: ‘Comments on archaeological data requirements and research strategy.’ American Antiquity 36, pp9-19. Wallis, R J 2003: Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge. Stephen Shennan | From Concept to Practice in Field Archaeology | 43

Willey, G R 1953: ‘Prehistoric settlement patterns in the Virù Valley, Peru.’ Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 155. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. http://www.catalhoyuk.com/ https://www.crowcanyon.org/about/ http://www.saa.org/publications/saabulletin/13-4/ http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leskernick/

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2 • Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England Wang Tao and Peter Ucko

T Preamble

o some extent this chapter can be seen as complementary to Shennan’s (Chapter 1) analysis of changing questions and attitudes towards archaeology in a historic dimension, and also as a link to those following chapters which deal with situations of training for fieldwork in many parts of the world as they exist currently. It also follows on from the experience of one of us, namely that training in fieldwork methods is often disguised by what happens in reality. Back in the early 1960s, one of us (PU) found himself to be Site Supervisor at the excavations of the neolithic Cretan site of Knossos. As a former undergraduate student of anthropology, with subsidiary Egyptology, he had only the f limsiest of actual fieldwork experience (and that had all been voluntary) although he had chosen archaeological options during the third and last year of his undergraduate studies. His PhD in Egyptology and Prehistoric Archaeology itself demanded no fieldwork experience whatsoever. For purely historical reasons, after a month or so of fieldwork at two classical sites on the Greek mainland1 this experience was deemed sufficient for him to join the British excavations of neolithic Knossos in Crete. A year or so later, as de facto in charge of field excavations for a Director who spent as much time as possible at the dig house sorting pottery typologies, PU was quite unprepared – a few days before the end of the season, and still excavating the single remaining open quadrant of the site – for the sudden rainbow colour, and altered consistency, of the ‘earth.’ The first discovery of burnt mud brick construction in prehistoric Crete had been made! In the context of this book, and writing retrospectively by many years, it is worth stressing several points: Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 45

1. Actual training in fieldwork methods was not a necessary requirement to become a fieldwork supervisor (at least for foreign (British) expeditions in the Aegean). 2. Arguably, whatever one’s previous fieldwork training might have been, it is unlikely that it could have adequately anticipated the problems of excavating burnt clay brick (and see Chapter 19). 3. At least part of what now seems to imply a complacent acceptance of the fieldwork inexperience of many (academic?) site supervisors can be laid at the door of the assumption by such archaeologists of the skill, dependability and experience of the ‘native’ digging workforce (eg Sparks 2007). 2 As will become evident, PU’s experiences are similar to those which Petrie, Wheeler and others were attempting to eradicate many years ago.

Introduction The ‘received wisdom’ in much secondary publication is that archaeological practice through excavation, which Schnapp described as ‘not the total sum of archaeology... [but] certainly one of its most distinctive activities’ (Schnapp 2002: p135) – and thereby also serious archaeological investigation – only began in the mid-19th century. 3 Following on from this alleged pedigree, it has become something of a commonplace in China, as also in England, to claim that serious or ‘scientific archaeology’ (the study of the past through disciplined analysis of material culture deriving from excavation) was introduced into China from the West. In the first instance, this chapter set out to examine the details of the claim that modern (scientific) Chinese archaeology was introduced from England in the 1930s. At least in the UK, the most frequent prime identification is with Xia Nai, “the architect of Chinese archaeology for the past 35 years’ (Chang 1986, p442), who studied Egyptology at University College London (hereafter, UCL or College) from 1936 to 1939 (see below). Relatively soon, however, it became clear that any simple assumption that the rôle of a single individual in spreading the notion of archaeological methods and techniques from one country to another would be a gross oversimplification. The content of this chapter has therefore had to be expanded to consider the nature of archaeological enquiry and fieldwork practices at different periods in China and England. It has also had to recognise that England was not the only country involved in, and with, the archaeology of China, and indeed that China itself had a well-developed indigenous interest in the past long before academic archaeology gained sway in the west. Despite these complexities, the chapter focuses on three remarkable Chinese who all studied in London, and became inf luential archaeologists on their return 46 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

to China. Again, unexpectedly, this has involved a degree of historical biographical detective work as well as comparison of archaeological field techniques. It is extremely fortunate that we actually have three important Chinese individuals who linked Chinese and English archaeology in the 1930s.

Background to the Nature of Chinese Archaeological Practice Before continuing with a detailed analysis of this claim, a caveat needs to be entered. It is clear that, in several senses, the Chinese had long ago formulated observations into what may well be thought of as at least the basis for a serious or ‘scientific’ approach to the past. Indeed, in China, where searching for antiquities and ‘looting’ had a long history, even depth beneath the ground seems to have had significance. According to Sima Qian’s (c145–90 BCE) Shiji (Records of the Grand Scribe), the First Emperor of Qin (third century BCE), as soon as he had obtained his throne, started construction at Mt Li, and after he united the country, 700,000 men from all over the empire were transported to the spot to dig. They dug down to the third layer of underground springs and poured molten copper in to form the coffin chamber, and filled it with models of palaces, as well as with all kinds of instruments and vessels, precious stones and rarities... (Sima Qian 1962: p265). Certainly, the Chinese concept of a, or the, ‘past’ and of ‘antiquity’ was closely associated with the finding and possession of objects retrieved from underground. Moreover, such ancient objects were themselves not only considered as rarities, and to be praised as such, but they also acted as ‘auspicious omens’ for the rulers, evidence of their political legitimacy. Thus, for example, it is also recorded in Sima Qian’s Shiji, that the First Emperor of Qin had a river searched by divers purposefully seeking nine specific ancient bronze ding-tripods, which had been lost at the moment when Qin conquered the Zhou (Sima Qian 1962: p248). In another example, during the reign (14087 BCE) of Han Wudi, an ancient bronze ding-tripod was unearthed in the River Feng, a discovery which was considered to be of such significance that, according to Ban Gu (AD 32-92) the Emperor changed the name of his reign to ‘The Grand Ding (Yuanding)’ (Ban Gu 1962: pp181-182). Old vessels, particularly those which had been buried for a long time, were held to possess special qualities of smell, of sound, and even of supernatural power over evil spirits. These marvellous characteristics, coupled with the antiques’ perceived beauty and rarity, made them highly desirable items. According to Mengoni (2005: p49), ‘Around the 10th century [AD] Confucian philosophical and political thought turned towards the recovery, imitation and re-elaboration of an ideal past... Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 47

inspiring a sense of respect, reverence and admiration.’ As a result, ancient bronzes and jades, or their copies, became essential items in the households of the élite, and collecting antiques became a major activity. Bronzes which had been buried for a long time were believed to have become impregnated with the earth’s essence, while characteristics such as casting methods, the quality of decor and overall patination, were the criteria used to assign relative dates to individual specimens. The Chinese connoisseurs had recognised differential patination, distinguishing, although not apparently overtly linked to conditions of burial and preservation, at least “resonance, colour, smell and luminosity of the patina’ (Kerr 1990: p68). A thriving market for the buying and selling of ancient bronzes existed and new bronzes were extensively faked to simulate old ones. It may seem farfetched in such a cultural context, given all the pressures to collect antiquities, and the scarcity of such material, to imagine that the élite did not order excavations to acquire such material. Is it conceivable that those selling to the élite did not produce stories about locations/provenances to persuade the potential buyer of the authenticity of the artefact? There are a few potential clues. In his chapter ‘The Money Makers’ (‘Huo Zhi liezhuang’) in the Shiji, Sima Qian criticised those who ‘dug up tombs for seeking treasures’ as ‘wicked business.’ (Sima Qian 1962: p3263, p3271, p3282). The Xijing zaji, a book attributed to the Han dynasty author Liu Qin (?50 BCE-AD 23), recounted vividly detailed stories concerning one of the princes who plundered the rich treasures of hundreds of ancient tombs in the country (Xiang Xinyang and Liu Keren 1991: pp257-265). Archaeological evidence seems to support the accuracy of these records; a great number of early tombs had been opened and left almost empty when modern archaeologists excavated them (Wang Zijin 2000: pp227237). Tomb robbers had obviously developed their own professional techniques for detecting and digging up ancient remains; for example, the ‘Luoyang spade,’ a probing tool now widely employed by archaeologists in northern China, is originally an invention of tomb robbers (Guo Wenxuan 1955a, 1955b). The extent and success of such illicit practices may be judged, inversely, by their formal illegality. For example, the ‘Tang Code’ contains clearly defined clauses dealing with punishments for crimes of tomb robbery and even damaging the trees in cemeteries: criminals who opened both outer and inner coffins are to be hanged; there would be a three-year exile in a hard labour camp for those who had opened a tomb but had not yet reached the coffin (Changsu Wuji (dAD 659) et al 1983: pp354-355). In a wider context, such Chinese examples may be taken to question current acceptance of the claim for the late date of the arrival of ‘excavation into the ground’ to investigate the past. It is probably timely for a re-inquiry into the beginnings of the archaeological practice. Is it really likely to be correct, as Boardman (2002: p57) put it, that ‘the Greeks were awake to the possibility of the past being revealed 48 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

through excavation, though they seem never to have dug purposely with this in mind’? And yet Boardman (2002: p8) stresses ‘that to the Greeks the past was all-important, it was not for them a foreign country.’ Could it be that excavation in China, Egypt, or the ancient Aegean had been so commonplace that it was not normally considered worth any mention. In any case, it can surely be assumed that whatever it was that was introduced as archaeology from the west in the 20th century AD into China, it would have fallen on highly fertile ground.

