JIA, LANPO (1908-2001)

Dennis A. Etler, Ph.D.

Cabrillo College, Aptos, California

Professor Jia Lanpo, doyen of Chinese archaeology and one of China's most distinguished pre-historians, passed away on July 8, 2001 at the age of 92 after a short illness. With his passing a golden age in Chinese archaeology comes to an end. Professor Jia, a member of the Academia Sinica since 1980, was a witness to the birth of Chinese archaeology in the 1920s, when as a young man he worked with the luminaries of international archaeology and paleontology at the famous Peking Man site at Choukoutien (Zhoukoudian). After World War II he was instrumental in establishing the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology (later renamed the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology), Academia Sinica in Beijing and was a participant in decades of archaeological research on the Chinese mainland. He was an ardent promoter of international scientific co-operation and a mentor to generations of Chinese pre-historians.

Professor Jia learned the skills of the archaeological enterprise from some of its greatest practitioners, including Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, for whom he served as personal secretary during the time he spent in Beijing, Henri Breuil, Davidson Black, and Franz Weidenreich. In turn, he was the teacher and mentor of many generations of Chinese archaeologists, many of whom returned to their native provinces to lead archaeological field-work and research. He was an indefatigable worker and meticulous scholar, the author of 100s of scientific and popular articles, treatises and books detailing archaeological discoveries in China, spanning over six decades. English titles for which he will be best remembered include Early Man in China and The Story of Peking Man. As an internationally renowned scholar, he introduced the world of Chinese prehistory to countless foreign researchers and helped forge intellectual and institutional links between Chinese and foreign scientists. His contributions led to his election as a foreign associate of the U.S. Academy of Sciences in 1994.

Born on November 25, 1908 (34th year of the Qing dynasty Guang Xu emperor) in Yutian, Hebei Province he graduated from the Huiwen Academy in 1929. In 1931 he entered the Central Institute of the Chinese Geological Survey and began his participation in the excavation of the Peking Man site at Zhoukoudian, where he served first as a trainee, then as a team member and later as a technical assistant and superintendent. In 1937 he was promoted to Research Investigator and in 1945 to full Research Technician. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 he successively assumed the posts of Assistant Research Professor, Research Professor and Academician at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) where he served as Assistant Director of the Institute's Cenozoic Laboratory, Director of its Specimen Preparation Laboratory and Head of the Zhoukoudian Work Station. In addition, he was an Academician of the Archaeological Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the Geological Bureau of the Biological Section of the Chinese Academy of Natural Sciences. He also served as Assistant Director of the Quaternary Geology and Glaciology Sections of the Chinese Geological Association, Assistant Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Archaeological Association, Assistant Director and Secretary of the Chinese Pacific History Association and Member of the Cultural Bureau of the Chinese State Council.

As a young man Jia Lanpo participated in the excavation of the Peking Man site at Zhoukoudian, making major contributions to the recovery of fossil human remains and research of this famous site of early man in China. In 1935 he succeeded Professor Pei Wenzhong as head of excavations at Zhoukoudian. In November 1936 he discovered in succession, three relatively complete crania of Peking Man. During this period he also collaborated with his life-long friend and colleague Bian Meinian (Edward Bien) in the description and analysis of cave and rock-shelter deposits in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. It was a moving experience to witness the reunion of these age-old friends after a separation of over forty years during Professor Jia's first visit to the U.S. in 1987.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Professor Jia continued to lead the work at Zhoukoudian. He organized and led several new excavation efforts that included successive surveys and research studies of the site. During the 1950s and 60s he published many monographs regarding the nature of Peking Man's cultural activities, geological age and living environment, developing the in-depth study and discussion of the Zhoukoudian site. He also analyzed temporal differences in the faunal character of the Zhoukoudian site and maintained that during the several hundred thousand years in which it was occupied north China underwent multiple, successive climatic changes with alternating warm and cold periods. Professor Jia was a firm proponent of the position that Peking Man's physical characteristics and stone tool culture were more advanced than first believed. He was also an advocate of the idea that Peking Man had the ability to use and maintain fire. He thus felt that Peking Man did not represent the earliest stages of human evolution or human culture in China, a position which was subsequently vindicated by new discoveries at Lantian and elsewhere in China. He was likewise prescient in his assertion that the earliest traces of humankind in China should be found in the early Pleistocene Nihewan beds of Hebei province in north central China, a position that was later verified by excavations he helped organize in the 1970s - 1990s.

