Establish archeology of history, science and technology and humanities integration

Chinese archeology has gone through a century and compared the vertical development of this journey with the development of the international archeological community. It can be found that many phenomena that are worth thinking about. Although new materials are constantly emerging, the academic ideas are active, and the development of science and technology is booming, the intervals and differences in archeological disciplines are deepening. We try to achieve the goal of historical reconstruction through disciplines. In this context, the author believes that archeology that can integrate history, technology, and humanities should be established.

Development and problems

Western archeology entered China in the early 20th century, but the birth of this discipline was based on European antiques and geology in the 17th to 19th centuries. Archeology in various countries in the world is generally accompanied by early European scholars' adventures. Although the world's archeological studies have similar things, the process of being adopted by archeology in different countries will be developed by the influence of the social background and academic traditions of the country. For example, the introduction of Chinese archeology is promoted by the "Ancient History" movement, especially the success of the excavation of Yinxu, which has established the academic positioning of this discipline "certificate and replacement history".

In the first half of the 20th century, my country's archeology was basically in the stage of material accumulation. In 1959, the academic community began to organize archeological discoveries in the ten years since the founding of New China, and then began to use "archeological culture" to build a time -space framework for prehistoric culture. The "zone culture type" proposed by Mr. Su Bingqi can also be regarded as a replica of the Tchart Archaeological Paradm. Although the archeology of our country takes the history of reconstruction of the country, due to the lack of empirical exploration, the research of archaeological culture in types of types of learning provides a history of development of material culture, not the history of the development of the population and society.

Since the 1980s, with the frequent academic exchanges between Chinese and foreign, archeology has appeared in the second wave of western studies. Facing the new theories, methods and new technologies abroad, archaeologists feel very fresh. Archaeological practice has also begun to surpass the description of types, ruins relics, and age learning, trying to explore issues such as human relations, settlement forms, and social complexity. However, there are obvious imbalance in the reference of theory and methods. The technical method is widely adopted by the Chinese archeological community because of its practical characteristics, and theory involves personal opinions, positions and preferences, and controversy and differences are often more. Because the insights provided by science and technology tests are far better than the relatively vague explanations of the type, which has made my country's science and technology archaeological development rapidly, and the limelight has the trend of covering field archeology. Each research institute and universities have established laboratories, both professional teams, capital investment, and publishing results have increased significantly. However, the perspective of the training background and thinking of two types of scholars in field archeology and technology archeology has made field archeology and technology archeological for a long time in the embarrassing state of two skin. This has caused academic specialties in different fields to become exchanges in various small circles, and it is difficult to communicate with each other, let alone the interdisciplinary cross -to -study task to complete historical reconstruction.

At present, the alienation of field archeology and technology archeology has an increasing trend. On the one hand, the professional training of some universities has begun to separate field archeology and technology archeology. Science and technology archaeological preferences are enrolled in science students, and some scholars do not require them to take up their basic courses in archeology and history when cultivating students. On the other hand, the results of the archeology of science and technology are faster, and it is easy to publish in the publication, which has made some scholars "superiority". They often feel that the role of field work is to provide materials for scientific analysis, prefer data to speak, and tend to simplify complex human behavior and historical processes into statistical forms or one -on -one causality. Such scholars have a scientific "superiority" and believe that the complexity and uncertainty of archeological issues are "liberal arts thinking". They do not realize that the cultural and historical phenomenon is extremely complicated, and it is by no means mechanical relationship like physical chemistry.

Technical testing was originally a method for archeological services, but the value of pure scienceism made the facade of technology getting bigger and bigger, while the historical buildings behind them became thinner and humble. At present, scientific and technological experts have become the protagonists in some major projects of natural science funds involving archeological strategic topics. This is reminiscent of the warning of some scholars, that is, without the reference of anthropology and the consciousness of historical issues, archeology has the danger of returning to simply collecting antiquities again, although scientific and technological analysis collects another type of antiquities. Moreover, the "wallet" of archeology is not a "bottomless hole", and the luxury on the one hand will inevitably lead to lack of other aspects.