The West as the Source of Chinese Archaeological Practice Some form of archaeology as practiced by Europeans had already reached China in the late 19 th century: Seven Hedin (1865-1952), Aurel Stein (1862-1943), Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) and Dimitri Klements (1848-1914), for example, had all carried out archaeological expeditions into Chinese Central Asia (today’s Xinjiang) between 1890 and 1930.4 However, all these practised traditional ‘foreign archaeology’ in the land of China, without any real participation of the Chinese (except for their local contacts), and with artefacts being removed from excavations to be taken away to Europe or Japan. None of them made any direct or major impact on the development of an archaeological discipline in China.5 The Swede J G Andersson (1874-1960) has been credited (eg China Encyclopaedia (Archaeology) 1986: p18; Chen Xingcan 1997: pp87-93) as the real introducer of modern archaeology into China. He had been trained as a geologist, and in 1914 he was invited by the Chinese government to work for the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. Andersson conducted the first excavations of several neolithic villages in Henan Shunchi. Working together with Andersson in the excavations were a number of Chinese scholars from the Geological Survey of China, including Yuan Fuli (1893-1987) who later helped Li Ji’s excavation in Shanxi (see below). From 1923 to 1924, Andersson and his Chinese colleagues also carried out a series of archaeological surveys and excavations adopting standard western procedures including topographical survey, mapping, recording and photography; even trowels and brushes were imported. As a geologist, Andersson was, of course, aware of the problems of stratification. In the excavations at Yangshao village, he introduced test trenches for the first time. As K C Chang (1981: p163) observed “These methods included techniques for collecting data in the field, close collaboration with natural scientists, stratigraphy, and the use of index fossils.” However, Andersson also divided stratigraphical layers by ‘metric units’ rather than into ‘activity’ or ‘cultural’ strata, and thus failed to recognise the complexity of human activities and the nature of cultural formation. As Chen Xingcan (1997: pp137-145) has stressed, Andersson’s methods had little value in reconstructing cultural sequences, nor for comparative dating of a site. Furthermore, as Zhao Hui (see Chapter 3) has pointed out, Andersson’s work was simply too unsystematic to be taken as a major inf luence after the 1920s. Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 49

Li Ji (Li Chi 1896-1979) In 1926 the Chinese scholar Li Ji led the first archaeological excavation under Chinese direction, at Xiyin village in Shanxi. He had graduated from Qinghua University in 1918, a university which was basically a preparatory school for American universities, and which offered a scholarship for Chinese graduates to go to the US for postgraduate studies. Li Ji first arrived at Clark University in Massachusetts, studied psychology and sociology, and in 1920 he was accepted by Harvard University to study anthropology. His training would have been mainly in ethnography, population genetics and human anatomy (with Professors Roland B Dixon (1875-1934) and Earnest A Hooton (1887-1954)). In 1923, he was awarded a PhD degree, having completed a thesis entitled ‘The formation of the Chinese people’ (Li Chi 1928), a physical anthropological study of the Chinese ‘race.’ Li’s academic career switched towards archaeology purely by accident. In 1924, he was asked by the US Freer Gallery of Art about the possibility of carrying out an archaeological project in China. Li proposed that such a project should be organised jointly by Qinghua University and the Freer Gallery, with the majority of funding provided by the latter, and that excavated artefacts should stay in China. The project went ahead and, in 1926, with the assistance of Yuan Fuli (see above), Li Ji directed the excavation of a site of the Yangshao Culture. We do not know how much strictly archaeological training Li had acquired while at Harvard; little, direct from Dixon, one suspects: “rigid and unbending in his ideas and he shrank from personal contacts’ (Murray 1999: p651). According to Li Guangmo, Li Ji’s interest in archaeology was inspired by George H Chase’s teaching of Greek archaeology at Harvard (Li Guangmo 1987). According to Li Ji’s son, also his biographer, Li Ji did not take any archaeological courses available at Harvard at that time, but probably attended some seminars and lectures on archaeology (Li Guangmo 1987). Despite such negatives, Li’s excavations did include some innovations such as that every excavated object was recorded according to its position on horizontal and vertical axes (Chen Xingcan 1997: pp145-150; Chen Chun 2003: pp109-127). Li is regarded by many as the leader of Chinese archaeology from the 1920s until 1940, 6 this high regard coinciding with his headship of the archaeological unit at the Institute of Philology and History (IPH) of the Academia Sinica.

The Rôle of the Academia Sinica The Academia Sinica (a national academy) had been established in 1928 to represent the highest learning in the country. Its first Director was Fu Sinian (1896-1950), Fu’s plan for the IPH was to make it the most advanced research centre of humanities, including all disciplines developed in the West. For archaeology, Fu decided to pursue one of the most important discoveries of the century: oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty (c1300-1045 BCE). The accidental discovery of 50 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

the Shang oracle bone inscription as early as in the final years of the 19 th century had attracted a great deal of attention from the academic world. By the 1920s, the study of oracle inscriptions had confirmed the existence of the Shang dynasty and its royal genealogy recorded in traditional historiography. Until then, many people thought that the Shang dynasty was only legendary. Fu wanted the newly established IPH to find more oracle bones. In August 1928, the first team from the IPH arrived at Anyang which was the first archaeological site to be excavated by the Chinese from a Chinese academic institution. In other words, it can be claimed to have marked the birth of modern Chinese archaeology. From 1928-1937, the IPH carried out fifteen seasons of excavations. In addition to huge amounts of oracle bones, discoveries included bronzes, jades, pottery and other artefacts, Anyang was the training ground for generations of Chinese archaeologists. Many eminent figures to be discussed later in this chapter, such as Wu Jinding, Shi Zhangru and Xia Nai all began their field experience there. However, before Li Ji was formally appointed as the Head of the archaeology unit in December 1928, the first IPH excavation had already taken place that summer, directed by Dong Zuobin (1895-1963). To illustrate the point that early archaeology was not necessarily done by trained archaeologists, it should be noted that Dong had been a school teacher before being employed by the IPH. Apart from the aim of obtaining oracle bones, Dong was armed with little knowledge of archaeological operations. For several days, he dug in vain, but finally, guided by local informers and with some help of an indigenous spade used for digging the root of a medicine plant, the Chinese trichosanthes (tianhuafeng), Dong managed to find substantial artefacts including 784 inscribed turtle shells and ox scapulae. Although Dong did make a primary record and some maps, his excavation was very rushed and amateur; he thought that the cultural strata on the site had been caused by f loods (Dong Zuobin 1929). The famous scholar Guo Moruo (18921978), who was the first President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Minister of Culture of the PRC, wrote: “It is a pity that Mr Dong was not fully prepared for modern archaeology. He did not touch upon stratification that is of the primary importance in any archaeological excavations, and ignored the number of ancient objects, being treated as ‘the supplementary,’ which are in fact more important than the several hundreds of oracle bone fragments he found.” (Guo Moruo 1954: pp301-302). From the second season in 1929 onwards, until the interruption of the SinoJapanese war in 1937, except for his occasional absences Li Ji was the driving force behind the archaeological excavations and research at Anyang. However, Li Ji’s involvement was probably more managerial than day to day fieldwork; Dong Zuobin, and sometimes others, still played an important rôle in directing actual excavations. The real breakthrough in terms of excavation techniques and archaeological methods only came with another Harvard returnee, Liang Siyong. Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 51

Liang Siyong (1904-1954) Son of the famous scholar Liang Qichao, who had not only been the first Chinese scholar to introduce the western idea of ‘prehistory’ and Thomsen’s ‘Three Age System’ (Yu Danchu 1983), but was also said to have once written about his son, Liang Siyong, that he was particularly proud that one of his sons had become a proper archaeologist. Like Li Ji before him, Liang Siyong also went to Qinghua University, the ‘way in’ to America and then to Harvard University in 1923. Unlike Li Ji, Liang’s interest was ‘real archaeology,’ and he participated in Alfred V Kidder’s (1885-1963) excavations in the American Southwest – excavations which were renowned for their professional approach and attention to stratigraphy and dating (Willey and Sabloff 1974: pp94-96). Liang Siyong’s MA dissertation on the pottery found by Li Ji was the first systematic typological analysis of Chinese neolithic pottery (Liang Siyong 1959: pp149, first published in English in 1930). He published a paper on Asian archaeology in an inf luential American journal (Liang [Siyong] 1932). In 1930, Liang came back to China and immediately joined the IPH. In 1931 he moved to Henan and joined the excavation team at Anyang where the fourth season was under way. Li Ji put Liang in charge of the excavation of a Shang dynasty residential area, where Liang was able to successfully distinguish three different cultural layers, representing the Yangshao, Longshan and Shang cultures. This put Chinese prehistory on to a solid basis, with a comparative chronology. Moreover, in terms of excavation techniques and recording methods, Liang set up a standard procedure which could match archaeological operations anywhere in the world. On Liang’s death, Xia Nai (2000 (1): p230) wrote: Mr Liang had indeed first class talent in field archaeology, not only his technique was superb, but also his responsible attitudes to work. He could see the whole picture, and at the same time, pay attention to details. In the first couple of years of the excavations at Xiaotun Yinxu, no participants had any formal training in field archaeology. Everyone was trying in the dark to gain some experience by experimenting and learning lessons from mistakes. After Mr Liang’s arrival, the excavations there became better organised and had a complete new setup. He spent a lot of time improving fieldwork techniques, making various charts for recording, and organising the examination and sorting out of the material in labs; he trained the young excavators and made sure that all work had some proper system... Twenty or so years ago, the main tasks facing Chinese archaeologists were (a) how to transform the old epigraphy and antiquarianism under the feudal system into a modern capitalist archaeology, and (b) how could we, the Chinese, take over field archaeology that

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had always been under a semi-colonised context and was directly organised and controlled by the imperialist ‘scholars,’ and make it into a Chinese archaeology of a high scientific standard. In this respect, Mr Liang made a great impact. As will be seen below, Liang Siyong had made his inf luence felt on two young men, Wu Jinding and Xia Nai, who excavated with him at Anyang. They both later became major players in the development of Chinese archaeology (and see below for details of their archaeological training in England). Wu Jinding excavated under Liang at Anyang as well as in neolithic Shandong. Later, Wu left China to go to England to study. In his PhD thesis ‘Prehistoric Pottery in China’ completed in 1935, Liang was particularly thanked by Wu, together with Fu Sinian, Li Ji, and Dong Zuobin, for their help in making material accessible for study on Wu’s archaeological research visit to China during the time that he had been based in England. Xia Nai also worked under Liang as a trainee in the excavation of the Shang royal cemetery at Xibeigang in 1935 and, like Wu, Xia later came to Britain to pursue his training in western archaeology. Certainly Liang’s inf luence, as well as Li’s and Fu’s, remained significant even when Wu, Xia and Zeng Zhao-yu (the third main subject of this chapter) returned to China after their studies in London (see below). Wu died prematurely in 1948. Li Ji and Fu Sinian moved with the Academia Sinica to Taiwan in 1949. Liang, Xia and Tseng chose to remain in mainland China under the Communist government; Liang and Xia became Deputy Directors of the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences, with Liang dying not many years later. Zeng went into museum administration – even through she still managed to direct several field excavations – and became Director of Nanjing Museum. It was thus left to Xia Nai, who had the knowledge as well as the authority, to shape the development of archaeology in the ‘New China.’