From the 1950s onwards Jia Lanpo's work was increasingly devoted to areas beyond Zhoukoudian, traversing the entire country. During this time he was most active in investigating areas throughout the north Chinese province of Shanxi, with impressive results. Important excavations and research he conducted or participated in included the following: in 1954 he led excavations at the Dingcun site, in 1959 he led excavations at the Kehe site, during the 1960s and 70s he led successive excavations and research at the Xihoudu and Shiyu cultural sites and the Xujiayao Fossil Man site, all in Shanxi province. This research helped establish the framework for understanding the development of Paleolithic cultures in north China throughout the entire Pleistocene epoch. In 1956 Jia participated in the geological survey of karstic formations in the southeastern Chinese Autonomous Region of Guangxi that led to the first in situ discovery of Gigantopithecus teeth in China, at Heidong (Black Cave) in Daxin county. In 1964 he helped lead the multidisciplinary team that investigated the Cenozoic strata at Lantian in Shaanxi province. During the early 1970s he proposed the theory that there were at least two distinct cultural traditions of long duration represented in North China throughout the Chinese Paleolithic and that the microlithic traditions of China, northeast Asia and North America had their origins in northern China. These ideas were very influential both in China and abroad.

The 1980s and 90s saw Professor Jia enter a new phase of his career, as he became a prime mover behind the opening up of Chinese archaeological research to foreign colleagues. Of particular note was Professor Jia's promotion of the first joint field excavations by Chinese and foreign archaeologists since the 1930s held in the Nihewan basin during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Nihewan Project, led by Prof. J. Desmond Clark of the University of California, Berkeley on the U.S. side would never have been able to carry out its work had it not been for Professor Jia's ardent support. As Desmond Clark has reminisced, "Professor Jia invited us to visit him and a number of his important Paleolithic sites in northern and central China and encouraged us to work with him and his colleagues from the IVPP at the important Late Pliocene and Pleistocene eastern part of the Nihewan Valley, west/northwest of Beijing. The four seasons we had there produced the stratigraphic context, age and cultural industry from the earliest Paleolithic sites in northern China and during each of these field seasons Professor Jia's visits were the highlight of our field season. His great knowledge of Chinese archaeology was invaluable to our team as we recovered and set about the analysis of the Nihewan Industry. Professor Jia's health was declining after the first season at Nihewan, but he continued to visit us and we have vivid memories of him being transported by sedan chair down the cliffs to visit the sites. The huge enjoyment that Professor Jia obtained from these visits was clearly obvious. He will be greatly missed, not only in China, but in the archaeological world at large".

As he entered his ninth decade, Professor Jia remained an active participant in archaeological research in China. He continued to make inestimable contributions until his recent illness, editing texts and writing prefaces to major Chinese archaeological monographs. Until the end he was an active promoter of scientific exchange between China and foreign countries and an ardent archaeological conservationist and preservationist. His seminal achievements include, supervisor of the Peking Man excavations and conservator of the Zhoukoudian Archives, architect of Palaeolithic Archaeology in China throughout the second half of the 20th century, and a link between the past, present and future of Chinese archaeology. Few can match Professor Jia's breadth of knowledge and scope of intellect. His decades of pioneering research serves as an inspiration for all ages. His devotion to intellectual honesty and a scientific open door need to be not only praised, but emulated. Professor Jia was truly a man for all seasons and a pioneer ahead of his times. His presence and vision will be sorely missed. For those who were fortunate enough to know and work with him, his warm and hearty welcomes to Beijing, his unstinting efforts on our behalf while visiting China and his engaging personality will always be remembered with appreciation and fondness.

According to the Xinhua (New China) news agency, Professor Jia's cremated remains will be placed at Zhoukoudian besides those of Pei Wenzhong, the famous Chinese paleoanthropologist who was the first to discover cranial remains of Peking Man, and Yang Zhongjian, another founder of the country's paleontological and paleoanthropological research. He is survived by four children.