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Department of Archaeology and Museology of Henan UniversityPublish Date:2018-05-19 11:04

The Department of Archaeology and Museology of Henan University has two undergraduate majors in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage and Museology, with a doctorate degree awarding unit and a postdoctoral research station in archaeology. The resources of the Experimental Teaching Center of Archaeological and Cultural Heritage Conservation, the Digital Heritage Laboratory, and the earliest museum of university in China have become an important platform for teaching and research. The qualification of group excavation in fieldwork of the People's Republic of China, enables us to undertake the fieldwork independently.

 

The archaeology of Henan University has a long history. As early as the 1920s, The famous archaeologist Dong Zuobin, Xu Xusheng once taught here. In 1931, the students from history department participated in the excavation of Yin ruins in Anyang, which was the earliest university in China to participate in fieldwork. In December 1945, Henan University established the major of archaeology and hired Guo Baojun as a professor. It is one of the universities in China that set up archaeological teaching and research in such a early stage. The first junior college students of Cultural Heritage were enrolled in 1985 and the first undergraduate students were enrolled in 1988. A doctorate degree awarding unit of archaeology was approved in 2011 and a postdoctoral research station was established in 2012, which developed into a key discipline in Henan Province. The qualification of group excavation in fieldwork of the People's Republic of China was obtained in 2014. Several eminent archaeologists such as Yin Da, Shi Zhangru and An Jinhuai were fostered here.

 

There are 25 academic staff, 23 of whom have doctor's degree. We have 6 professors, 5 associate professors and 14 assistant professors. 11 persons have the  team leader qualification in fieldwork of the People's Republic of China. Professor Wang Wei, Director of the Chinese Society of Archaeology, Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a Lifelong Foreign Academician of the American institute of Archaeology, is the leading scientist of our archaeology department.

 

The research strengths of the Department lie in the archaeology of a number of directions: Neolithic Archaeology, the archaeological study of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Archaeology of the Yellow River Civilization, Paleography, the archaeological study of Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Environmental Archaeology, Museology, Cultural Heritage Protection. In which that the first two have independent field excavation projects. We are ready to work with a multinational archeologist to carry out the project of "Comparative Archaeological Study of the Old World in the Bronze Age".

 

The museum was founded in 1984, and the famous archaeologist Xia Nai wrote the name of the museum. The collection amounted to 4,387 pieces, ceramics and coins are the most, both of them form a complete sequence. Built in 2009, the Digital Cultural Laboratory (the first round of this kind of laboratory in China) has invested more than 5 million yuan and has many high-end equipment such as large 3D scanners. The Experimental Teaching Center of Archaeological and Cultural Heritage Conservation was established in 2014, the total investment is more than 10 million yuan. There are many specialized laboratories such as biological archaeology laboratory, metallurgical archaeology laboratory and environmental archaeology laboratory, with a panorama of surveying and mapping instruments. Besides, the Xin Zheng station of Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology was used in teaching and field training.

 

Adhere to the principle of education openness, we have established an internal research and teaching partnership with Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Museum of China, Henan Museum and Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology. Chen Xingcan and other 10 outstanding archaeologists were hired as an adjunct professor and postgraduate supervisor. We also cooperate with Stanford University and Washington University (St. Louis), hire professor Liuli and Tritram R. Kidder as Chair Professor, introduce a few courses such as Social Complexity, Food Archaeology and Geoarchaeology. Through external collaborations, our teachers and students are often invited to visit the famous colleges and universities overseas, correspondingly, they come to our department almost every year.