The London Connections Gin-Ding Wu (1901-1948) Wu graduated with a degree in sociology from Qilu University in his native Shandong province. He then went to the Sinological Research Institute of Qinghua University as a graduate student, where his tutor was Dr Li Ji. Wu’s interest in archaeology was aroused by Li Ji’s archaeological excavation in Shanxi in 1926. In the following year, Wu wrote a paper on the physical anthropology of the people of Shandong, and accepted a teaching job at his old University of Qilu. While he was there, Wu took time to undertake some archaeology, and in spring 1928 he and a friend discovered an ancient city site in Longshan, with many artefacts dating to the Han dynasty and prehistoric period. Throughout the year, Wu revisited the spot on several occasions, and began his archaeological investigation of the site. But, in 1929, a job offer came from the IPH, following the appointment Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 53

of his old teacher Li Ji as the head of the archaeology unit. In 1931 Li Ji decided that the team, with the newly returned Liang Siyong, would go to Shandong to excavate the site which Wu had found a couple of years ago. In subsequent excavations the ‘neolithic’ Black Pottery culture was found to predate a Bronze Age cultural layer, and hopes were high that this neolithic culture might represent ‘the cultural elements of the pure Chinese stock,’ and that the discovery might not only throw light on the problem of early Shandong, but also “increase our knowledge of the main problem before us, the origin of Chinese culture” (Li Ji’s words; cited in Wu 1938: pp11-12). Wu gained further field experience mostly under Liang Siyong’s guidance, and was put in charge of several independent operations at the site of Anyang (see above). By now, Wu and others had recognised the importance of stratification for establishing cultural sequences. Some ten years after his first archaeological experience, Wu was awarded a scholarship in 1933 from the Provincial Government of Shandong to study at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where Professor W Perceval Yetts (1878-1957) held the first Chair of Chinese Art and Archaeology. The Courtauld was then, as now, an independent institution within the University of London. That such a professorial position existed at all resulted mainly from lobbying by the collector of Chinese art, Sir Percival David (1892-1964), and from the decision in 1922 by the British Government “to devote the proceeds of the British share of the Boxer Indemnity [itself a result of the suppression of the 1899-1901 Boxer Rebellion] to projects beneficial to China and Great Britain” (Anon 1933: p196). In 1931 the award to London University from the above source allowed Yetts, an expert on ancient Chinese bronzes, to be promoted in 19337 from Lecturer to Professor. 8 A few years later, in 1937, Wu had gained a London University PhD in Archaeology which was published “on behalf of the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London,’ in 1938.9 In this work, Wu combined stylistic and technical analyses to produce a revolutionary view of the chronological development of pre-Shang and Shang pottery from north China, concentrating on six stylistic characteristics (colour, shape, material, thickness, surface treatment, and decoration) as well as on the ‘method of making,’ “because I believe that if many characteristics are studied, the result will be more accurate than if the study were limited to one or two” (Wu 1938: p4). While in London, to assist his “purpose in comparing objects distant in time or in space... [so as] to concentrate on technique” (Wu 1938: p5), he carried out technical investigations at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (founded 1896). However, Wu did not devote the whole of his time studying in London, He also took part in the 1933 excavation at ‘Tell el-’Ajjul (‘Ancient Gaza’), Palestine, under Sir Flinders Petrie. Petrie was very impressed by Wu, and called him “an ideal field worker” (Xia Nai 2000 (1): pp223-226). This was first published in 54 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Zhongyan ribao on November 17 1948). Wu also went to the Maiden Castle excavation in 1934 under the direction of Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1977), admired by repute by many Chinese as a leader in the area of field archaeology (Xia Nai 2000 (1)). In 1935, with a grant from the Universities’ China Committee (funding also derived from the Boxer indemnity), Wu returned to China to work for the whole summer at Anyang with his former colleagues from the IPH, and among them was a new trainee, Xia Nai.

Zeng Zhaoyu (Chao-yueh Tseng, 1909-1964) Zeng, who came from an élite family, was first educated privately, and subsequently entered Jinling University to study English, but instead graduated with a degree in Chinese. Supported financially by her family and a relative, and with no previous archaeological experience, Zeng came to London in spring 1935 to study with Professor Yetts at the Courtauld. While there, Zeng wrote the following letter (19/6/36) addressed to Fu Sinian, (see above) then the Director of the IPH, Academia Sinica. The original letter is kept in the Fu Sinian Library, Academia Sinica, Taibei (See Wang Fansheng and Du Zhengsheng 1995: pp214-215): ... two weeks ago, Xia Nai showed me the letter you wrote to him, in which you discussed problems of his study, and asked him to tell me. I’m very grateful for your kindness and concern, thus am taking the liberty to write you this letter to ask some questions. Really, we have very little to learn here (Courtauld Institute). As you said in your letter that “sinologists of this country like to have some Chinese students to show off.” I arrived here in spring last year, and at that time, Wu Jinding had gone back to China, and no one was around to consult. Through some introduction, I got into this Institute without much clear thinking. I certainly felt this after one term. So, when Xia Nai arrived, he came to see me first, and I told him it’s better to go to University College. But, he still stayed here... Nonetheless he’s not happy with this Institute and wants to transfer. As for me, I could have gone somewhere else last summer vacation, but I was a little bit ‘embarrassed,’ and the time was too tight,.. Therefore, I’m still here. Of course, there are many good things about being in this Institute. First, there are a great number of courses at different colleges of the University of London, and we can attend lectures freely and go to do practicals. For instance, Xia Nai, Wu Jinding and I have been taking courses in other colleges this year, and Xia has taken a lot more than us. Second, we don’t have to work too hard for the dissertation, so there will be more time to learn other subjects. But, anyway, we came abroad and should learn foreign things. There is Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 55

no way here to study Chinese archaeology. In your letter you said that, in order to develop Chinese archaeology, there is a need for people to study the following subjects: 1) Prehistory; 2) Egyptology, 3) Assyriology, including Orient and Asia Manor; 4) Classical Archaeology; 5) Byzantine and Arabic archaeology; 6) Indian archaeology; 7) Oceanic archaeology; and 8) European archaeology. However, one cannot do all these archaeologies in England; for example, there is no place that has 5), 6) and 7). Edinburgh is famous for prehistoric archaeology, but it is too small and has little money, and facilities there are poor. Cambridge seems to have something, but we don’t really know much about the detail. You said in your letter that “there are several people who have studied prehistory’ and advised Xia Nai not to go to Edinburgh. So, there is no need to raise this question here. Classical Archaeology is taught in both University of London and Oxford, but it focuses mainly on art, especially sculpture, which is not what we want to do. There are some courses on ‘Indian archaeology’ at the University of London, but no complete course. The best archaeological subject at the University of London is Egyptology, and second ‘Archaeology of the Near East’ including Mesopotamia and Iran, etc. Xia Nai seems to have decided to do Egyptology. I originally also wanted to do Egyptology, and I had contacted the professor who teaches it; he said it’s fine. But, since Xia Nai is studying this, I have to give up, as there is no point to have both of us doing the same subject. Xia Nai advises me to study a subject of the ‘Near East,’ such as Babylon or Iran, and he also said to me to drop all scientific courses, such as ‘survey,’ ‘mapping’ ‘geology’ and ‘anthropology,’ rather to concentrate on ‘writing’ and ‘history’; and that it would be very useful in the future if I could compare a particular writing and history of cultural development of the Near East with that of China. I myself also agree with him about this idea. When still in China I worked very hard studying epigraphy and history, but less on sciences. But, many of my friends disagree with this, they say that if there is any time in hand, I should learn more European languages, and should not be bothered with such ‘dead languages.’ Sister Kai is among them; she said: “it is better to learn Sanskrit, not Egyptian or Babylon.’ But I know there are Chinese who have learnt Sanskrit already, such as Chen Liuge and Xu Dishan, both are well- known Sanskrit scholars. What are your views on this? I also have some personal problem. I’m studying abroad, previously supported by my family, and now by Lao Wen. But, Lao Wen’s income is limited, and could at most last for one year. Thus, I can 56 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

only stay in England for one more year. In your letter to Xia Nai, you said “it’s not necessary to complete the degree, even if you have to give it up half way through, there are still benefits.” What do you think if I use my one year to specialise on the writing and history of the Near East? In the letter, you also said: “Xia Nai and Wu Jinding studying under Yetts, which is no more than providing some assistance and help to him.” I’m also one of his assistants. But, I’m studying here [Courtauld]; may be Yetts will help me to get a scholarship, and to extend my study for a year or two. This is not certain, but there is a possibility of 50%. Without this I cannot do anything as I wish, but if I indeed get a scholarship, then I cannot just leave here. I have to somehow write a dissertation. However, it will not take more than half year to complete a dissertation on Chinese material; it’s just to fool them anyway; they don’t have the staff. Then, I can use all the spare time to study something else. What do you think? This letter reveals the mood of disillusion with the Courtauld course on offer, as not really being sufficiently ‘archaeological.’ It also reveals that there was a network of Chinese students and all three (Wu, Xia and Zeng) were in close touch with each other, and that all made use of the structure of the University of London, which at that time allowed free access to lectures at all component colleges and institutes. In the event, as can be seen from the above, Zeng stayed on at the Courtauld, and obtained an MA with Distinction in Archaeology in July 1937. Her dissertation on ‘The Evolution of Script in the Chou Period ’ was examined by W P Yetts and Mr L C Hopkins (a renowned amateur scholar of ancient Chinese inscriptions). Zeng’s fieldwork experience took place when she joined the Maiden Castle excavation directed by Mortimer Wheeler in 1935, and when she undertook a placement in the Staatliches Museum für Vor und Frühgeschichte in Berlin, and took part in a German excavation at Schleswig; she also spent two months working in the Museum of Munich (Zeng Shaoyu 1999: p349). As far as is known, she paid for the costs of this German experience privately, although it would appear likely that Yetts would have had a rôle in arranging her placement through his normal academic contacts. In 1938 Tseng returned to London and was employed for just under a year as Teaching Assistant at the Courtauld, where she gave six lectures on ‘Chinese Script and Epigraphy’ (Courtauld Annual Report 1937/38: p4) before returning to China.

