After China put forward his own standards, foreign scholars began to criticize. However, the dating project of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties has just begun, and the archaeological technology and theoretical level in China need to be further improved. Since the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dating Project officially published the Representative of Xia-Shang-Zhou Dating, there have been endless criticisms of China at home and abroad. Some foreigners think that the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties dating project has a "political background" and that the China government is engaging in nationalism. Some scholars also doubt the "academic ethics" of the project. Three debates were held from 2000 to 2003. Ni Dewei, a retired professor at Stanford University, wrote an article in the The New York Times, asserting that "the international academic community will tear the engineering report to pieces". However, some people think that the so-called "international academic circles" have always ignored the local research results in China and have no say in the history of China. It is also said that since the western society can take Homer's epic written by a blind artist after 800 years of Ilott War as the official history, it is nitpicking to question China's chronology calculated by scientific methods. Foreign academic circles often regard Homer's epic, Bible and other works of art and illusory religious teachings as the history of faith.
The China government has not blocked these issues, and the introduction and discussion on this issue can be seen everywhere on the Internet. The China government has also launched a large-scale debate on this issue, putting forward various reasons to support its own views and supporting engineers to conduct in-depth research. Many scholars at home and abroad do have some doubts about the conclusion of this project with a rigorous and prudent academic attitude. Some foreign scholars don't recognize the efforts of the China government, and think that as long as such research is supported by the China government, it must have a political purpose. Some people say that these scholars can't even tell the published words clearly, so how can he tell the ages of three generations? Mainland scholars who disagree with the project report are also labeled as "justice" by these foreign scholars and described as "unable to confront the government".
There is no strong argument to prove whether the project has failed. Some achievements in the project have also been recognized by international academic circles, such as Zhang Peiyu's research, but there are disputes within the project. Some China scholars with complicated backgrounds believe that the achievements of such projects need not be tested by all kinds of scholars with complicated backgrounds in the world, as long as they gain knowledge in China academic circles. China scholars don't need outsiders to make irresponsible remarks about history, let alone be obstructed by forces of various purposes.
On April 12, 2003, an academic conference on dating project was held in Chicago. Jiang, a part-time researcher at the Center for Religious Culture of Stanford University in the United States, submitted an article entitled "Problems on the Study of the Western Zhou Dynasty —— Criticism on the Engineering Methodology of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties" to the conference to discuss the research of "engineering" on the age of "He". Jiang noted that the "project" used OxCal series sample programs, and he said that he was only 68.2% sure of the calculation method of OxCal series sample programs.
In the History of East Asia, Douglas J. Keenan published an article questioning that the first year of Zhou Yiwang was 899 BC. In this paper, the mistakes in engineering research methods are questioned in detail. The article mentioned:
..... Some recent research plans, including the research plan accepted by China the State Council (referring to the Xia, Shang and Zhou dating project), are based on a record of "Heaven is in Dan" in the early Millennium BC. These studies interpret this strange record as a partial solar eclipse at sunrise. This explanation seems reasonable (at the beginning of dawn, the sky darkens because of the solar eclipse, and then rises again), but it is not certain. Few eclipses cover the surface of the sun at sunrise and are large enough to make the sky dark. There was a solar eclipse at sunrise on April 26th, 899, 2 1 BC. These studies plan to match this solar eclipse with this strange record (referring to the first day in Zhou Yiwang).
The calculation shows that the solar eclipse in 899 BC reduced the subjective brightness (brightness perceived by human observers) by less than 25%. In order to prove that such brightness reduction can give observers the feeling of "another day", some researchers investigated the observers who observed the partial solar eclipse at sunrise on 1997. And all the observers are located at the brightness reduction of less than 10% (the observers in these places don't feel "the sky is bright again") or the brightness reduction of more than 80% (these places feel "the sky is bright again"). From these data, the researchers concluded that "a decrease in subjective brightness by more than 10% will cause the feeling of' one day'. This conclusion is completely unfounded. In fact, floating clouds often reduce subjective brightness by 25%. ...
In addition, this paper also questioned the correctness of the calculation of the next eclipse.
In addition, someone made a survey according to the solar eclipse road map and found that the western end of the solar eclipse belt was in Shandong Province on the morning of April 2 1 899, and it was impossible for Shaanxi Province to see the sky again. 1 on the morning of October 6th1,8765438, you can see the astronomical scene of another day in the right place.
In March 2007, Archaeology magazine published Zhu's article Yao Gonggui and Tang Zaijin, which introduced Yao Gonggui, a private collection of Western Zhou bronzes in Hong Kong, with the inscription "Twenty or Eight Years of Tang Baijin and Wang Wei".
