A century of discoveries

Groundbreaking findings

In 1921, Swedish scholar Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874-1960), a geology consultant for the Chinese government, led the first archaeological excavation at the Yangshao site in Sanmenxia, Henan province. Given similarities between the painted pottery from the site and that from Central Asia, Andersson proposed Yangshao culture was possibly transmitted to China from the West.

Doubting Andersson's hypothesis, Li decided to seek the cultural origins of prehistoric China through further archaeological efforts. Therefore, southern Shanxi, which is believed to be related to the early capital cities of the Xia Dynasty (c. 21st century-16th century BC), came into focus.

In February and March 1926, Li and Yuan carried out extensive surveys of the prehistoric human traces in southern Shanxi and were attracted by the pottery pieces in Xiyin village. On Oct 15, they broke ground at the site.

The 40-day-plus excavation yielded half of a silkworm cocoon with traces of cut marks and more than 100,000 pottery pieces. Examining the pieces, Li believed the site had close connections to Yangshao culture. He also noticed a decorative pattern combining horizontal lines, dots and curved angular motifs on painted pottery, and named it "Xiyin pattern".

More importantly, the methods applied in this excavation were revolutionary. "Li applied methods such as three-point recording, stratigraphic layering and grid excavation. By recording each object's coordinates and layer, he preserved it together with its spatial and stratigraphic context. These methods later became the standards for Chinese field archaeology," says Zheng.

Chen Xingcan, chairman of the Society for Chinese Archaeology, notes that the excavation also provided a basis for rebutting Andersson's hypothesis. Li observed that the painted pottery from Xiyin, though often fragmentary, showed local features and a sequence of change, and that the finest pieces had no parallel elsewhere.

"Although Li wrote cautiously about this issue, his work laid the foundation for further research. After the establishment of New China in 1949, continued studies on the Neolithic Peiligang culture and others proved that Yangshao had its own origins in China and was an indigenous culture," says Chen.

The 1920s also witnessed some other excavations. Together with them, the Xiyin site has been recognized as part of the beginning of modern Chinese archaeology.

After 1949, China's archaeology entered a period of rapid development, with major discoveries emerging continuously and the discipline's academic system improving.

One example was the identification of the Miaodigou type in the 1950s. After the Miaodigou site in Sanmenxia was excavated, the Miaodigou type of Yangshao culture was identified. Scholars found that Xiyin's materials largely corresponded to this type. Therefore, Xiyin then became a key Miaodigou-type site, and its "Xiyin pattern" a typical motif of that type. A second excavation began at Xiyin in 1994.

"This time, through the evolution of pottery vessels from the site, we put the site in the broader context of the southern Shanxi area in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, and made clear the region's prehistoric cultural sequence," says Zheng.

This excavation also helped the site to be included in the fourth batch of important units of cultural relics under national protection in 1996, demonstrating the role that archaeology plays in heritage protection.