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Xia Nai (Shia Nai or Shia Nae, 1910-1985) Armed with a first degree in history from Qinghua University, Xia won a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship to study abroad (Chang 1986). The scholarship that year could only be held in either archaeology or American history, and Xia chose archaeology. “That, as he put it to me in 1980 in Peking, was how he became an archaeologist’ (Chang 1986: p:442). One of the requirements was real fieldwork, and for that reason he went to Anyang and joined the eleventh season of excavations there as a trainee. Under Liang Siyong’s guidance he excavated at the Xibeigang royal cemetery and it was there that he met with Wu Jinding who had returned from London to carry out a summer season’s fieldwork (see above). Clearly, Xia must have been a fast learner, for he found a wide variety of complex archaeological materials, including human and other burials, a well as a pit with elephants. His most difficult task was to excavate chariots, and according to one of his co-workers, Xia excelled at archaeological drawing, and he used different colour codes to record stratification of every day’s finds. This allowed Xia to reconstruct the chariot at a later date (Shi Zhangru 2002: pp104-105). Boxer Indemnity Scholarships were supposedly for Chinese students to study in America. K C Chang (1986: p442) wrote that Li Ji’s and Liang Siyong’s original plan was to send Xia to Harvard to study with Roland Dixon, but Dixon had died that year, so Li and Liang had chosen England instead, because they admired V Gordon Childe (Chang 1986: p442). Whether this version of events can really be accepted, rather than the choice of London having resulted from his meeting with Wu in Anyang, must remain open to question. In any case, Xia arrived in London in the summer of 1935 and, like Wu and Zeng, registered at the Courtauld Institute of Art, under Professor Yetts. However, in the following academic year, Xia decided to transfer his registration to the Department of Egyptology, University College London, also part of the University of London. The reasons for this move were clearly spelt out in Zeng’s letter (cited above). Xia’s UCL ‘First Entry Form’ shows that during his first year in the Egyptology Department, as an MA Qualifying student, he was asked to attend not only ‘Ancient Egyptian Language’ and ‘Egyptology (Anthropology),’ but also courses in ‘Anthropology,’ ‘Geology,’ ‘Phonetics’ and ‘German (Library).’ Janssen (1992: p37), unreferenced, claims that Xia arrived ‘knowing no English whatsoever’10 and it may well be that his spoken English language proficiency was a problem and the reason for a qualifying year. However, it is reported by ‘Peggy’ Drower (comments on a letter written by her to her parents in 1937/38) that Xia took her course on the History of the Ancient Near East in autumn 1937, and that she and Glanville were marking his Qualifying exam paper in December of that year: “He did well” and therefore his next examination should normally have been an MA examination in May 1939. However Xia’s UCL ‘Re-entry Form’ records on 6/12/38 that he was 58 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

transferred to PhD “as from December 1937,” with ‘Ancient Egyptian Beads’ as his PhD topic.11 From then on he could have attended, if he so wished, internal lectures from Glanville or from Elise Baumgartel, who was Honorary Research Assistant in the Department at that time. In 1938 (and see below), Xia returned to London “to start his research [on beads housed in the Petrie Museum] for his thesis” (letter from Glanville to the Provost, 30/6/1938, seeking a College bursary to support Xia’s further researches in London). In 1939, Xia decided to return to Egypt to study the bead collection in the Cairo Museum,12 and must have stayed there for quite a long period, during which he finished his thesis (which could be posted back to London,13 and produced several other publications. He then decided to travel back overland to return to China. Because the ongoing Sino-Japanese hostilities prevented entry from any sea port along the coast line, he arrived, after a heroic journey through India and Burma, at Kunming in 1941, and then in Sichuan, where he was welcomed by his old friends and mentors, including Wu Jinding and Zeng Zhayu who had come back from London a few years earlier. Back in London, once College staff had been reunited all in one building in Gower Street in 1946, Xia was awarded a PhD on the basis of his catalogue and analysis of the predynastic and dynastic bead collection which he had already begun in 1938,14 without returning to London and without a viva voce; the official record (UCL Annual Report February 1946-1947) reads “UNIVERSITY HONOURS, Faculty of Arts...PhD... Archaeology (Egyptology)... Shiah, N.”.

Archaeological Training at UCL Today it may seem somewhat bizarre to find that in the 1930s, and indeed long before, the centre of gravity for archaeological enquiry in London was not so much in University College’s Department of Archaeology but in University College London’s Department of Egyptology.15 That this was so, owes almost everything to the nature of the first incumbent of the Edwards Professorship of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology (Drower 1995: p200), (Sir) William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942). It is only relatively recently that Petrie is remembered almost exclusively for his contributions to Egyptology, whereas his later archaeological work in Palestine is only now receiving the recognition that it deserves (eg Sparks 2007; Sparks and Ucko 2007; Ucko 1998, 2007), and the much earlier recognition of Petrie as a leader in the development of general archaeology, and in a scientific approach to archaeology in particular, is all but forgotten (eg see Ucko and Quirke 2006: p21, p24 note 23). To gain an impression of the state of archaeology at the turn of the century,16 it is perhaps most apt to quote Petrie’s (1904: pvii) own opening words to ‘Methods and Aims in Archaeology,’ “a kind of manual of archaeological practice” (Drower Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 59

1995: p277), “perhaps the first archaeological field manual in English” (Lucas 2001: p26): Archaeology is the latest born of the sciences. It has but scarcely struggled into freedom, out of the swaddling clothes of dilettante speculations. It is still attracted by pretty things, rather than by real knowledge. It has to find shelter with the Fine Arts or with History, and not a single home has yet been provided for its real growth. … A complete archaeological training would require a full knowledge of history and art, a fair use of languages, and a working familiarity with many sciences... Archaeology, – the knowledge of how man has acquired his present position and powers – is one of the widest studies, best fitted to open the mind, and to produce that type of wide interests and toleration which is the highest result of education. (Petrie 1904: pvii) Petrie then continues by stressing that it must be assumed that every excavator brings with him/her their own set of preconceptions which will condition what is recognised and interpreted, and what is not perceived at all. There follows a consideration of methods of excavation, inveighing against test pitting and favouring parallel trenching and trenching alongside walls. Later in this book he (Petrie 1904: pp163ff) draws attention to the differences in the nature of soils, and discusses several of the causes of such variety and what they may tell the archaeologist. In all these considerations Petrie is careful to stress the vital importance of recording even the smallest details, even when observation demands the use of a ‘magnifier’ (Petrie 1904: p47). Indeed, accuracy and detailed recording is the single most powerful of Petrie’s desiderata: “Recording is the absolute dividing line between plundering and scientific work, between a dealer and a scholar” (Petrie 1904: p48). And for both detail and accuracy of find spots (Petrie 1892: p161), surveying techniques were, of course, seen as essential, and Petrie discusses this aspect of archaeological fieldwork, together with drawing, photography, and vessel reconstruction, in some detail. It is not surprising, therefore, to find considerable passion in Petrie’s insistence on the duty of the archaeologist to take on the responsibility for the safe preservation of objects uncovered through excavation. Without conservation, archaeology remains just one of several forms of vandalism. Petrie was seeking to create a systematic archaeological discipline, through compilations of corpuses of all known varieties of objects, and by the “arrangement of material in its order of development by statistical methods and comparison, which bring out the original sequence of construction” (Petrie 1904: p123). He was also insistent that archaeological enquiry and excavation could not be worthwhile without “some theory or working hypothesis” to be tested (Petrie 1892: p160). Given that such an approach was a far cry from anything undertaken within 60 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

the kind of art historical approach favoured by those such as Professor Yetts (see above),17 or from the philological traditional approach to Egyptology which had been on offer in 1890-91 and 1891-92 from Reginald Stuart Poole (see above), it is perhaps not surprising that Xia Nai opted to transfer to the Department of Egyptology at UCL. As Murray (1961: p11) accurately expressed it, “The systematic training in archaeology as a University subject began in the Egyptology Department of University College, London,” and that this was so derived from the personality and convictions of Petrie (see above). Ironically, however, Xia was destined not to be taught by Petrie, only meeting him once, as Petrie lay ill in hospital in Jerusalem in 1938 (Wang Zhongshu 1986; Wang Shimin 1987) The original Edwards Bequest for the Chair in Egyptology contained several conditions making it a certainty that Petrie would become its first incumbent, and Petrie was duly proposed and appointed to the Chair on 5/11/1892. Meanwhile, College had added to the list of conditions for the position the necessity for “research work of active exploration” and therefore that the Professor “should give a course of lectures in the first and third terms” (Drower 1995: p201), with actual work in the field occupying the spring term. In 1894 the Egyptology Department had acquired Margaret Alice Murray (13/7/1863-1963) as a student to study hieroglyphs (Murray 1963b). In those days Petrie gave weekly lectures during the autumn term, and six lectures about his recent discoveries during the spring term. Despite the absence of any university degree, and with no other academic experience beyond university extension lecturer, Murray was appointed Lecturer at UCL in 1898 (Murray 1963a: p153), teaching elementary hieroglyphs, and was later, in 1924, promoted to Assistant Professor. “During the absence of Professor Sir Flinders Petrie in Egypt, and later in Palestine, Dr. Murray... assumed responsibility for the whole of the teaching and of the administration of the Department of Egyptology in the College” (Letter from UCL Secretary to Margaret Murray, 28/6/35). Between 1904 and 1913 “I was able to consolidate the training of students” (Murray 1953: 103), as well as giving public lectures at the British Museum, for example, in 1911 on such topics as predynastic art and religion, and the culture of the early dynasties. In her book, My First Hundred Years, Murray presents considerable detail of her views about what should be taught to archaeology students (Murray 1963a: p191, p200): [Archaeology] is one of the largest subjects in the world for serious study. It covers all the manifestations of man’s mental activity from the time that he emerged from the animal until the recent past... the education of an archaeological student should be such that he can see where his interests really lie and can make a special study of that period or that part of the subject. Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 61

