中国考古学世纪的回顾与前瞻

Chinese Archaeology: Centinnal Retrospection and Projection

20世纪的绝大部分时间,基本上是在热战和冷战中度过的。在这个世纪的最后10年,人们终于争来了能憧憬更美好未来的和平与发展的局面。在此世纪转换之际,我们这些从事考古学的人们,不时地出现了前瞻性思考,或禁不住要问:21世纪的考古学将会是怎样的?我们都不是预言家,未来的事情不好预测。不过,前瞻性思考的真理性往往深藏于对往昔的回顾和对今日现实的审察之中。因此,为了思考中国考古学的未来,还得从这个学科的昨天和今天谈起。限于篇幅。

The introduction of archaeology into China in the 1920s initiated the transformationof the narrow-sense histography featuring literal analysis and epigraphy into a broad-senseone, a process which, combined with the 'skepticism of the past'school of the narrow-sense histography, has modernized the historical research in China largely. By the begin-ning of the 1930s, archaeology had grown into an independent discipline,and in the mid1930s,helped historical research to surpass the limitation of skepticism of the past. Its laterdevelopment after 1949,especially since 1978,is impressive theoretically and in terms of spe-cific study,helping much the reconstruction of early history of China. Archaeology has be-come a cornerstone of the research of the era of Xia,Shang and Zhou dynasties and earlier. In the coming century,attention should be paid to some weak areas of Chinese archae-ology. For example,the late Professor Su Bingqi's theory of regional and sequential typolo-gy should be applied to certain areas in combination with his theory of civilization. Re-search of settlement,employment of contemporary science and technology,preservation andprotection of archaeological data,etc.,must also be emphasized.