ARCHEOLOGICAL FIELD-WORK IX CHIXA 



Bv C. \\". r.ISHOP. 



Associate Curator. Freer Gallery of Art 



After the return from China of the American portion of the Freer 

 Galler\- Expedition staft' in the spring of 1927. field-work was con- 

 tinued by its Chinese members. Dr. C. Li and ~Sh\ K. Z. Tung-. 



Dr. Li. whose excavations in southwestern Shansi province have 

 already been noticed.' devoted the spring" and summer of 1927 to the 

 study of his finds and the ])re]iaration of his preliminary report in 

 Chinese and English. The Chinese version was published early in 

 September, 1927, as one of the series of scientific reports of the 

 Research Institute of Tsing Hua University. Peking. 



Dr. Li had planned to return to Shansi in the early autumn and 

 establish a field base for permanent work in that area, among the 

 most interesting archeologically in all China. He was prevented, how- 

 ever, by the outbreak of hostilities between the party then in power at 

 Peking, and the province of Shansi. He therefore attemi)ted a task 

 which the Freer Gallerv Expedition has long had in mind, the arche- 

 ological exploration of the valley of the Han River, in Central China, 

 an imjiortant avenue of war and trade and migration from the earliest 

 times. In pursuance of these jilans. Dr. Li proceeded by sea to 

 Shanghai and thence up the Yangtze River to Nanking, this circuitous 

 route being necessitated by the civil war then going on. 



Dr. Li held a number of important conferences with meml)ers of 

 the Scientific Research Institute of the newly established X^ational 

 (^iovernment. with the object of arranging methods of mutually benefi- 

 cial cooperation between that organization and the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution. In the course of these. Dr. Li was requested by the Chinese 

 Government to help organize departments of anthropology and arche- 

 olog>'. He then proceeded up the river to Hankow, only to learn that 

 the almost universal prevalence of l)anditry in that part of China 



^Explorations and Fiekl-Work of the Smithsonian Institntion in 1926. Smith- 

 sonian Misc. Coll.. \'o\. 78, No. 7. pp. 123-137, and Ibid : Smithsonian Publ. No. 

 2957. 1927. pp. 114-118. 



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