Murray (1963a: pp191-194) also mentions in particular the need to know some anatomy, some geology, some mineralogy, and some knowledge of the manufacture and use of tools. Typical of her views is her opinion that “in the desire to be scientific, archaeology seems to me to be losing touch with humanity. I should like to see questions in an exam paper that dealt with details of family life” (Murray 1963a: 195). Margaret Drower, who became Assistant Lecturer in Ancient History at UCL in 1937, records (1995: 392-393) that in 1931 when she became a student at UCL, the curriculum [as] laid down in 1913 had changed but little, though new subjects had been added. We were taught to draw pottery, using Petrie’s simple apparatus; our facsimile drawings of scarabs, if approved, would be included in the next excavation report. The Professor himself gave us little individual attention beyond a beaming encouragement; he delivered one or two lectures before departing for Palestine, and a course of public lectures on his discoveries in the summer term after his return. As always, the audience packed the theatre. Margaret Murray resigned in 1935, two years after Petrie himself, aged 80 and having held the Edwards Chair for 41 years, had also retired (but continued to be Honorary Curator of the Museum until 1938/39). Also in 1935 Stephen R K Glanville (1900-1956) was promoted from Reader in Egyptology to become the Professor and Curator of the Museum. As seen above, Margaret Murray had become responsible for most of the teaching within the Egyptology Department, and both Tufnell (1963) and Drower (1995: pp393-394) remark on her informal teaching style, and the scope of her lectures, from Egyptian History and Religion, Elementary Hieroglyphs and Coptic, the Origin and Development of Signs, to European Witches. Additionally, the students received lectures from outside the Department, on physical anthropology, ethnography and elementary surveying. When Petrie’s regime ended, Murray continued in the Department, together with Glanville; little change was made to the teaching syllabus (Janssen 1992: p32). In 1934, while Glanville was still a Reader, Petrie was directing his fourth season of excavations at Tell el-’Ajjul in Palestine (Sparks 2007). The last season there would be undertaken from 1937 under the joint directorship of Margaret Murray and Ernest Mackay, overlapping in time with both the shooting of James Leslie Starkey (Tufnell, Inge and Harding 1940: pp8-9; and see below), and the end of excavations at Armant in Egypt under the direction of Oliver Myers and others (see below). Janssen (1992: pp32-33) records the changes in degree structures and syllabuses in operation from the 1934-35 session onwards; Egyptology could be studied as 62 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

an undergraduate BA degree (normally taking three years) or at postgraduate level in one of two two-year Diplomas. After Murray’s retirement, the whole teaching burden (including evening lectures) was taken up by Glanville, except for some continuing external teaching on subjects such as surveying and physical anthropology. Glanville’s field experience was limited and, as far as is known, he did not attempt to teach excavation methods or to lead fieldwork training courses.

Fieldwork Experience while Studying in England In 1925 and again in 1929, Petrie and family had visited Mortimer Wheeler’s (1890-1977) excavations, first of a Roman fort in Wales (Wheeler 1955: p74; Hawkes 1982: p91) and, on the second occasion, at Lydney Park in the Forest of Dean, thereby consolidating what was at least a friendly acquaintanceship, which dated back several years to when Wheeler had studied, and subsequently worked, at UCL (Drower 1995: p362). In 1931, and following his unpaid lectures in London on British prehistory and protohistory, Wheeler was appointed as a part-time Lecturer in British Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology at UCL, while eventually also being Honorary Director of the University of London’s Institute of Archaeology, and Keeper and Secretary of the London Museum. It can be surmised that both Petrie and Wheeler agreed on many of the requirements of archaeology as a discipline (but see Lucas 2001: p45), not least on the necessity for students of archaeology to gain experience in the field (and see Wheeler 1955: p87). Petrie’s personal commitment to the training of the young was already formulated by the time of his first UCL lecture on January 14 th 1893 (Janssen 1992): “I propose to work in Egypt – usually on excavations – during each winter term, from before Christmas until Easter, and I shall personally help in every way those who may wish to join me for that term” (Petrie quoted in Janssen 1992: p99) This ongoing dedication to archaeology and to the young shines through the final words of his ‘Seventy Years in Archaeology’ (Petrie 1932: p269): The opportunity for discovery is wider than ever before... Hundreds of men and children have been trained in the last five years and zealously preserve all that is uncovered. More students than ever before are wishing to enter the field, and those who join are of the most promising class for the future... In 1937 Wheeler’s dream of a London Institute of Archaeology had become a physical reality, with several of its aims echoing those highlighted by Petrie at the beginning of the century. 18 Likewise, Petrie would surely have agreed with Wheeler’s emphasis on techniques and methods in his attempt to re-create: Man – sentient, rational or even irrational Man – in the vicissitudes of his long life- history... that is where our institute, as envisaged, Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 63

enters the picture. It was founded primarily as a workshop in which the relevant sciences could be interrelated and assembled in a humanistic environment and to the better understanding of humanity... [Its aim is] to convert archaeology into a discipline worthy of that name in all senses. (Wheeler 1955: p94) Wheeler’s excavations at Verulamium and Maiden Castle in the early 1930s were the first to include “the careful labelling of each level and the drawing of sections in each trench” (Drower 1995: p389). At Verulamium, where archaeological investigations covered over five miles of countryside, Wheeler was dependent on assistants, such as Kathleen Kenyon, “supplemented by a constant intake of students from a multitude of universities” (Wheeler 1936, 1955: p100). At Maiden Castle, “something like a hundred assistants and students were associated with the excavation during each of the four seasons (Wheeler 1943: p2; Seton-Williams 1988: p22; and see Hawkes 1982: p169 for how Wheeler ‘managed ’ his heterogeneous team members). It was here that Wheeler first developed his ‘grid system’ whereby a square would be sunk “with sides of at least ten feet, then extending it in any direction by further squares, leaving between them baulks of uncut soil wide enough to take a man and wheelbarrow for the removal of dug soil. Each square... provided four sections clearly seen and easily photographed” (Hawkes: 1982: p170; and see Lucas 2001: pp39ff for further discussion). It was at Maiden Castle that Wu, Zeng and Xia found the opportunity to gain practical fieldwork experience in England. The archaeological fraternity in London was apparently small enough in the 1930s for Yetts, even if he had no special relationship with Wheeler, to be able to ensure that Wu and Tseng could both dig with Wheeler during 1934/1936. Petrie’s friendship with Wheeler would have meant that Xia’s acceptance on the dig was routine. In Xia’s case, what was exceptional was his personal diary 19 in which he recorded even the smallest detail of what happened to him each day and what he learnt during the excavation: July 27th: The first day I arrived at the site, which is about 2 miles away. I left the accommodation, walked towards south along Weymouth Avenue [name in English], crossed a bridge, then turned right. Suddenly I saw Maiden Castle [name in English]; it looked impressive. At the office, I met Miss Cotton, she briefed me in detail on Maiden Castle’s history, works of previous excavations, and the plan for this season: to clarify the structure of the ‘eastern gate,’ and to understand the joints between the large new wall and the old small eastern wall, which would show the process of modifications and 64 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

the time gap between their constructions. She then took me to the excavated trenches to show me the stratification of different layers. We bumped into Dr Wheeler and we shook hands and said hello. I started at Site G. (West Gate), placing the marking poles at the north ditch, 3 inches distance between them (must be level). I started from the top of the wall and moved down to the bottom, putting two parallel rows of poles with 6 inches between them, and leaving a 1 inch gap at the edge of the trench. Every pole must be numbered. Artefacts unearthed can then be recorded by their position and distance to the poles (usually only the left row of poles are used, but must be noted on the records. The other row of poles can be used for plumb bobbing to measure the depth. I then worked on the pages [of the charts] 1 to 6 of Site G, helping to measure the section chart, and sticking labels with small pins after each layer was clearly understood; the labels should be pinned to the upper joint, between two different layers; if difficult to see, then iron or wooden nails can be used... A thin string is then tied horizontally level, and a cloth tape used to measure its distance to the edge of the trench; a hard ruler is used to measure the distance of the thin string and draw it on grid paper. Excavated finds were marked according to each page [of the charts and layer, then taken into the tent, placed inside a paper bag, and the archaeological context recorded on the bag. Timetable: getting up at 8am; 10 minute break at 10:30am; lunch at 1, finish work at 5pm. We took sandwich ourselves; 3 pennies per day...

