China News Agency, Beijing, February 25th, title: Wang Wei: Chinese archeology needs to meet all living beings
"China News Weekly" reporter Ni Wei
Wang Wei, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, director of the History Department, chairman of the Chinese Archaeological Society, served as the chief expert and executive expert group leader of the Chinese Civilization Discovery Project from 2002 to 2016.
He is one of the most photographed archaeologists on the screen and the chief expert of the Chinese Civilization Discovery Project; he is a "knowledgeable" of Chinese archeology and an enthusiastic popularizer of science; he has traveled to many archaeological sites and personally excavated Evidence is also written in the study, allowing the "cold and lonely" archeology to have a dialogue with all living beings.
archaeological pusher
The Ministry of Education invited Wang Wei to participate in the review of junior high school history textbooks.
He opened the textbook for the first grade of junior high school, and the opening chapter was Chinese prehistory. The archaeological results included the cave man skull, Banpo and Hemudu sites, etc. Archaeological progress after 1975 was not included.
The prehistory that children learn has been "limited" half a century ago.
Wang Wei began to revise the textbook, adding rice cultivation at the Shangshan site on the Pujiang River in Zhejiang ten thousand years ago, bone flutes at the Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan Province eight thousand years ago, and the giant city and water conservancy projects at the Liangzhu site in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province five thousand years ago. .
These are important discoveries that have rewritten history in recent decades.
After 2019, archeology has become a hot topic, and the attention of the whole people has increased sharply.
The new round of excavations at the Sanxingdui site started in 2020 is the most typical. Thousands of unique bronzes were unearthed in six artifact pits.
CCTV moved the live broadcast room to the archaeological site, and Wang Wei interpreted it for the public as an expert.
In 2022, Wang Wei (right) inspected newly unearthed cultural relics at the archaeological site of the Sanxingdui site.
Photo provided by the interviewee
2022 is the 20th anniversary of the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project.
In May, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China conducted the 39th collective study on the project of deepening the exploration of the origin of Chinese civilization. Wang Wei gave a report explaining the ins and outs and achievements of the project.
The project brings together 20 different disciplines, combining natural science and archaeology to find the source of Chinese civilization.
This is the largest joint research project in the history of Chinese archaeology.
It is also his important job to popularize this academic project to the public.
In recent years, there have been variety shows, documentaries and public lectures on the theme of archeology and cultural relics on the screen, and Wang Wei has become one of the most photographed archaeologists.
He is also worthy of this position. He has been the director of the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the chairman of the Chinese Archaeological Society for ten years.
From the field and the study to the screen, Wang Wei's "transformation" also reflects the changes in Chinese archaeology.
2022 is the 101st year since the birth of modern Chinese archaeology, and entering the second 100 years, Chinese archeology is no longer just digging and sorting out, but is moving towards interpretation and seeing all living beings.
In the second half of 2022, Wang Wei inspected the Lingjiatan site in Ma'anshan City, Anhui Province, which surprised him again and again.
Following the discovery of tombs in the early years, traces of high-level public buildings were found in Lingjiatan.
More than 60 stone axes symbolizing military power were unearthed from a sacrificial pit, one of which was the largest Neolithic ax discovered in China.
These discoveries may add to the length of the history of Chinese civilization.
Tourists visit the tomb sacrificial area of Lingjiatan National Archaeological Site Park.
Photo by Zhang Qiang
The Liangzhu ruins in Zhejiang, not far from Lingjiatan, are the most powerful evidence of the 5,000-year Chinese civilization. There are city walls, tombs, palaces, altars, etc. inside.
But the Liangzhu civilization with all internal organs is like a young man. Where is its childhood?
Wang Wei has always wanted to find this place.
Jade artifacts similar to those of Liangzhu were unearthed in Lingjiatan, which is speculated to be the predecessor of Liangzhu. Now the chain of evidence is more and more complete.
"The Liangzhu ruins have demonstrated a civilization of 5,000 years, and the age of high-grade buildings in Lingjiatan is 5,500 to 5,350 years ago. Therefore, the Lingjiatan ruins may be evidence of a civilization of more than 5,000 years in China," said Wang Wei. : "This word 'many' is amazing."
