China Social Science Review

No.3, 2022

The Debate over Methods and Materials in the Study of Ancient China

(Abstract)

Zhang Hanmo

In the United States, the study of ancient China is a branch of Chinese studies that developed in the field of sinology within the framework of regional studies in North American higher education after the Second World War. The publication of The Cambridge History of Ancient China more than twenty years later marked an unprecedented depth of research into ancient China, in terms of both methodology and materials, but also revealed the field’s problems as a discipline. The dichotomy in the main chapters of The Cambridge History of Ancient China between archaeology and documentary material handed down from the ancients can be seen as the focus of the debate about the methods and materials used in the study of ancient China—the question of whether the construction of this period of Chinese history should in fact be based on transmitted historical documents or archaeological findings. Thinking about this issue not only reminds us to reflect further on whether the study of early China can be established as a discipline and where it is going, but also prompts us to explore the relationship between materials and evidence from the heights of a methodological perspective, together with the question of how materials can be handled to make them effective as evidence.