Details of Experience Overseas while Still Based in England As already mentioned, Wu took part in Petrie’s fourth season of excavations at Tell el-’Ajjul where Petrie (1934: p1) “gladly welcomed” him. At first Wu was taken on as an unqualified assistant, and he then progressed to work in the cemetery area where he was responsible, amongst other things, for some surveying and the marking of object provenances, as well as for the planning of features and tombs (Petrie 1934: p12; 1934 Mandate files ATQ/41/6). Xia also gained further fieldwork experience overseas. Drower (personal communication) specifies that he worked at Armant, south of Luxor, in Egypt, and writes to her parents in December 1937 that “now [Xia]’s off to Egypt and will spend about a month at Armant before he goes to Starkey,” and in January 1938, “Yes, the Chinaman passed his exam well and we were able to tell him the result before he set off for Armant, where he is to spend a month before going on to Starkey’s Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 65

dig”. There is no mention of Xia in published reports of Armant but it may be that his participation is recognised in the still unpublished second volume on Armant. In any case, Xia must have left Armant in or before January 1938 (Bagnold 1939: p282); by then he was all set to join the excavations at Tell el-Duweir, once again not with Petrie but with Director James Starkey (an arrangement presumably organised by Petrie or Murray). 20 It is not known what exactly Xia was asked to do at Tell el-Duweir, although Seton-Williams (1988: p78) reports, “We had a Chinese archaeologist for part of the season... excavating one of the caves. When he left I took over part of his work. He left me his notes but they were more concerned with the f lea population than with the archaeological evidence...”. Despite Starkey’s assassination in January 1938, and the growing evidence of the nature of the impending World War II, the excavation there continued until April/May (Seton-Williams 1988: p79; Tufnell, Inge and Harding 1940: p9), with Xia staying on until at least the middle of March 1938 (Tufnell to her mother 16/3/38).

Excavation Techniques Adopted on Return to China All three Chinese students who are the main subjects of this chapter formed part of Wheeler’s workforce at Maiden Castle, and two excavated at sites overseas which were at least heavily influenced by Petrie. One of the three gained her overseas experience in Germany. It is interesting to attempt to assess how these varying experiences were adapted and/or maintained during their subsequent careers in China. As has been seen, Wu and Zeng returned to China in 1937, Wu with a PhD degree and Zeng with an MA with Distinction. Both were offered jobs at the newly established National Museum (still under preparation at that time), of which Fu Sinian and Li Ji were the founding members. Because of the Sino-Japanese War, all excavations in Anyang had been stopped, and IPH staff, as well as National Museum staff, had to withdraw to Yunnan – the only safe place during the war. While in Yunnan, Wu Jinding, Wang Jiezheng (Wu’s wife) and Zeng Zhaoyu managed to organise some archaeological work, the most important being the surveys and excavations in Dali in 1938/1939. They made preliminary surveys of 38 sites, and excavated four of them. They first selected the area for excavation, then dug a large trench to determine the stratification and the most promising cultural layers of the site. The area was divided into a number of subsections. Starting from the trench, rows of parallel trenches were dug, each of them then divided into a trenchunit of four square metres; one by one, the trenches were excavated until virgin soil was reached. Artefacts were registered with exact location numbers. The details and contents of each trench were planned, and sections of detailed stratification drawn; all architectural features were carefully planned and recorded. When the excavation was finished, all records were joined together to present the full view of the site. The report of the excavations was written in a standard format covering, 1) Discovery, 2) Geographical background, 3) Finds, including 66 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

stratification, water drainage and architectural foundations, 4) Artefacts, divided by material (pottery, textile, stone, metal, etc.), and 5) Conclusions. There was also an English summary. This format for writing up archaeological reports is the standard format still today. 21 By the time Xia Nai returned to China, the IPH and the National Museum had moved from Yunnan to Sichuang. Xia’s old mentor, Liang Siyong, was suffering from bad health, and could not carry out further fieldwork. Xia then joined with Wu and Zeng, and for more than a year they excavated some Han dynasty cliff burials in Sichuan. In 1944, the Academia Sinica organised a scientific expedition to Northwestern China. Sensing the opportunity to undertake independent excavations, Xia joined the archaeological team to go to Gansu. Over a period of two years, he surveyed and excavated, almost single-handedly, more than a dozen archaeological sites. Among them were two sites both of which had been excavated previously by Andersson in the 1920s. Andersson (1943) had argued that the Qijia culture was earlier than the Yangshao Culture; however, Xia excavated two undisturbed Qijia culture tombs, and found some Yangshao Culture pottery sherds in the refilled soil of the burials. This proved that Yangshao Culture must have been earlier than the Qijia culture (Xia Nai 2001 (1): pp257-268). This discovery was hailed as “a new landmark of Chinese prehistoric archaeology,” and “the end of an era in which Chinese archaeology was controlled by foreign scholars” (Wang Zhongshu 1986: pII). Xia also excavated a cemetery belonging to the Majiayao culture (Xia Nai 2000 (1): pp269-310), digging two test trenches before excavating any tombs, allowing him to observe the stratification of the site. In interpreting the ‘secondary’ and ‘cremation’ burials, he cited A L Kroeber’s and W H R Rivers’ publications, in addition to Hasting’s Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, demonstrating that he was able to incorporate some of the western theories about which he had read while in London (and see below). In 1949, as the Nationalist government was defeated by the Communists led by Mao, the Academia Sinica, including the IPH, moved to Taiwan, taking with them all archaeological material packed in wooden boxes. However, not everyone left. Wu Jinding had died a year earlier. Xia and Liang decided to stay; Zeng, who was on the staff of the National Museum, also remained in mainland China. These western trained archaeologists played a rôle in re-establishing the subject in the new China. In 1950, Peking University set up an archaeology course in its History Department, and soon began to offer a degree of ‘archaeological specialisation (kaogu zhuanye)’ (See Zhao Hui, Chapter 3). Xia and Liang were both appointed as Deputy Directors of the newly established Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Xia led several excavations in Henan, Hunan, and Beijing, and his fieldwork method was admired by all his colleagues (Wang Zhongshu Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 67

1987; Wang Shimin 1987). However, his method was criticised in the Anti-Rightists movement in the 1950s, for his ‘capitalist directions’ (See Beida 1958). But Xia was more than just an excavator, he was also an educator. From 1952 to 1955, the National Bureau of Cultural Relics, together with Peking University and the Institute of Archaeology, organised four short (three months) courses to train field workers. All students were selected from various museums and cultural relic offices in different provinces. The course was designed to give students a basic knowledge of archaeology, in particular the ability to excavate; thus, it was divided into six weeks of classroom study and six weeks of field practice. Xia helped to design the syllabus. The course covered (a) the origin of the term ‘archaeology,’ (b) the definition of archaeology, (c) conceptions and methods in archaeology, (d) field archaeology, (e) the past and future of Chinese archaeology, (f) the development of European and Soviet field archaeology, (g) current Chinese archaeology, and (h) conclusion. From the second year (1953), Xia took over the lecture on ‘field archaeology: survey and excavation,’ and particularly mentioned the pioneering work of Flinders Petrie (1904), and Xia concluded by saying that excavation was destruction and should be avoided at all cost unless accompanied with the appropriate techniques; he also called for government control of all archaeological excavations (Xia Nai 2000 (1): pp170-77; first published in 1952). Xia later wrote a chapter on methods of field archaeology in ‘Basics of Archaeology’ (Xia Nai 2000 (1): pp178-198; first published in 1959), detailing every aspect of field archaeology, a work which has since become the ‘bible’ for every archaeologist in China. On Xia’s death in 1985, K C Chang commented, “his passing meant the end of the era in Chinese archaeology dominated by Western-trained scholars (Li, Pei, Liang, and Xia), and the baton is now carried by scholars of a wholly new generation” (Chang 1986: p444).

Concluding Discussion During the 19930s and 1940s Petrie and Wheeler at UCL established systematic training in field excavation. As part of the training, they took their students to work at English sites as well as overseas. This has been proven to be the most effective teaching for all archaeology students, including foreign students studying at British universities. The international nature of this operation has since remained an important aspect of British archaeology. It is in this context that the connection between British and Chinese archaeology becomes evident. As has been seen, there is clear evidence that a western type of ‘scientific,’ modern archaeology was introduced into China via a variety of direct and indirect agents, from a variety of sources, including Europe and the USA. Nor can there be any doubt of the inf luence of English archaeological training in the development of Chinese archaeology under the three eminent Chinese students who returned to China from London in the late 1930s and early 1940s. 68 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

In tracing these strands of influence and the careers of the three Chinese London University students, a number of interesting observations and questions have arisen. The first curiosity is that of the three, only one of their dissertations/theses was ever published in English: Wu’s analysis of a type of Chinese pottery, while Xia’s Egyptological bead reanalysis was not, despite his examiners’ view that “if published [it] will provide a standard textbook on Ancient Egyptian Beads for at least a generation” (see Note 14). It may be that, at first, Xia’s thesis was not published in English as a result of the wartime shortage of resources, but it has remained as a manuscript in the dust of the university library for over 60 years, ever since Wu’s book only aroused limited interest among western art historians of China. Another curiosity is the 1930s Chinese view of archaeology, and the needs of archaeology in China in particular, as represented in the confidential interchange 22 between Zeng and the Director of the IPH (see above), that is the assumption that duplication of specialism was to be avoided. Presumably, despite the vast size and complexity of China and its archaeological heritage there was, in the 1930s, no concept of a comparative archaeology between China and elsewhere, only an apparent desire to have one specialist aspect of the western archaeological discipline in existence somewhere within China. Yet it is also striking that there appears to have been a considerable disdain of the archaeological situation outside of China. Such disdain appears to have been not only focused on the inadequacies of teaching and studying Chinese archaeology in England, but with the whole higher degree structure and organisation in England. Dissertations on Chinese topics could dupe the teachers, courses need not be completed, mediocre staff welcomed Chinese (and other foreign?) students only for show, and so on. Only the freedom offered by the structure of the University of London at that time, whereby students could attend lectures and activities in any of its constituent colleges and institutions, appears to have been appreciated. Above all, perhaps, this chapter has revealed the complexity of the thoughts and actions of a man such as Xia Nai. For example, on the one hand – at least in his later years – he frequently told people that his teachers had been Petrie and Wheeler. This is confirmed by two biographical works (Wang Zhongshu 1986; Wang Shimin 1987). Wang Zhongshu’s paper was approved by Xia himself (see Xia Nai 2000 (1): p1), both worked as his assistants at the Institute of Archaeology. On the other hand, however, he allegedly warned off Zeng from studying “scientific courses such as ‘survey,’ ‘mapping’ ‘geology’...” (Wang Zhongshu 1986), exactly those subjects for which he had joined Petrie’s Egyptology Department and had dug at Maiden Castle. It is indeed with respect to fieldwork methods that Xia appears at his most ambiguous: on the one hand, the most attentive of students recording every detail in his notebook and gaining field experience in the Near East and, on the other, using field techniques as his main example of domination by nonWang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 69

