19—20世纪之交的文化反省运动及其对文学变革的影响

文学产生代变，一是源于文学自身求变的要求，一是社会文化变革对文学的制约与影响。在社会文化激烈变革时期，后者的影响更为明显。１９—２０世纪之交的文化反省运动，直接推动了文学变革思潮的兴起。文学因此开始进入时代变革大潮的中心并获得鲜明的时代品格。由于文化反省运动的矛盾性和不可避免的缺陷，世纪之交的文学变革思潮也存在着新旧杂糅、中西交错的复杂性。这一思潮虽然在传统文学向现代文学转换中起了巨大的作用，但历史决定其任务必然由后起的五四新文化和新文学运动来完成。

Hydrological changes and settlement migrations in the Keriya River delta in central Tarim Basin ca. 2.7–1.6 ka BP: Inferred from ^(14)C and OSL chronology

Over one hundred artifacts, including shards, chopped wood, bronze and iron ware debris as well as footprints, have been discovered during archaeological investigations at and around the central Taklamakan Desert Yuansha Site (38°52′N, 81°35′E). Dating (14C and OSL) and landform study show that the present-day dry Keriya River once sustained an oasis human settle- ment in 2.6 ka BP, historically falling into the Spring and Autumn Period (716-475 BCE) of Chinese history. The chronology and archaeological interpretations also show that some 400 years later, the local Keriya River channel had shifted 40 km southeast to sustain a Western Han (206 BCE-25 CE) Wumi settlement at the Karadun site. In the meantime, river-channel migration had allowed reoccupation of a site west of Yuansha City around 1.9 ka BP (abandoned again by 1.6 ka BP). The remains' chronology shows that this site was affiliated to Wumi culture and Eastern Han (24-220 CE) dynasty rule. Palaeoclimatic records indicate that the migrations of the river and oasis settlers between 2.7 and 1.6 ka BP were coeval with Central Asian climate changes. Yuansha City was built just after the end of 2.8 ka BP glacier advances in western China, suggesting that release of more water during the subsequent glacier recession may have facilitated oasis development such that Iron Age European peoples could settle in the Tarim Basin. As shown from analysis of archeological remains, not only at Yuansha but also in other ancient cities in the Tarim such as Loulan and Jingjue (Niya), conditions around 1.6 ka BP were dry enough to cause oasis decline. Thus, the results reported here enhance our knowledge about environmental changes and their effects on human activities and cultural evolution in western China and will stimulate further interdisciplinary studies of landscape and oasis history in the Tarim Basin.

The Profound Influence of Linguistic Change on the Development of Modern Chinese Literary Forms

Literature is the art of language, so in the light of the profound influence of linguistic transformation on the development of modem Chinese literary forms it is appropriate to present the history of the development of modern Chinese literature as the art of language. Modern Chinese literature starts with the linguistic transformation of the May Fourth Movement＇s rejection of classical Chinese and promotion of the vernacular. This language revolution and the transformation of literary language during each subsequent historical period have exerted a profound influence on the overall development of modern Chinese literature, including literary forms, and hence have become an inner source of the development and evolution of modern Chinese literary forms and of the shaping of their main characteristics. An in-depth discussion of the interaction between linguistic transformation and the development of modem Chinese literary forms as well as the roles governing this process will not only disclose the universal linguistic context of literary creation created by the transformation of language but will also enable us to find the historical sources of the phenomena of literary genres and forms, writers＇ choice of literary styles, the formal characteristics of literary works, etc., and will offer a correct explanation and evaluation of the May Fourth vernacular movement and the subsequent series of new literary forms andstyles. This is instrumental to achieving a better summation of the experience and lessons of the development of modem Chinese literary forms and to finding historical clues to the development of our present-day literary forms.