The inscription reads as follows: "Yao Kun, the wife of (Yao)' s husband, was ordered by the king to be in Jin, only the king was twenty-eight."
Judging from the shape and inscription characteristics of the reed, it seems that the completion time of the device will not be later than the middle and early Western Zhou Dynasty. Then, obviously, the "Eight Sacrifices for the Twenty Years of Wang Yu Ban" should be the twenty-eight years of his reign.
Judging from the achievements of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties Dating Project, it took 22 years to become a king and 25 years for Kang Wang, both less than 28 years. Therefore, as soon as Yao Gonggui came out, the achievements of the dating project were denied, and the tenure of Wang Cheng or Kang Wang had to be revised.
After the bronze wares were unearthed in Meixian County, Shaanxi Province, some experts said, "It seems right that we call the dating project a phased achievement, otherwise it will be very troublesome." From April 4 to 7, 2003, the annual meeting of the American Society for Asian Studies was held in Washington, USA. The meeting specially invited "engineering" scholars to the United States for discussion. Attending the meeting in China were Li Xueqin, the head of the expert group of the Project, Zhang Changshou, an archaeologist, Qiu Shihua, an expert on carbon-14, and Zhang Peiyu, an astronomer. The central issue of this discussion has always revolved around the study of the Western Zhou chronology of "engineering". Many overseas scholars questioned the conclusion of the "project" orally and in writing. Here are a few examples: first, the theory of "dividing line" came out relatively late, probably after the formation of countries in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and it was impossible to have the concept of "quail fire" that matched the Zhou Dynasty in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Therefore, the "dividing line" cannot be used in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Second, the word "year" in the bronze inscription "Li Chan" is more likely to be "year" than "year star". Thirdly, the "project" denies BC 1044 and chooses BC 1046 as the astronomical basis of acceptable age, which is not in line with Wang Guowei's "four-division method" of moon phase, which is generally recognized by scholars. Fourthly, "Ji" is not based on the records of the Western Zhou Dynasty in the chronicle of modern bamboo books, but it is blindly judged as forgery, but the academic circles have not yet reached a conclusion on its authenticity. Fifth, the calculation program of carbon-14 used in the "project" has only 68.3% confidence. Sixthly, the "Project" measured the carbon-14 of a Hou tomb in the Jin Dynasty, and obtained several data with big gaps. However, the "Project" used different data in different papers, which seems to have loopholes.
In addition, some overseas scholars have doubts about the academic ethics of "engineering". For example, Professor Edward Shaughnessy of the University of Chicago asked, "The solar eclipse in Zhou Yiwang in 899 BC is one of the key years in the simplified version, and it was widely reported by newspapers and TV in China. But abroad, it has already been pointed out that this solar eclipse and its significance to the Western Zhou Dynasty. Some overseas scholars feel that the Simplified Edition does not mention foreign academic achievements at all and lacks certain academic ethics. " In addition, the American scholar David Pankneyer put forward the date of the conquest of King Wu as BC 1046 through astronomical research in the early 1980s, but the simplified version made no mention of this. Shaughnessy's criticism is justified. Yes, Oracle Bone Inscriptions expert Dong Zuobin has long pointed out that "the sky rises again" is a solar eclipse at dawn, and set the age of this astronomical phenomenon as 966 BC. Later, Fang Fang, a North Korean scholar, further pointed out in a paper published in 1975 that 966 BC was wrong and the correct age should be 899 BC.
Due to the limited meeting time in Washington, the "engineering" scholars attending the meeting failed to give full answers to all the above questions, but Li Xueqin emphasized that the academic viewpoint of "engineering" is not dominated by the government, and is completely decided by scholars. It is necessary for him to insist on "establishing a project" and implement "democratic centralism" because "I personally never think that scientific truth is sometimes in the hands of a few people or even individuals". As for the problem of "another day", Li Xueqin explained that the "simplified edition" is limited in space and fails to list the works of predecessors. Zhang Peiyu admitted that the report about "Tian Zaidan" was inappropriate.
Qiu Shihua further introduced and explained the background knowledge of carbon-14. Kenji Ozawa also criticized the project for setting the cutting year of King Wu as BC 1046, instead of BC 1027 according to the "Year in Quail Fire". The reason is that China determined that the age of Jin Mu's five elements of fire, water and soil was the Warring States Period, so we can't think that the "year" in this sentence is Jupiter. On April 12, 2003, the enthusiasm and effect of this debate far exceeded the previous two, and even the debate reached an amazing climax. Among the scholars who criticized "engineering", Jiang, a part-time researcher at the Center for Religious Culture of Stanford University, submitted an article entitled "Questioning the Study of the Western Zhou Dynasty-Criticizing the Engineering Methodology of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties" (hereinafter referred to as "Jiang Wen"). The most important content of "Jiang Wen" is to discuss the "engineering" research in the era of "the king of arms is acceptable". The author of "Jiang Wen" noticed that "Project" used OxCal series sample program, and he specifically asked Oxford University for this program, and used it to check the few carbon-14 data published by "Project". In this way, the confidence interval of his calculated age is much larger than the "fitting" data published in the simplified edition. "Jiang Wen" said that the OxCal program series sample calculation method can obtain a narrow confidence interval, but only 68.2% confidence; The accuracy of this calculation program has been criticized by international carbon-14 scholars.