Field archeology has not completely jumped out of the type of type and stratigraphy. The bench of science and technology archeology has not yet been hot, and the goal of reconstruction of national history is still far away. Some domestic scholars have adopted the concept of "post -process archeology" that are advanced in my country. Emphasize the relativism and human value of archeology interpretation. In the upsurge of establishing archeology with Chinese characteristics, the concept of archeology after the process is greatly attractive. Because such schools believe that the archeological research of empiricalism is not enough to rebuild the past, the human past cannot have a single and objective view, and have different opinions and truths from different positions. As a result, archeology also returned to the "historical special theory". While emphasizing the uniqueness of the development of Chinese civilization, it strives to establish other special archeology with international paradigms and terms. This development trend confirms the observation of Bruce Trig in the book "History of Archaeological Thought", that is, archeology around the world has been affected by social, economic and political, and will change with the changes in social conditions. Essence Hybrid and integration

The changes in the international archeological paradigm have gone through the process of continuous optimization directional progress. For example, the process archeology makes up for the defects of cultural history and archeology. Similarly, the post -process archeology emphasizes human thought and energy, and makes up for the process of archeology only the lack of culture as a means of adaptation. Now, they are generally regarded as complementary rather than opposite, and represented by the upgrade version of the cognition -process archeology.

However, in the process of archeology, in the process of western studies, various theoretical methods were introduced into China in isolation, messy and selective, and experienced localized transformation. Moreover, the introduction time of various theoretical methods is greatly lagging behind the popular period of the original paradigm, which makes the old and new methods mixed, and the outdated and advanced coexistence. This deepen the gap between the theoretical methods of various archeological research, making it impossible for each other.

As a geologist, Antusheng just introduced field surveys to China, and did not contribute in research methods. Li Ji first started with bronze and pottery. Based on the form, he established his own type classification system. The system aims to establish a method of arrangement of utensils to facilitate exchanges between scholars, and does not use it to establish a sequence of development or culture in the age. Su Bingqi draws on the type of Swedish scholar Montelis, arranges and describe the utensils, and builds the sequence of the age. His cultural area type type is completely based on the combination of pottery.

The concept of "archeology culture" is the core concept of cultural history and archeology. It has been introduced much later than types in China. Moreover, the definition of Chinese scholars under the definition of archaeological culture and the definition of Tharte's "certain types of repeated symbiotic relics -pottery, tools, decorations, funeral customs, and house -style" The cultural time and space framework is not as detailed as inlaid models of Thaild. The interpretation of cultural and historical archeology mainly relies on communication theory, to trace back to culture and the origin, communication and development of the crowd. To this day, the main paradigm of my country's archeology is still based on Su Bingqi's archeological cultural area.

In the 1980s, the archeological paradigm began to affect China. Various scientific and technological methods have come, but the dominant cultural and historical archeological paradigms have not changed due to the situation. This has caused technical means with practical value, and the theory of problem -oriented related theories has been excluded, making science and technology archeology and traditional paradigms. The two scholars who study different materials do not have a common discourse and complementary goals. The results can only be reflected in the form of independent chapters or forms.

In contrast, the European and American academic circles show that the theoretical methods are inseparable. The technological method is a means to test the theory of economic and social evolution. For example, in the late 1940s, American archaeologists Robert Bredwood opened a precedent for multidisciplinary cross -study research in the new moon, which was to test the "oasis theory" of Thailder's origin of agriculture. Environmental archeology finally proved that the origin of agriculture near the east was not inspired by drought in the late ice.

We should be aware that even if the science and technology test obtains more data, no matter how the results are refreshing, if it does not help solve the problem of cultural changes, then these data and results are still the snow mud claws hanging from history. Scientific and technological archeology is a means of rebuilding the past and the allies of field archeology, but it is not enough to constitute a field of independent exploration. After leaving the goal of historical reconstruction, it will become a sky pavilion. No matter how rich the accumulated data, they are still like pottery, a bunch of fragmented evidence.

Goal and path

If Chinese archeology is to achieve the goal of reconstruction of national history, the paradigm needs to be updated first, providing a problem orientation for the discipline crossing for the formation of archaeological methods to enter the formation of archeology. The historical reconstruction of archeology is essentially different from the history of literature. The materiality of the research materials determines the help of natural scientific methods to refine the unpretentious invisible information. In addition, archeology is more good at exploring the long -term development of environmental, living, technology, population, and social complexity than compared with history. For scientific and technological archeologists, they should be familiar with and master the new paradigm and new theory of contemporary archeology, and strive to provide key information to solve various archeological problems. Therefore, field archeology and technology archeology should be a systematic engineering for collaborative cooperation. It guides the excavation, collect samples, and selects analysis methods with common issues, and then checks the assumptions to build a theoretical model and conclude.

