Archaeological Research

International Archaeological Projects in China

Shangqiu Project
Zhoukoudian
Shandong Survey and Excavation
Yi-Luo River Survey
Huanbei

Archaeological Research in Shangqiu, China

David Cohen, Robert Murowchick, and Li Yung-ti sort pottery sherds

David J. Cohen (ICEAACH), Robert E. Murowchick (ICEAACH), and Li Yung-ti (Harvard) are part of an international team investigating the early Shang civilization in the North China Plain.

The Investigations into Early Shang Civilization project is a Sino-American multidisciplinary archaeogical research program being undertaken by the Peabody Museum (Harvard University), the Institute of Archaeology (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing), and ICEAACH. This project is centered in the region of great Yellow River flood deposits in the Shangqiu region of eastern Henan Province, China, which has tradtionally been thought to be the homeland of the Shang dynasty and the site of its premier ancestral ritual center, Great City Shang. Because of the 10+ meters of alluvium in the region, the project is searching for traces of the early Shang civilization through an interdisciplinary program of geoarchaeological coring and landscape reconstruction, geophysical remote sensing, and archaeological excavation.

The Early Shang project has excavated three Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the Shangqiu region. The project team has also discovered the lost 1st millennium BC city of Song. Coring has revealed a rammed-earth walled enclosure measuring between 2.9 to 3.6 kilometers on each side. This City Song is thought to have been established by descendants of the Shang on the site of Great City Shang.

The Early Shang project was founded by the late Prof. K.C. Chang of Harvard University, and the American team is now housed at ICEAACH, with Dr. Robert E. Murowchick (ICEAACH Director) serving as Co-Principal Investigator, along with Prof. Zhang Changshou of the Institute of Archaeology. The project has produced two doctoral dissertations, by Dr. Jing Zhichun at the University of Minnesota under Prof, George "Ripp" Rapp on Holocene landscape reconstruction at Shangqiu, and by Dr. David J. Cohen, at Harvard University, on the early Bronze Age Yueshi culture. A monograph report covering nearly a decade of field work by the project is currently in production.

Excavations at Shantaisi, Henan province, China

Excavations at the Neolithic site of Shantaisi, Henan province, China. The Sino-American team, from left: Li Yung-ti (Harvard University), Gao Tianlin (Institute of Archaeology, CASS), Leng Jian (Washington University, St. Louis), Robert Murowchick (Co-PI, Peabody Museum, Harvard and ICEAACH, Boston University), and Zhang Changshou (Co-PI, Institute of Archaeology, CASS).

The discovery of bones of cows, bulls, and a deer provides evidence of animal sacrifice during the Neolithic period.

The earliest sacrificial cattle pit was discovered by the Shangqiu Project at the late Neolithic Longshan culture site of Shantaisi.

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Other Ongoing International Projects in China

Zhoukoudian

An international team including Dr. Ofer Bar-Yosef (Harvard University), Dr. Steve Weiner (professor of structural biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel), Dr. Paul Goldberg (geoarchaeologist, Boston University), and Dr. Xu Qin-qi and Dr. Liu Jin-yi (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing) examined some of the deposits from Layers 10 and 4, previously reported to be among the earliest uses of fire by Homo erectus in Zhoukoudian Cave. They found the putative ashes, more than 500,000 years old, were in fact sediments that were washed into the cave from outside. Burnt bones and stone tools still suggest the presence of fire, but there is no direct evidence that "Peking man" built fires.

Thin section of a sample of a supposed "hearth" from Zhoukoudian, the famed habitation site of "Peking Man"

Photomicrograph of a thin-section of a purported "hearth" at the famed habitation site of "Peking man" in Zhoukoudian, China.

Huanbei

Excavations at Huanbei Shang City in Northern China, photo courtesy of JING Zhichun

Excavations at Huanbei Shang City in Anyang, northern China, have revealed four rammed earth walls enclosing a city dating to the Middle Shang period (ca. 1450-1250 BC). A regional survey of Anyang is being conducted through a Sino-American project between the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. See the article in Archaeology Magazine (Vol. 53, No. 3, May/June 2000) for more details.

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Yi-Luo River Survey

The Yi-Luo River Survey is a
Sino-Australian-American collaborative project that aims to articulate processes underlying the evolution of ancient societies in the Yi-Luo River valley, western Henan province, where the earliest Chinese states emerged. The primary investigation uses regional archaeological survey to investigate changing settlement patterns. This survey is integrated with geo-archaeological, ethnobotanical and ethnozoological studies. The data collected is being used to assess changes in population, environmental parameters, land use and agricultural production.

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Shandong Survey and Excavation

Since 1995, a Sino-American team has conducted a systematic, regional survey in the Rizhao area of southeastern Shandong province. Project members include Anne P. Underhill, Gary M. Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas (Department of Anthropology, Field Museum, Chicago) and Professors Cai Fengshu, Yu Haiguang, Luan Fengshi, and Fang Hui (Department of Archaeology, Shandong University, Jinan city). To date, the team has completely surveyed over 650 square kilometers of land. Their survey was the first systematic, regional survey in the Yellow River Valley.

The team has demonstrated that the Longshan site of Liangchengzhen is by far the largest in the area and is the center of a regional settlement hierarchy. In order to better understand the nature of this important settlement, Underhill and her Chinese colleagues conducted a small-scale rescue excavation in 1998 and full-scale excavations from 1999-2001. The project is supported by the National Science Foundation (High Risk Exploratory Grant, survey 1995, survey and excavations 2000-2001), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (survey, 1996),and the Henry Luce Foundation (survey 1997, 1998, 1999 and excavations during 1998 and 1999). The national Chinese newspaper of cultural relics, Zhongguo Wenwu Bao [December 21, 2001] cited the collaborative excavation at Liangchengzhen by Cai, Luan, Yu, Fang, and Underhill as one of the top 7 archaeological projects in China.

English Publications:

Underhill, Anne, Gary Feinman, Linda Nicholas, Gwen Bennett, Hui Fang, Fengshi Luan, Haiguang Yu, and Fengshu Cai 2002 Regional Survey and the Development of Complex Societies in Southeastern Shandong, China, Antiquity, in press [coming out in September].

Underhill, Anne, Gary Feinman, Linda Nicholas, Gwen Bennett, Fengshu Cai, Haiguang Yu, Fengshi Luan, and Hui Fang 1998 Systematic, Regional Survey in SE Shandong Province, China. Journal of Field Archaeology 25(4):453-474.

Chinese Publications:

Sino-American Joint Archaeological Team in the Liangcheng Area 2002 Shandong Rizhao Diqu Xitong Quyu Diaocha de Xin Shouhuo [New Results from the Systematic Regional Survey in the Rizhao Area of Shandong]. Kaogu 5:10-18.

Sino-American Joint Archaeological Team in the Liangcheng Area 1997 Shandong Rizhao Shi Liangcheng Diqu de Kaogu Diaocha [Archaeological Survey in the Liangcheng Area, Rizhao City, Shandong]. Kaogu 4:1-15.

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