Why not use other methods with 95.4% or 99.7% confidence in "Project"? According to Jiang Wen's analysis, the reason is that the confidence interval of the latter is one or two hundred years longer than that of the former, which can't meet the requirement that the data accuracy of carbon 14 should be about plus or minus 20 years. However, choosing the calculation method with smaller confidence interval can reduce the age of King Wu's attack to several decades, thus excluding most of the 44 statements. In other words, "engineering" would rather sacrifice the credibility of its methods to exclude more viewpoints.
Jiang Wen also pointed out that the series sample calculation method of OxCal program on which the Project is based does not represent the internationally recognized tree-ring correction method. International experts of C-14 have pointed out that the process of this algorithm is doped with artificial components, and the age obtained is not accurate. Its artificial composition refers to the archaeological "series samples" provided by experts of C-14, that is, a group of archaeological samples with clear stages and different ages. But it is difficult for archaeologists to provide such accurate samples, and it is also difficult to do so, but there are many speculations or artificial elements. Jiang Wen takes the archaeological report of "Project" in Li Xi as an example. The "engineering" dating method named all the cultural layers of Xili after the kings of the Western Zhou Dynasty, such as: the first phase was "Wen Wang moved Li, Wu Wang conquered Wu", and so on. This dating method is called interval method. The author of Jiang Wen once presided over an archaeological excavation in Li Xi, and his report was published in 1992. The dating method he used is called "progressive sequence", that is, all cultural layers are marked with approximate chronological range, such as: the first period is "pre-cycle". The difference between the two is that the "interval method" requires that each period has a clear upper and lower boundary in a specific year, and adjacent periods must be out of touch with each other in time and cannot be staggered; The "sequential method" has no such requirement, but only marks the early, middle and late stages of the general dynasty. Jiang Wen emphasized that in the archaeology of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the "zoning method" of "engineering" was very impractical, because the unearthed pottery, grain, wood and other items did not change with the new king's accession to the throne. In addition, the samples taken from the lower layer do not necessarily represent the age of the layer. For example, the wood of the coffin may have been prepared in the past, not cut down in the year when the deceased died; Therefore, its carbon-14 data cannot be regarded as its cultural layer.
Jiang Wen's conclusion is that the so-called "engineering" and "multidisciplinary research" were established mainly to solve the problems of the Western Zhou Dynasty by using non-documentary research. However, carbon-14 technology, which has been used for hundreds of years in archaeological stratigraphic division, unearthed pottery staging and chronological error, is very helpful to prehistoric archaeology, and cannot be applied to the study of Western Zhou chronology, which requires specific chronological requirements. From an academic point of view, Jiang Wen's criticism of "engineering" is well-founded and very objective. The mistakes made by "engineering" are not from an academic perspective, but from a methodological perspective, which is fatal.
At the meeting, Jiang orally introduced the main points of his article to the participants (Li Xueqin was absent and returned to China after the Washington meeting), and rechecked some data of carbon-14 published by the "Project" with his own computer and OxCaI sequencing program, and the results were obviously different from those of the "Project". Qiu Shihua agreed with Jiang's query and said that he personally had doubts about the carbon-14 data in the simplified version. Zhang Changshou also made it clear that he personally agreed with Jiang's opinion on the archaeological staging of western Li. Professor Shaughnessy, who was present, was shocked. He asked angrily: in that case, are the chronology of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the archaeology of Xili based on carbon-14 still valid? On May 24th, 2002, the participants (former secretary of "Engineering" and now a doctoral student at the University of Chicago) introduced the contents of the meeting in China Heritage, which also reported that "Engineering" experts agreed with Jiang's point of view. The report immediately caused an uproar in domestic academic circles. More than two months later, China Heritage Newspaper published an article on August 16 entitled "Questions and Answers on a Trip to the United States-About the Dating Project of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties", which was written by author Su Hui after interviewing relevant experts, saying that Zhang Lidong's report did not conform to the facts and "caused readers misunderstanding in key links". For example, when Qiu Shihua recalled the meeting in Chicago, he said, "Jiang asked to check the information on the spot with a computer. According to the conditions I provided, I found that the difference was only 1 year. I smiled and said,' It's possible that there will be a difference of two years if we calculate it again, but it's all within the allowable range of error and it doesn't mean anything. "At that time, several scholars attending the Chicago seminar said that they had heard that Qiu Shihua agreed with Jiang's point of view, and they were surprised by Qiu Shihua's casual attitude.
