CCTV program on archaeolgoy
 

The steering committee is the first of many special committees to be established after receiving approval from the Chinese Society of Archaeology earlier this year. Wang Wei, director of the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), asserted that its establishment is a landmark event in Chinese archaeology. It satisfies both the demands of the Chinese public at large and the present day in age, Wang said.

Archaeology turning to public
In an address at the symposium, Professor Gao Menghe from the Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology at Fudan University briefly recounted the highlights and major turning points in Chinese archaeology for the past century. According to Gao, Chinese archaeology mainly focused on discovery and research prior to the 1980s, but after 1990, Chinese archeologists become more aware of the importance of protecting archaeological sites. Since 2000, the field has emphasized making use of archaeological findings. Today, the meaning of archeology has increasingly expanded to include discovery, research, protection, use and inheritance. Gao believes public archeology is a very important aspect of this expansion.

“There’s a joke that our occupa¬tion is bluffing, and that trying to identify something is pretty much just fortune-telling,” said He Yun’ao, director of the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage at Nanjing University. “Unfortunately, I think this joke may be a barometer of the public’s ignorance of what we actually do, which I blame largely on the influence of popular novels about grave robbers and antique appraisal TV shows. People have come to see the economic value of archaeology and cultural heritage but forgotten their intrinsic humanistic and spiritual value.” He said that this general misconception underscores the need for public archaeology.

 
According to Liu Guoxiang, executive deputy director of the Center for Public Archaeology at CASS’s Insti-tute of Archaeology, public archeology has developed in three clear stages in China. The idea of public archaeology was first articulated by the archaeologist Su Bingqi in his 1950 article “How to Make Archaeology the People’s Cause”. Su was the first Chinese archeologists to conceive his field as ultimately being a cause for the people. He argued that providing the public with access to archeological knowledge and discoveries was important to satisfy people’s cultural needs.

During the early years after the founding of the PRC, public archaeology generally followed these prin-ciples, Liu explained. Archaeologists wrote for lay audiences and tried to open their field to other disciplines rather engaging in insular and self-indulgent reflections. In the 1980s, the idea of public archeology began to become more deeply rooted, and since the 21st century greater numbers of conferences have made archaeology more accessible to the public. Archaeologists seem to have reached an initial agreement that their field needs to abandon self-admiration.

Ancient society, culture and people are connected with modern society, culture and people, said Wang Renxiang, director of the newly founded steering committee and a research fellow from CASS’s Institute of Archaeology. Archaeologists are the modern messengers to ancient society, he continued, noting that several generations of archaeologists have been confined to the ivory tower.

 

Establishment of mainstream opinion
Archaeology is important for discovering national and ethnic cultural traditions, connecting events, people and artifacts to their historical context, understanding cultural diversity and providing a basis for advocating cultural interaction, said He Yun’ao. He affirmed that public archaeology is the perfect platform for disseminating publica¬tions and other mediums that communicate these results. He hopes that China’s public archaeology will be able to tran¬scend the boundaries between archaeology and other fields, expanding its overall function in society. This will help shape the mainstream public opinion on archaeology so that it does not get denounced as being too mysterious. He also pointed that making archeology more accessible to the general public will prevent pseudoscientific publicity stunts that run counter to archaeological fact. Lastly, he observed that public archaeology is also obviously an effective way to promote the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage.

 
Still, developing public archae¬ology is not a simple task. In fact, many organizations have al¬ready made attempts to engage the public before. For example, CASS’s Institute of Archaeology worked with CCTV on a documentary about archeology; the Museum of Western Han Tombs at Dabaotai, Beijing, launched a treasure hunting game for the public; the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute built a center to simulate archaeological experiences; Chongqing Institute of Cultural Heritage organized a team of volunteers to help conduct archaeological activities; and the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology published a book on archaeologi¬cal research in Yunnan, to name just a few outreach efforts.

A cultural symbol
With its vast territory, China has a rich cultural heritage both on and under the earth. In Liu’s view, part of the task for Chinese archaeology is to show the features of Chinese civilization and its contribution to human civilization, and to establish a cultural symbol recognized worldwide.

Comparing academic archaeological research and public archaeological research, Liu Xu, director of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, noted that the former demands researchers place themselves wholly in the age of the artifacts, ruins or civilizations they are researching, while the latter requires researchers to think more about the present-day public’s interest and needs. Liu pointed out. “Public Archaeology needs not only commitment from archaeologists, but also support from academic institutions and government organizations at all levels,” said Wang Renxiang. “As archaeology gets closer to the public, it will of course become more high profile. How well known archaeologists become in society is in fact an indicator of how much the discipline has developed. Today, there are still some famous archaeologists who are not well-known among the public. When they are, we can say that public archaeology has indeed made progress. ”

 

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, No. 581, April 9.

Translated by Jiang Hong

Revised by Charles Horne 

 

 

Chinese link:  http://www.csstoday.net/xueshuzixun/guoneixinwen/88752.html