Chinese of the subject of archaeology – “how [can] we, the Chinese, take over field archaeology that [has] always been under a semi-colonised context... and make it into a Chinese archaeology of a high scientific standard” (Xia Nai 2000 (1). There appear to be signs of this anti-West (or pro-Chinese) sentiment already by the time of his discoveries about the Yangshao and Qijia cultures in the middle 1940s. Again, seemingly somewhat contradictorily, Xia was happy to accept a large number of foreign honours, and to travel abroad (still in 1985), while at the same time maintaining his opposition to any suggestions of western co-operation in Chinese archaeology. The late K C Chang told a story that his attempted cooperation with Tang Enzheng of the Sichuan University in the 1980s was cancelled by Xia (Chang 1996). Probably some of these seeming contradictions were dictated by local politics and circumstances. Xia’s post-England career has been relatively well documented, including his attitudes to the Chinese state (eg Evasdottir 2004: pp156-158). Despite being “one of the most powerful archaeologists of the Maoist era,” holding “the highest position within the archaeological community,” and being “... without doubt the most powerful and authoritarian archaeologist in the central government” (Evasdottir 2004: pp156-57, p208). He was also forced to excavate the imperial Ming tomb of Ding Ling without adequate resources; and therefore he had no choice but to witness the lack of conservation, and even eventually the destruction, of much of its organic funerary goods (and see Yue and Shi 1996). For someone who had concluded a lecture on ‘field archaeology: survey and excavation’ by saying that excavation was destruction and should be avoided at all cost unless accompanied with the appropriate techniques (see above), Xia must surely have painfully realised that this episode negated much that he had been taught during his studies overseas. He had, however, successfully resisted the order to excavate the Tang royal cemetery in Shaanxi in the 1960s (Wang Zhongshu 1986: pIV). We do not know whether he thought back to his own warnings about the dangers of inadequate archaeology sliding into mere vandalism. Much has changed since Xia Nai died and, in the last decade, the development of Chinese archaeology has become transformed, including new ideas and the introduction of western methods in fieldwork. Many Chinese archaeologists are now working side by side with western colleagues, challenging and exploring each others’ methods and principles. This is not to say that Chinese archaeological field training is indistinguishable from western training, or that the questions being asked of the archaeological data are the same, whether Chinese or western. On the contrary, the learning of ceramic and metal typologies as part of fieldwork training remains distinctively Chinese (and see Ucko and Wang In Preparation), and, as stressed in Chapter 6, there is no universal way of excavation which applies to all different site types and deposits, so specific Chinese methods continue to be applied based on the attributes of deposits and their formation in different time periods. 70 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Acknowledgements We are very grateful to Barbara Thompson, Virginia Morck and David Whitaker of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and Gillian Furlong of the UCL Library Special Collections for the generous time and help given in the course of the research for this chapter. We would also like to thank David Harris, David Norse, Stephen Quirke, Stephen Shennan and others who commented on an earlier draft of this chapter, and Roya Arab, Pang Rui and Xu Zhiyin (Judy) for their constant help and support.

Notes 1

Maybe PU, rather as Margaret Murray had been forced to do at Abydos in 1902/3 (Murray 1963: pp117118), and Olga Tufnell likewise at Tell Fara in 1927 (Henry 1985: p2), had to learn quicker than most for, shortly after setting up camp at one of the sites, the Greek Director of Excavations had to leave for acute dental treatment, leaving PU for days in sole charge of his first excavation!

Some of the Cretan workforce at Knossos had actually worked for Sir Arthur Evans at the turn of the century and several had also acquired extensive digging experience elsewhere. However, reliance could be misplaced! For example, in the midst of the flurry of trying to cope with the burnt brick and the closure of the site, some white feather-like material appeared under the floors (?beds) of some of the neolithic houses. Bothered by this, PU asked for assistance from experienced Hippocrates, who determined the ‘powder’ to be the remains of chicken-bones. Unconvinced, PU’s further questioning of others of the Cretan archaeological workforce produced a uniform confirmation of the chicken interpretation. Only later, after assessment by a physical anthropologist, was the ‘white feather-like powder’ reinterpreted as human embryos and stillborn infants, and only later still did PU manage to have the page proofs altered at the last moment to correct the captions, ‘Bird baby 1,’ ‘Bird baby 2.’

Of course, many Classical Archaeologists see the beginning of their studies as occurring in the Renaissance.

Additionally, several Japanese archaeologists, including Zuicho Tochibana (1890-1968), Ryuzo Torii (1970- 1953) and Hamada Kosaku (1881-1938) had carried out excavations in Chinese Central Asia and the Northeastern region of China (Chen Xingcan 1997: pp42-52; Su Rongyu 2004: pp430-434).

One possible exception was the Sino-Swedish expedition funded by Lufthansa from 1927 to 1935, of which Seven Hedin was the team leader, but with participants from European countries as well as China, including Huang Wenbi (1893-1966), then a young lecturer at Peking University who later became a leading figure in the Chinese archaeology of Xinjiang (Chen Xingcan 1997: pp99-100).

Later, his influence was still paramount, but limited to Taiwan.

It appears from the Courtauld archives that Yetts was first appointed to a temporary lectureship in August 1932, and that it had been made clear to him that his appointment as Lecturer in October 1933 would not be continued if he was not appointed to the envisaged Professorial Chair.

Yetts himself was by no means an archaeologist. He had been trained in medicine, with a long service in the Royal Naval Medical Service and various government ministries. He had been posted to Beijing for a few years where he learnt the Chinese language. Yetts was an amateur artist and an expert in Chinese art, particular ancient bronzes, and he had published several important private collections, including the Eumorfopoulos Collection of Chinese and Korean Bronzes, Sculpture, etc. As far as is known, his only direct archaeological experience was a visit to the excavations at Anyang. In his obituary for Yetts, Xia (1958) called him ‘an English sinologist who was friendly to China and its people.’

Not from University College London, as stated by Field and Wang (1997: p38).

The reliability of several of Janssen’s unreferenced accounts must be treated with considerable caution. It is possible that her remark (Janssen 1992: p37) that “Xia Nai (Mr Shiah) arrived at UCL ... knowing no English whatsoever’ is simply an exaggeration of what Drower wrote to her parents in December 1937: “[Xia] suffers from a complete inability to distinguish between definite and indefinite articles, so he leaves them out. The result is that his paper has no ‘a’ or ‘the’ in it at all, and the sense is often obscured in consequence.’” Indeed, it is highly unlikely that someone with Xia’s background and archaeological experience would not have had at least a good reading knowledge of English. Xia (2000 (1): p169) recalled meeting Wheeler for the first time, when he had been asked to change his smart jacket for something more suitable for fieldwork. He also recorded his Maiden Castle experiences in his personal diary, in which he wrote down meticulously every detail of the excavation methods employed by Wheeler. It is perhaps difficult to square either of these accounts with Janssen’s claim that Xia knew no English when he arrived in London.

Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 71

Finally, Janssen’s (1992: p28) denial of ‘rule-bending’ with regard to the appointment of Glanville to a two-year Readership to nullify one of Amelia Edwards’ original stipulations in her bequest prior to Glanville’s appointment to the Edwards Chair ignores the Provost’s letter of 10/1/1933 to Glanville in which he remarks, “I am still investigating possible ways of getting round the Will of this eccentric old lady.” 11

The history of beads had already been highlighted as a vital and significant future research project in Petrie’s 1893 first lecture at UCL (Janssen 1992: p101).

The securing of the funding for this overseas research trip represents a most curious story in itself. On the occasion of her retirement, Murray’s friends and students were invited to subscribe to a fund to create a ‘Margaret Murray Prize’ to be awarded to students of the Department of Egyptology. Those signing the invitation to subscribe included many of the personalities who feature in this chapter, notably including Glanville, Mackay, Petrie, Tessa Wheeler, and Yetts. The recommendation to College to accept the terms of the Margaret Murray Prize stated that it was ‘to be awarded triennially in recognition of distinguished work done during the preceding triennium in the Department of Egyptology, provided that this work has involved first-hand study of Egyptian antiquities.’ The value of the Prize was £20. Meanwhile, there existed a Thomas Douglas Murray (1841-1911) Scholarship in Egyptology, value £80, which could be awarded largely at the discretion of the Edwards Professor of Egyptology. At the time of the drawing up of the terms of the Margaret Murray Prize in the 1930s the Scholarship, a ‘Travelling Scholarship’ intended for scholars ‘to visit Egypt and to engage in research in Egyptology,’ had never yet been awarded. The recommendations to College regarding the Margaret Murray Prize included the view that the Douglas Murray scholarship should be awarded “on similar lines [to the Prize] in order that both awards should be given simultaneously to the same candidate and thus provide a really valuable prize for the encouragement of research.” There were some obvious difficulties regarding this recommendation since the Margaret Murray Prize was intended for someone after the completion of work, while the Douglas Murray Scholarship was intended to be made before a visit to Egypt had taken place, and therefore before associated research had been undertaken. Despite these difficulties, these two awards were indeed made to one and the same person, as is demonstrated by a furiously indignant letter from Margaret Murray (17/5/1941) to the Provost insisting that the two awards be kept entirely distinct and “if this is impossible, then please eliminate my name from the Prize. I strongly object to having my name associated with that of a man [Douglas Murray] for whose work I have a profound contempt.” A few days later the then Provost, Sir Allen Mawer, checked matters with Glanville, noting that “the awards have been made to the same person,” and admitting that “by some unlucky mischance in the actual list in the Calendar 1939-40 the Margaret Murray Prize is spoken of as the Margaret Murray Scholarship...” Xia Nai’s student record card shows that he was the recipient on 6 July 1939 of the above two awards (UCL Calendar 1939/40: 560), but it has not been possible to find a committee record of this decision. At this time Glanville was the Dean of Faculty.