Xu, the author of "Excavation Report 1997" criticized by Jiang Wen, has a similar performance. In China Cultural Relics, Xu argued that the staging term he used in his report was "the era was about equivalent to a king's period", but when Jiang Wen quoted it, he "deleted it all". And textual research on the Excavation Report, the original text is: "the first period: the estimated time is when Wen Wang moved to Li and cut down", and the second period: the estimated time is until the early Western Zhou Dynasty when he became a king. So Jiang Wen's quotation is completely faithful to the original text. From Qiu Shihua's denial of his speech in the lecture to Xu's denial of the published text, some scholars have doubts about the academic ability and attitude of some leading "engineering" scholars.
American sinologist
20 13, 13 10 In early October, Xia Hanyi, a professor in the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of Chicago in the United States, questioned the "Weekly Chronology Project" at the just-concluded Fourth International Sinology Conference of the Academia Sinica in Taipei, and asserted that the "complex version" of the project was unlikely to be published in the future. Li Xueqin, the chief expert of "Xia Shang Zhou Dating Project" and professor of Tsinghua University, responded that it is normal to have disputes, and the "copy" is being revised and will come out in a while.
Professor Xia Hanyi's "Criticism on the Dating Project of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties Ten Years Later: Taking the Kings of the Western Zhou Dynasty as an Example" wrote in the abstract: "The Dating Project of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties is a major research project in China's ancient cultural history from/kloc-0 to 996-2000. According to the statistics of the project, it includes more than 200 interdisciplinary researchers and is published in academic and popular newspapers almost every day. At the end of 2000, Xia-Shang-Zhou Dating Project published "Xia-Shang-Zhou Dating Project 1996-2000 Stage Achievement Report-Simplified Edition" (hereinafter referred to as "Simplified Edition"), and promised to publish a large-scale "copy" in the near future. It has been ten years since the simplified edition was published, but the complex edition has not yet been published, and I am afraid it is unlikely to be published in the future. Nevertheless, the time is ripe to comprehensively review the dating project of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. This article is a preliminary reflection. "
Edward l. shaughnessy said that these bamboo slips only provided a general framework for the Xia and Shang Dynasties and absolute dates for the later Shang Dynasties, but admitted that these dates were not necessarily accurate. For the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was completely different, from the king to the king at the foot of Mount Li, which provided an absolute age for the reign of the Western Zhou Dynasty 12 kings.
Xia Hanyi believes that "there is no unified method for the number of years of the reign of the kings of the Western Zhou Dynasty recorded in the simplified edition and any ancient history books. If you can find support in ancient books, you can quote it. If you can't find support, you can abandon them. This is obviously inconsistent with the general historical method. Except that the titles of the kings of Wu and Shang were based on the handed down documents such as Yizhoushu, and the first year of the king of Yi was based on the record of "the day was back to the beginning" in Zhushu, the titles of the kings of the Western Zhou Dynasty contained in bamboo slips were basically divided according to the chronological records contained in 63 bronze inscriptions published at that time. The chronological framework and staging proposed in the simplified edition not only can't accommodate the newly seen bronze inscriptions in recent years, but also has several important mistakes in the staging of the original 63 bronzes. The basis of the simplified version is outrageous, and even the chronological framework has been lost. "
Li Xueqin: It's normal to have different opinions.
Li Xueqin, the chief expert of the "Zhou Dating Project" and a professor from Tsinghua University, said that he could not make a specific response because he did not see Xia Hanyi's paper. I have heard many different opinions since the abridged edition of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties Dating Project was published. He Bingdi, an overseas Chinese scholar who died not long ago, is one of them. As a phased academic achievement, we did not expect it to be final, and it is normal to have disputes. "
Li Xueqin said that the complicated version of the report of the "Zhou Dating Project" has not yet come out, and the draft has not yet been finalized. "Because we have a lot of data and need to be very accurate, it took a long time. In addition, there are many new materials and data to supplement, and at the same time absorb some academic views and opinions. Since the simplified version has been published for more than ten years, there will be some differences between the traditional version and the traditional version. However, this report is from 2000, which is based on the work we did in 2000, because we won't do any other work after that. There will be countless books published in a while, and it is estimated that there will be disputes afterwards. Scientific work is like this. "