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POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY: How a Swedish Geologist Kickstarted China’s Love of Archaeology

on 31 Dec 2021 12:58 PM
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Chinese geologist Yuan Fuli; Johan Gunnar Andersson; the head of Yangshao village, surnamed Wang; and a Chinese missionary, also surnamed Wang, in Yangshao Village, Henan province

In October 1921, the Swedish geologist, archaeologist, and scholar Johan Gunnar Andersson led a small expedition into rural Henan province in northern China. By this point in his career, the 47-year-old Andersson was a well-known figure in international academic circles, in part due to his earlier participation in two Antarctic expeditions. In 1914, China’s newly formed Beiyang Government hired him as a mining consultant and tasked him with surveying China’s iron ore deposits. For the next few years, he juggled several geological expeditions along with his interests in paleontology and anthropology. His early investigations of the Zhoukoudian ruins near Beijing, for instance, would lead to the discovery of the “Peking Man” fossils.

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