to summarize national history, and archaeology is pledged to trace the origins and to demonstrate the processes of this history. Since recorded dynastic history did not begin until about 2000 b.c., much effort has been made to connect regional Neolithic cultural developments with the activities of predynastic legendary kings and sages in order to fill the time gap of 1,000 years. Attempts have also been made to link certain cultural achievements with the dawn of civilization, such as the manufacture of jade objects and the construction of large ceremonial monuments, which are traceable to the Neolithic period.

As a consequence, not only are legends read as reliable history and used to interpret Neolithic archaeology, but the origins of Chinese civilization are pushed back 1,000 or more years to match counterparts in mesopotamia and Egypt (Su 1988, 1997). In the early twentieth century, when the yigupai questioned traditional texts, they hoped that archaeologists would uncover reliable ancient history from the field. For many archaeologists today, these legendary accounts are like blueprints for reconstructing prehistory, and the yigupai have become the target of criticism (Li 1994).

A state-directed project in the 1990s pushed this endeavor to its peak. In a visit to Egypt, Song Jian, the state counselor (guowu weiyuan), was introduced to a detailed chronological record of dynastic Egypt that started from 3100 b.c. Dissatisfied with the Chinese dynastic chronology, which is not only 1,000 years later but also less precise than that of Egypt, Song Jian called for a project to reconstruct an accurate chronology of the three dynasties so that Chinese civilization would be comparable to Egypt’s (Song 1996). This project, known as the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, was officially launched in 1996. For nearly four years, some 170 experts in history, archaeology, astronomy, and radiocarbon-dating technology were involved in the project, focusing on nine primary research topics, which were further divided into thirty-six subtopics. The budget was about 17 million yuan (US$2.1 million), and archaeology certainly benefited from such a generous financial commitment from the state, which supported some major excavations. The project achieved four objectives (Jiang 1999):

  1. 1.  to provide accurate dates for a time period from the conquest of the Shang by the Zhou to the beginning of recorded chronology in 841 b.c.
  2. 2.  to determine relatively accurate chronology for the late Shang period
  3. 3.  to define a relatively detailed time frame for the early Shang period
  4. 4.  to outline a basic time frame for the Xia dynasty

The chronology of the three dynasties has indeed become more precise and detailed than before, but the project has not made Chinese civilization temporally comparable with some older civilizations in other parts of the world.

Encouraged by the achievement of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, a new research organization, the Center for the Study of Civilization, was recently established in the Department of Archaeology at Beijing University. Archaeologists are now determined to find the ultimate origins of Chinese civilization, which ought to be embedded in the Neolithic cultures (Center for the Study of Ancient Civilization, Beijing University 1999).

International Collaborative Research in China

Since the 1980s, scholarly exchange between China and foreign countries has increased dramatically. It has also moved on from exchanging ideas at international conferences to conducting field research. In 1991, the Chinese National Bureau of Cultural Relics released a document on policies for Sino-foreign collaborative research in archaeology (National Bureau of Cultural Relics 1992), which, after more than forty years, reopened the door to foreign archaeologists wanting to working on Chinese archaeology.

Many collaborative projects have been carried out in recent years in regions across the country, international scholarly exchange has introduced western theories to China, and these theories have, to some extent, enriched research orientations and interpretations. New methods and technologies have been introduced in fieldwork and laboratory analyses, including, to name a few, the use of the flotation method in recovering macrofaunal and macrofloral remains;