中国史前地学考古综述

Review on Geoarchaeology of Chinese Prehistory

随着中国考古学的发展,地学考古越来越受到考古学家的重视。作为考古学的一种研究方法,地学考古为考古学家理解遗址的环境背景和地貌演化、遗址的形成过程和保存条件,甚至遗迹的功能和反映的人类活动,都提供了新的视角。与此同时,中国的地学考古并不如植物考古和动物考古等其他科技考古方向发展健全,在田野考古中也没有相应的操作标准。与欧美国家近半个世纪的地学考古的发展相比,中国考古在这方面也并不是一片空白。因此,本文对前人在史前阶段的地学考古工作进行梳理,以促进更多中国考古学家了解和认识地学考古。

Geoarchaeology is being appreciated by increasing archaeologists in China, as Chinese archaeology is growing rapidly. As an archaeological method, geoarchaeology offers new perspectives for archaeologists on understanding the environmental background and geomorphological change, site formation process and preservation conditions,and the function of a feature and the human activity behind. Meanwhile, the status of geoarchaeology in China is not comparable to other branches of archaeological sciences such as archaeobotany and zooarchaeology. No practice protocols of geoarchaeology are suggested yet. Notwithstanding, Chinese archaeologists were not simply waiting while geoarchaeology has been developing for almost half a century in Europe and U.S. Therefore, this article provides a brief summary of geoarchaeology of Chinese prehistory, hopefully to invite more Chinese archaeology to learn of and understand the significance of geoarchaeology.