What archeology is good at reconstruction is not the political history and chronicle of historical documents, but the overall history of human beings to adapt to the environment and transform the environment, organize itself from the original tour to the development of the country and civilized society. After entering the historical period, archeology can still provide background information in the environment, population, economy, trade, and ethnic subordinates that the literature records. In terms of studying the past of human beings, archeology is part of history. Moreover, this discipline is the only source of information for the length of 99%of human history. Because the objects of archeological research are mainly material culture, its analysis methods are more like natural sciences. They need to collect evidence, do experiments, put forward assumptions, use more materials to test assumptions, and then build a model for conclusions. However, this conclusion review or historical reconstruction must be expressed in the language of humanities to reproduce the behavior, ideas and emotions of the ancients. When scientific and technological means are increasingly penetrated into all areas of archeology, we must simultaneously enhance the sense of theoretical guidance. This problem consciousness is equally important for archeologists and scientific and technological experts. As far as the current status of archeology in my country is concerned, urgent needs to be consistent in the problem consciousness. For example, analysis of environmental archeology, animal and plant archeology, and isotope was originally an operation path under the guidance of cultural ecology theory to explore the changes in pre -historical relations. Therefore, my country's field archaeological workers should pay attention to the functional analysis of material culture and transcend the classification of utensils to explore the issues of productive forces and production relations. Archaeological interpretations can no longer be used to originate and spread, but pay attention to the internal motivation of cultural changes. As the product of human culture, archeological relics play a role in the original living social systems in economic, technical, religious, political, or social organizations, respectively. Exploring the social value used by different cultural relics is the first step in archeological transparency.

To survive the static material legacy, they should be put in the living organic system to think and analyze, and understand the interaction and influence between them. This is the systematic thinking of process archeology. It is necessary to put material culture in different subsystems such as environmental, technology, economy, society, trade, and beliefs to observe their dynamic role. These subsystems independently and affect each other to maintain the operation of the entire cultural system. The change of a subsystem may affect the change of the entire system, such as the improvement of the environment, technology, and crop output, which may affect the growth of settlement and population, which leads to the accumulation of remaining products. process. On this basis, archeology can distinguish the cause of cultural changes from the time of observation of cultural functions and systems from the duration process, thereby making a more credible explanation of social development.

Cultural history and archeology should continue to improve and give play to their types of types and stratigraphy, and provide more detailed and precise time and space framework for the function and process analysis of social culture to observe social evolution. Scientific and technological archeology is the helping assistant of process archeology, which can provide key information for historical reconstruction for environmental adaptation, technology, economy, trade, and population changes. The universe view, religion, and ideology of ancient society are the most difficult exploration areas. The rigorous exploration of archeology in this area also needs to be based on the basis of solid national, historical, art history, national history, and analogy. Essence Through such a paradigm update and the cross -disciplinary cross, archeology can rebuild an overall history of covering technology, economy, social structure, and ideology.

In the current situation of archeological disciplines, whether there are scholars with different specialized directions or basic training for college graduate students, they must pay attention to the communication between disciplines and avoid painting. Scholars from the background of science need to be more familiar with the basic knowledge and social science theory of field archeology. Field workers also need to better understand the basic principles and effects of various scientific and technological methods, and be familiar with the classics of cultural anthropology and history. In this kind of discipline training, you can integrate the knowledge of archeology, natural sciences, and humanities, and truly cross -multi -disciplinary cross. The goal of this discipline cross is to form the same research "overall". Experts from various disciplines are familiar with each other and use each other's discipline advantages, and are used to long -term cooperation. This direction is consistent with the development trend of international disciplines, but also can better be competent for the difficult task of rebuilding the history of Chinese archeology.

(Author unit: Department of Cultural Relics and Museum of Fudan University)

Source: "China Social Sciences"

Author: Chen Chun

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