Professor H S Smith (personal communication 19/11/2006) believes that Xia “found the means somehow to send his completed PhD thesis to Glanville” from China. The University of London Senate Minutes 113-114 of 23 October 1946 record that on 31 July 1946 a suspension of the regulations was approved to allow Nae Shiah to be exempted from an oral examination for the PhD degree and that the degree be conferred upon him. The Minutes state that his examiners, Professor S R K Glanville and Mr O Myers, recommend award of the degree without submitting the candidate to an oral examination, “partly because it would be no more than a formality, and partly because the candidate is in China.” The examiners stated: The results of his work, if published will provide a standard textbook on Ancient Egyptian Beads for at least a generation and will at the same time place the whole subject on a scientific basis. The publication will also be an indispensable reference work for Egyptologists in the field and in museums. The thesis is a model of good sense. The main outlines are developed logically and systematically; the detail is filled in with scientific precision. The candidate has read and digested all the relevant literature so far as we can tell. He has frequently found himself compelled to differ from the accepted views of well-known authorities, but does so with an engaging modesty which does not detract from the force of his arguments.

University College was founded in 1827 to admit students ‘without distinction of colour, caste, creed, or sex’ and had its own Royal Charter, allowing it to grant its own degrees and to teach whatever subjects it wished (eg archaeology). When the University of London was created in 1836, University College became University College London (UCL). The UCL Chair in Archaeology was established in 1881 with a Classical Archaeologist (Greek art) appointee. In 1885 the Chair was endowed as the Yates Professorship, with R S Poole, then Keeper of Coins in the British Museum, being appointed in 1889. In 1892 UCL also established its Chair of Egyptology which ‘necessitated a rearrangement of the studies to be grouped under the name of

72 | FROM CONCEPTS OF THE PAST TO PRACTICAL STRATEGIES: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques

Archaeology. In 1896 the Council obtained the approval of the Charity Commissioners of a scheme by which the Yates professorship should be mainly devoted to Classical Archaeology’ (Bellot 1929: p384). There were at other times, and now again, other departments teaching archaeology within the University of London: for example, the Courtauld Institute of Art (see above, p. XX); the School of Oriental and African Studies which, as the School of Oriental Studies in the 1930s both took over some extra-European archaeological positions from other institutions of London University, or shared positions with them (eg in 1933 an Honorary Lectureship on Indian Arts and Crafts was shared between it and UCL). 16

It should be noted that Mortimer Wheeler was still castigating the state of archaeology in the 1920s: “... it is difficult to visualise the primitive state of archaeology in the early and mid ‘twenties... To the great mass of professed antiquarian opinion the art of excavation was a hidden mystery” (Wheeler 1955: p87). Jacquetta Hawkes (1982: pp80-82) more temperately points out that since the mid 19th century there had been both relatively good and relatively bad excavations, and stressed that Wheeler had recognised the outstanding work of Pitt-Rivers as excavator, whose work formed the starting point for his own methods and insistence on the vital nature of comprehending and representing stratification (Hawkes 1982: p86; Lucas 2001: p36ff ).

In sessions 1932/33 and 1933/34, Yetts taught courses on ‘Buddhist Sculpture in China,’ ‘Chinese Civilisation under the Han Dynasty’ with main subjects ‘Contact with nomads and its effect on Chinese culture,’ ‘Animal art of the steppes,’ ‘Communications with the Western world,’ ‘Characteristics of Han art,’ ‘Religious beliefs and social institutions,’ and nine one-hour classes on ‘Chinese Script and Epigraphy.’

This may have led to some mutual rivalry between Petrie and Wheeler. Indeed, Seton-Williams (1988: p24) reports that she was dissuaded away from Egyptology by Wheeler who, instead, had her register for the one year Prehistoric Postgraduate Diploma in UCL’s Department of Archaeology. The apotheosis of their academic collaboration saw Wheeler agreeing in the early 1930s to house Petrie’s Palestinian collection within his Institute of Archaeology of London University which was to be formally opened in 1937, in return for Petrie’s financial support (Wheeler 1995: pp88-90; Ucko 2000; Sparks and Ucko 2007). The culmination of their mutual respect and friendship took place in 1942 when Wheeler travelled to Jerusalem to visit the dying Petrie in hospital (Hawkes 1982: pp207-08).

The publication of Xia’ diary has been prepared by Professor Wang Shimin of the Institute of Archaeology, CASS. WT is grateful to Professor Wang for letting him read the relevant part on the Maiden Castle excavation.

Professor H S Smith (personal communication 19/11/2006) believes that the arrangements for Xia to excavate overseas would have been made by Glanville who “put very strong emphasis on the desirability [of his students gaining field experience in England or overseas], and was very adept at persuading colleagues to take really able students on their digs... When he started the BA in Egyptology, [Glanville] tried hard to get the College and Ministry of Education to accept a fieldwork/study term in Egypt as a requirement – but failed.”

Interestingly, the report was published in 1942 when the Sino-Japanese war was in its most crucial stage. Wu, Wang and Zeng managed to send a copy of it to the Courtauld Institute of Art, via the Sino-British Science Co-operation Office (signed on the cover). The original book is now in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies. The library record show that it has rarely been borrowed since.

Zeng’s letter was headed by the request to Fu Sinian to destroy her communication after he had read it.

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Liang Siyong 1959: Liang Siyong kaogu lunwenji. Beijing: Kexue chubanshe. Lucas, G 2001: Critical Approaches to Fieldwork. Contemporary and Historical Archaeological Practice. London: Routledge. Mengoni, L E 2005: Archaism and Innovation: The Collection of Chinese Bronzes from the Museum Duca di Martina in Naples, Art Dec 3, 49-59. Murray, M 1961: First Steps in Archaeology. Antiquity 25, pp8-13. — 1963a: My First Hundred Years. London: William Kimber. — 1963b: Centenary. Antiquity 37, pp92-95. Murray, S O 1999: ‘Dixon, Roland Burrage.’ in J A Garraty and M C Carnos (eds), American National Biography, pp650-651. New York: Oxford University Press. Petrie, W M Flinders 1892: Ten Years Digging in Egypt (1881-1891). London: The Religious Tract Society. (Petrie’s Introductory Lecture, see Janssen 1992: 98-102). Petrie, W M Flinders 1904: Methods and Aims in Archaeology. London: Macmillan. — 1932: Seventy Years in Archaeology. London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., Ltd. — 1934: Ancient Gaza IV. Tell el Ajjul. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt. Schnapp, A 2002: Between antiquarians and archaeologists – continuities and ruptures. Antiquity 76, pp134-140. Seton-Williams, M V 1988: The Road to El-Aguzein. London and New York: Kegan Paul International. Shi Zhangru 2002: Shi Zhangru xiansheng fangwen jilu (Recorded interviews of Mr Shi Zhangru. Interviewers: Chen Cungong, Chen Zhongyu, Ren Yude, recorder: Ren Yude), Taibei: Zhongyan yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo. Sima Qian 1962: Shiji. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Sparks, R T 2007: ‘Flinders Petrie and the Archaeology of Palestine,’ in A Future for the Past: Petrie’s Palestinian Collection, pp1-12. London: Institute of Archaeology. — and P J Ucko 2007: ‘A History of the Petrie Palestinian Collection,’ in A Future for the Past: Petrie’s Palestinian Collection, pp13-24. London: Institute of Archaeology. Su Rongyu 2004: ‘The reception of concepts of “archaeology” and “prehistory” in Late Qing China’ in M Lackner and N Vittinghoff (eds). Mapping Meanings: The Field of New Learning in Late Imperial China. pp423-450. Leiden: Brill. Tang, J 2004: The Social Organization of Late Shang China – a mortuary perspective. Unpublished PhD thesis. University College London. Tufnell, O 1963: Dr. Margaret Murray. Tribute to a Centenarian. Nature 119. Wang Tao and Peter Ucko | Early Archaeological Fieldwork Practice and Syllabuses in China and England | 75

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From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques Edited by Peter Ucko, Qin Ling and Jane Hubert

Although several manuals on fieldwork techniques exist, and although most definitions of archaeology would specify excavation and fieldwork as the core of archaeological enquiry, this book is the first to undertake a comparative assessment of how such techniques are taught to university students in many different parts of the world. The book is the result of a three-day international conference held by the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA) in Beijing in 2006. The contributors, who come from many parts of the world – Africa, Australia, India, Southeast Asia, South and North America and Europe – present strong arguments on the core theme, concepts of the past, and describe fieldwork practices and teaching in their own countries. This is a ground-breaking work both in its theoretical breadth and range of practical information. It will be invaluable to students and teachers of archaeology and heritage management, educationalists and historians. Editors Peter Ucko was Professor of Comparative Archaeology and Director of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, until 2005. He continued his work until his death in June 2007. Qin Ling is Lecturer in the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University. Jane Hubert is Senior Research Fellow and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at St George’s, University of London. Contributors J O Aleru, Brigitte Cech, Sarah Colley, Rafael Cruz Antillón, Caleb Adebayo Folorunso, Dorian Q Fuller, Luan Fengshi, Marta Luciani, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Timothy D Maxwell, Gustav Milne, Surapol Natapintu, Mike Parker Pearson, Dominic Perring, Innocent Pikirayi, Qin Ling, Stephen Shennan, B J Tubosun, Peter Ucko, Wang Tao, Gamini Wijesuriya, Seonbok Yi, Zhang Chi, Zhao Hui, Zhao Zhijun

From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques Edited by Peter Ucko, Qin Ling and Jane Hubert 352pp | 234 x 156mm | Hard cover ISBN 9781872843704 ISBN-10 1872843700 Saffron Books, an imprint of Eastern Art Publishing (EAP) P O Box 13666, London SW14 8WF, UK W www.eapgroup.com W www.saffronbooks.com E saffronbooks@eapgroup.com