X-ray Archaeology in China

Abstract

Archaeology is a science of studying the history of human society based on human remains [1]. Its ultimate purpose is to illustrate the rules of historical developments and its close relationships with other subjects. Archaeology is also a developing discipline and a good example is the archaeology in China. The epigraphy of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127 AD) in an initial stage, experienced a long-term and gradual development, and finally matured in the early twentieth century. With the help of other subjects, especially the application of the knowledge of natural sciences, the objects of research, approaches, theories and purposes of field archaeology have all changed obviously and developed very fast. Even the principal theories for field archaeology, archaeological stratigraphy and archaeological typology, were actually formed based on the fundamental ideas of geological stratigraphy and biological taxology [2,3]. With the development of research, archaeologists discovered that all of the various remains related to the ancestral life, e contain abundant information on ancient society. Most of the information, such as its age and provenance, is not visible without the aid of modern instruments and only with the help of modern technological methods they can be detected. This information is known as the potential information of the ancient remains [4]. The materiality of ancient remains determines the significance of the potential information, structure and compositions, which is the basis of the application of X-ray technology in archaeology. 275 © 2005 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands. M. Uda et al. (eds.), X-rays for Archaeology, 275-290.