An octagonal star-shaped jade plate unearthed in Lingjiatan.
Photo by Shi Chunyang
The main battlefield and the source of civilization
Wang Wei has been in the industry for 40 years, and has gone through the whole process of archaeological development since China's reform and opening up.
He divided his career into two parts. The first 20 years were East Asian archaeology and Xia, Shang and Zhou archaeology, and the last 20 years were mainly field archaeology.
Wang Wei was born in an intellectual family in Changchun, his parents were college students.
He jumped into the queue in the second year of junior high school, and then returned to the city to work as a worker. He served as a propaganda committee member of the factory trade union, deputy director of the trade union, vice chairman of the district trade union, and deputy secretary of the commune.
When the college entrance examination was resumed in 1977, he worked as the deputy secretary of the commune in Changchun.
One day, he watched a TV feature and found it very interesting. It talked about the achievements of Chinese archaeology in the past ten years, including the spectacular unearthed scenes of the Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses, Mawangdui Han Tomb, Mancheng Han Tomb, and Yinxu Fuhao Tomb.
When filling out the volunteer application, he wanted to apply for science, but there were many lack of classes in middle school, and his foundation was not good.
The old leader of the factory unintentionally said: Archeology is the science of the liberal arts.
He remembered the feature film and applied for archaeology.
At the age of 23, Wang Wei was admitted to Jilin University majoring in archeology.
Archaeologist Zhang Zhongpei is based in Jida Archeology and studied under the famous archaeologist Su Bingqi. He has profound attainments and later served as the director of the Palace Museum.
Zhang Zhongpei valued his mastery of field archaeology, and asked students to practice in Yu County, Zhangjiakou, Hebei, and undertake the task of investigating the ruins of the whole county.
Wang Wei and his classmate were in a group of two, lying down in front of ditch ridges and cliffs to look at cross-sections, analyze strata, find prehistoric relics, and found the first remains of the Xia Dynasty in Zhangjiakou area.
After graduation, Wang Wei worked at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and presided over the five-year excavation of the Zhouyandu site in the west of Liulihe in Fangshan, Beijing.
He became famous for his successful excavation of the carriage.
The wooden carriages in the tomb had long since decayed, and had been disassembled during the burial, so they were not complete. Only the color and softness of the soil where the wood rotted were slightly different. However, Wang Wei discovered 21 pits for carriages and horses.
"There is no trick, just find the soil in the soil, and be meticulous." Wang Wei said.
Western Zhou Yandu Ruins Museum.
Photo by Guo Junfeng
In the late 1980s, he went to study in Nara, Japan for three years.
In the three archaeological projects he participated in, although there were few cultural relics unearthed, his Japanese counterparts worked meticulously, recording the latitude and longitude of each pottery, using advanced total stations, and inputting data into computers.
In addition, there are two things that impressed him deeply. One is that great experts write small books for ordinary readers and do science popularization in person; the other is the international perspective, as soon as new discoveries are made, they are immediately compared with those in China, South Korea and other places.
After receiving his first doctorate degree from Kyushu University, a Japanese national university offered him a high annual salary as a researcher, and his annual income was dozens of times that in China.
But he returned to China.
After returning to China, facing the choice of academic direction, he asked his teacher Zhang Zhongpei for advice, and the teacher said five words: return to the main battlefield.
The main battlefield at that time was Chinese archaeology, and there were countless ruins and mysteries in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties.
As a result, he re-entered the historical labyrinth of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and successively presided over projects such as the Yanshi Commercial City in Henan, the Western Zhou Palace and Ancestral Temple in Zhouyuan, Shaanxi, and the Xiaomintun Site at Yinxu in Anyang, Henan, all of which achieved important results.
Erlitou Cultural Mall Ruins in Yanshi City, Luoyang City, Henan Province.
Photo by Zhou Qinjun
At that time, the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties project, a century project, had started, establishing a chronology for the three ancient dynasties.
Wang Wei undertook the research project of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
The dating project was completed in 2000, opening up a new paradigm of archaeological research involving multidisciplinary participation.
