古代陶器的研究视野——有关中国考古学方法的几点思考

Prospect of Research on Ancient Pottery: Reflections upon the Methods of Archaeology

本文以史前陶器为例，拓展了陶器研究中的新视野：指出陶器并非只是生活用品或文化序列的标志物，它与自然环境、经济方式、社会组织、意识形态等方面均有着密切的关系。而要真正全面了解陶器所潜藏的各种古代文化信息，就必须首先寻找获取信息的新途径。就史前陶器而言，传统的地层学、类型学方法已不能满足考古学发展的新要求，而自然科学技术、考古统计学、民族考古学、实验考古学则是有效地获得材料的主要途径。从某种意义上说，考古方法体系的陈旧比考古理论的滞后更加不利于中国考古学的健康发展。

This article is meant to widen the prospect of study in the potteries, particularly those of prehistorical ones. It is believed that pottery articles are not only utensils for daily uses, or symbols of cultural orders; they are also closely connected with the natural surroundings, economic modes, social organizations, and ideology of the people. In order to fully understand the potentials of its cultural information of the past hidden in the potteries, we should first try to find out new ways for the information of ancient culture. As far as the prehistoric pottery is concerned, traditional methods of stratigraphy and typology can no longer meet the need of the development of modern archaeology, whereas technology of natural sciences, archaeological statistics, ethnical archaeology and experimental archaeology have become the major access to data. In a sense, the old-fashioned system of archaeological methods is the greater hindrance for the development of archaeology in China than the backward archaeological theories.