Kwang-chih Chang
Kwang-chih Chang was a prominent archaeologist and anthropologist, born on April 15, 1931, in Beijing, China. He grew up in Taiwan after his family relocated in 1946, where he developed an early interest in politics and literature. His studies were interrupted in 1949 when he was imprisoned for a year due to suspicions of communist sympathies, an experience that deepened his interest in human behavior. Chang graduated from National Taiwan University, where he was among the first students in the newly established Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, and later pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, earning his doctorate in 1960.
Over his distinguished career, Chang held significant academic positions, including roles at Yale University and Harvard, where he contributed to the advancement of archaeology and East Asian studies. He was instrumental in the development of settlement archaeology and published over 350 works, including influential texts like "The Archaeology of Ancient China." Despite political challenges that limited his excavations in mainland China, his research on early Shang civilization remained impactful, with ongoing projects initiated in the 1990s. Chang's legacy continues to influence the fields of archaeology and anthropology, particularly regarding the social dimensions of archaeological research. He passed away in Boston in 2001, leaving behind a rich academic heritage.
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Kwang-chih Chang
Chinese-born archaeologist and scholar
- Born: April 15, 1931
- Birthplace: Beijing, China
- Died: January 3, 2001
- Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts
A pioneering Chinese archaeologist, Kwang-chih Chang was a prolific scholar who argued passionately for the inclusion of a social dimension in the field of archaeology. His worked focused on Chinese and Taiwanese archaeology, and his extensive contributions to the scholarly literature covered a wide range of topics.
Birth name: Chang Kwang-chih
Areas of achievement: Scholarship, education
Early Life
Kwang-chih Chang was born on April 15, 1931, in Beijing, China. He was the second son of four children born to Taiwanese poet and essayist Chang Kwang-chih and Lo Hsin Hsiang. The family moved to Taiwan in 1946, where Chang attended Jianguo School in Taipei. As a student, Chang wrote essays on politics and performed in school plays.
In 1949, Chang was arrested by the Taiwanese government and held for a year. They accused him of being a communist sympathizer. Chang’s older brother was a soldier in the Red Army, and he had expressed an academic interest in Chinese literature and history. In addition, some of his writings were viewed by the Taiwanese authorities as being pro-communist. Chang later wrote in his memoirs that his time in prison sparked in him an interest in the science of human behavior.
Following his release, he attended National Taiwan University from 1950 to 1954, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree. Chang was among the first class of students in the new Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, where he studied under noted archaeologists and anthropologists who had fled mainland China for political reasons. These professors included Li Chi, the founder of Chinese archaeology, as well as ethnographer Ling Shun-sheng. The curriculum focused on the archaeology of the Yellow River Basin, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization.
Chang moved to the United States in 1955 to study archaeology as a graduate student at Harvard University, where he studied under Hallam L. Movius Jr., a well-known Paleolithic archaeologist. Chang, known to his friends as K. C., wrote his doctoral dissertation at Harvard, entitled Prehistoric Settlements in China: A Study in Archaeological Method and Theory. He completed his doctorate in 1960. Chang married fellow Taiwanese student Hwei Li Chang in 1957.
Life’s Work
After earning his doctorate, Chang took a job at Yale University, where he remained for over fifteen years. Chang lectured in anthropology and served as both chair of the Department of Anthropology (1970–1973) and chair of the Council on East Asian Studies.
In 1977, Chang returned to Harvard, where he was jointly appointed in the Department of Anthropology and East Asian Languages and Civilizations, as well as serving as curator of East Asian Archaeology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Chang served as chair of the Department of Anthropology (1981–1984) and of the Council on East Asian Studies (1986–1989). He also served as vice president for academic affairs of the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan.
Chang was a prolific scholar. He began publishing scholarly work as an undergraduate. His more than 350 publications include over twenty books and monographs, including the influential works The Archaeology of Ancient China (1963), Shang Civilization (1980), and Art, Myth and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China (1983). Although Chang focused on the development of Shang civilization, his work showed considerable range as well, encompassing Neolithic and Bronze Age Chinese culture, origins of agriculture, ceramics and jades, settlement archaeology, trade, food and food vessels, urbanism, early Chinese kingship, lineage systems, and archaeological theory, among many other topics.
Although Chang hoped throughout his career to excavate on the Chinese mainland, the political situation presented obstacles. Shortly after he obtained permission to excavate at Shangqui on the Yellow River, the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989 occurred. Known in China as the June Fourth Incident, several antigovernment protesters were killed by the Chinese Army in the square, and Chang’s research was canceled as part of the sweeping political fallout. Although Chang developed Parkinson’s disease later in life, he continued to work. The Shangqui excavation project he was finally able to initiate in 1990 was still active as of 2011.
Despite being very ill, Chang accepted the role of vice president of Academia Sinica in Taiwan in 1994, where he worked to improve research conditions and the academic review process. In 1996, he retired from Harvard. Chang died in Boston, Massachusetts, in January 2001. He was survived by his wife, Hwei Li Chang, and his daughter, Nora, and son, Julian.
Significance
Chang’s influence on the fields of Chinese and Taiwanese archaeology, as well as archaeological theory in general, was enormous. He helped found the field of settlement archaeology with the 1968 publication of Settlement Archaeology, as well as arguing for a social dimension in archaeological study in addition to the technical and artistic aspects of the field. The four editions of Chang’s The Archaeology of Ancient China (1968) shaped the field of Chinese archaeology, as did his numerous publications in both Chinese and English. The Shangqui research program he founded in 1990 continues to produce pioneering research into the early Shang civilization.
Bibliography
Chang, Kwang-chih. “Reflections on Chinese Archaeology in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century.” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3.1–2 (2001): 5–13. Print. A posthumously published article summarizing some of Chang’s theories on the development of the field of Chinese archaeology.
---. The Archaeology of Ancient China. 4th ed. New Haven: Yale UP, 1983. A standard text on Chinese archaeology providing an overview of the history of Chinese civilization, based on archaeological knowledge of the day.
Keightly, David N. “Kwang-chih Chang (1931–2001).” Journal of Asian Studies 6.2 (2001): 619–21. Print. An obituary of Chang, discussing his contributions to Chinese archaeology.