After that, Wang Wei and experts jointly planned, through the extensive integration of natural sciences and archaeology, trying to take the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Xiliao River as the axis of the three birthplaces of Chinese prehistoric civilization to comprehensively explore the picture of the origin stage of Chinese civilization.
This is the Chinese Civilization Discovery Project. Wang Wei and Zhao Hui, a professor at the School of Archeology and Museology of Peking University, served as the team leader of the executive expert group until the end of 2016.
The project has united 20 disciplines and more than 400 scholars, using the excavated results to build a theory, turning the 5,000-year Chinese civilization from legend to evidence.
Wang Wei said that the Probe Project will form an "alliance" of prehistoric archaeological projects scattered across the country, from individual operations to collective tackling, and achieve the unity of goals.
"The work of each site has been targeted, that is, to find evidence that proves civilization, and to find the elements that are lacking in each, the most important ones are city sites, palaces, and high-level buildings."
Chinese archeology should move from excavation to interpretation
Archaeologists spend half of their time on the construction site and half of their time in the study.
It's not enough to be a short theorist, and it's not enough to just bury your head in digging for treasure.
The leap from "archaeologist" to archaeologist is a compulsory course for every aspiring archaeologist.
Wang Wei said frankly that one of the shortcomings of Chinese archeology lies not in excavation, but in interpretation.
"The objects we study are real, but the objects themselves do not explain the problem, and need to be interpreted by archaeologists." Wang Wei said.
The interpretation of archaeological achievements can be divided into two types, one is theoretical construction, and the other is popular science.
Compared with the progress of excavation, the theoretical construction of Chinese archaeology is slightly behind.
Contemporary Chinese archaeology lacks original and systematic theories, as well as archaeologists from a strategic position.
In Wang Wei's eyes, among previous generations of archaeologists, Su Bingqi is the real theoretical master.
In the 1980s, when archaeological teams from all over the country discovered new things, they would come to Beijing to see Su Bingqi and answer questions.
Su Bingqi has the temperament of a poet, and he often uses rhetoric in his speech, such as his famous assertion that "the sky is full of stars" as a metaphor for the independent origin of civilizations in prehistoric China.
In his later years, he put forward the theory of six major regions, which was earth-shattering and magnificent.
To this day, projects such as the Chinese Civilization Discovery Project and Archaeological China are still enriched and extended on the basis of Su Bingqi's theory.
How to break through in theory?
Wang Wei said that we must broaden our horizons, not only to apply scientific and technological means, but also to have comprehensive knowledge of humanities and social sciences, and to expand social archaeology, economic archaeology, and spiritual archaeology.
Even within archaeology, being proficient in different eras and fields will change your perspective compared to specializing in one field.
Su Bingqi was born in Qin and Han archaeology, and later dabbled in prehistoric archaeology.
Wang Wei feels that his ability to connect prehistoric civilizations with a grand vision may be related to his overall grasp of the unified multi-ethnic country in the Qin and Han Dynasties.
"For another example, if you look at prehistoric society from the perspective of Xia, Shang and Zhou, you will have a different perspective, because there was a closer connection between the dynasty and the place during the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties." Wang Wei said, "I benefit from this point. Yu Su."
Wang Wei is 69 years old this year. Although he is old enough to be a child, he still travels to archaeological sites across the country every week.
Wang Wei.
Painted by Zhang Ye
For the future, he hopes to do something more in the popularization of archaeology.
In addition to improving textbooks, he also wants to organize experts to write popular science books for all ages, telling the history of China as revealed by the latest archaeological achievements.
Not long ago, he went to Changzhou for inspection. The local area is planning to build a Chinese civilization theme park, transforming archaeological and historical knowledge into amusement projects, and using multimedia technology to entertain and teach.
In Wang Wei's view, theme parks can be large or small, with flexible forms, and can be implemented nationwide.
Wang Wei still remembers that when he was in Japan more than 30 years ago, archaeologists gave lectures on weekends, and citizens bought tickets to enter, and the seats were full, and they carefully recorded in notebooks.
Seeing that the people are so close to archaeology, he is very envious.
Now, China also has such soil, and it is archaeologists who need to work hard.
(over)