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Although the scientific field methods used by the western archaeologists enlightened Chinese scholars, the general western research orientations were not considered satisfactory. Paleolithic and Neolithic remains were thought by Chinese scholars to be too remote to be connected directly to early Chinese history (Li 1968). Andersson’s proposal, which traced the origins of the Yangshao culture to the Near East, was even less appealing. As one scholar complained, “the foreign archaeologists in China do not pay any attention to the material which represents indigenous Chinese culture, but are only interested in the remains which indicate cultural connections between China and the West” (Fu 1996, 191).
During the 1920s, a group of Chinese scholars who had received training in modern archaeology at western universities returned to their homeland embued with a great nationalist spirit. The first was li chi, a Ph.D. trained in physical anthropology at Harvard University, and he, with others, launched a series of archaeological research projects in 1926. Excavations in anyang from 1928 to 1937, organized by Li Chi in his position at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, were the first attempts to search for indigenous Chinese cultural origins through archaeology.
The excavations in Anyang yielded numerous material remains, including hundreds of bronze objects, nearly 25,000 pieces of inscribed oracle bones, bronze workshops, palace and temple foundations, and large royal tombs. These discoveries proved the site to be a capital city of the late Shang dynasty and for the first time provided archaeological evidence confirming the existence of an ancient indigenous Chinese culture (Li 1977).
The excavations in Anyang not only marked the beginning of modern field archaeology conducted by Chinese scholars in China but also became a field station where many leading Chinese archaeologists were trained. Most associates of Li Chi who worked in Anyang (such as Tung Tso-pin, Kao Ch’ü-hsun, Shih Chang-ju, Liang Siyong, Guo Baojun, Yin Da, and xia nai) became the first generation of Chinese archaeologists and dominated the field for decades on both sides of the Taiwan Strait (Chang 1986b).
In spite of the success of the archaeological work in Anyang, there was still a gap in the evidence of material cultures between the historical Shang dynasty and the Neolithic Yangshao, as the latter was then regarded as a cultural diffusion from the Near East. Chinese scholars were still dissatisfied with the general notion that predynastic cultures in China were derived from ripples of influence extending from the West. Fu Sinian (1934) made the objection that the study of Chinese history by foreigners was mainly focused on Sino-foreign relationships, which was only a “semi-Chinese” (ban Han) endeavor. However, he continued, the more important issues to be studied were those “completely Chinese” (quan Han), that is, concerned with building the basic structure of Chinese history.
The cultural disconnection between Yangshao and Anyang encouraged archaeologists to search for the direct progenitor of the Shang, and the general consensus among archaeologists and historians was that the most likely area was in eastern China. After work at Anyang was halted around 1930 owing to civil war, the excavation team moved its operations to Chengziyai in Longshan township, Shandong Province, where Wu Jinding’s previous preliminary surveys revealed potential archaeological discoveries (Fu 1934; Li 1990).
The excavations at Chengziyai were more fruitful than the excavators had expected. Distinctive from the Yangshao painted pottery, the black pottery from Chengziyai was similar to the Neolithic remains found at Hougang in Anyang, which lay directly beneath the Shang cultural remains. Uninscribed oracle bones found at Chengziyai provided an even more direct link between the Longshan and Shang cultures. The Longshan culture of black pottery in the east (representing indigenous Chinese culture) thus came to be viewed as a system independent of the Yangshao culture of painted pottery in the west (thought to be the result of
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