Showcasing the World’s Archaeological Discoveries

and Research Findings

Shanghai Archaeology Forum Issues Archaeological Awards

To commend major field archaeological discoveries and innovative, creative, and scientific archaeological research findings during the recent three years (2013-2015), the Selection Committee of the Shanghai Archaeology Forum selected 40 shortlisted meritorious studies from 93 nominations, and selected 10 archaeological field-discoveries and 11 archaeological research findings for the awards this year. Award-winners come from every continent, with their awarding content covering human origin, urbanization, migration and other great issues. Besides, it also covers specific ethnic development processes of Taiwan, Aztec, Mayan, et al.

This year, the Shanghai Archaeology Forum set up a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for the first time. Lord Colin Renfrew, an academician of the Royal Academy of Sciences and an archaeologist of the University of Cambridge received the award. He told reporters, “We have heard a lot of great researches. For instance, human origin may have been dated back to one million years earlier, plus, the Temple of the Feathered Serpent’s underground tunnel found in Mexico. The Shanghai-based forum has been maintained at a very high standard. In addition, I am also pleased to find that more Chinese archaeologists have participated in the forum. Just a few years ago, Chinese scholars simply focused on local excavations, but now their interests have been increasingly widespread. The contact between Chinese and foreign archaeologists have been increasingly close, which is a very positive thing, because China is an important part of the world’s archaeological map.”

10 Field-discovery Awards:

(1) Thomas Emerson (University of Illinois, USA): Revealing North America’s First Native City: Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavation of Cahokia’s East St. Louis Precinct;

(2) Maceira Fulanjipan (Sapienza University of Rome): Turkey Malatya Lion earliest palace ruins District: A New Origin of the State;

(3) Natalia Bolo Si Mark (Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch): Recent Studies at Noyon Uul Burial Mounds: Unknown Facts of Life of Central Asian Nomads;

(4) Sonia Hammond (Stony Brook University, USA): The Dawn of Technology: 3.3-million-year-old Stone Tools from Lake Turkana, Kenya;

(5) Pierre Tully (Paris-Sorbonne University): Discovering the Harbor of King Khufu at Wadi el-Jarf in Egypt;

(6) Luchino Fiorini (University of Perugia, Italy): Gravisca Emporion - the Port of the Etruscan City of Tarquinia: New Excavations at the Sanctuary of Śuri and Cavatha;

(7) Gomez Sergio Chavez (Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History): Exploring the Tunnel Underneath the Feathered Serpent Temple at Teotihuacan, Mexico;

(8) John Chapman and Bixierka Gajdarska (Durham University, UK): Early Urbanism in Europe? The Case of the Trypillia Mega-sites, Ukraine;

(9) Zhou Bisu (Guizhou Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute), Guo Weimin (Hunan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute), Fang Qin (Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology): Archaeological Investigation into the Tusi Sites in China's Southwest: Imperial Expansion and the Colonization of Frontiers and Borderlands;

(10) Zang Zhenhua, Li Kuangti (Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology “China Taiwan”): Five Thousand Years of Taiwan’s Past Brought to Light by Rescue Archaeology

11 Research Finding Awards:

(1) Linda Manzanilla (UNAM): Teopancazco: a Multiethnic Neighborhood Center at Teotihuacan, Central Mexico;

(2) Ian Hodder (Stanford University): Çatalhöyük: Important Anatolian Contributions to the Development of Early Societies;

(3) Anatoly Derevianko (Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch): Three Global Human Migrations in Eurasia: the Origin of Humans and the Peopling of Southwestern, Southern, Eastern and Southeastern Asia and the Caucasus;

(4) Amy Bogard & Amy Sterling (University of Oxford): From First Farmers to First Cities: New Insights into the Agricultural Origins of Urban Societies in Western Eurasia;

(5) Leonardo López Luján (Mexico’s National Human and History Institute) : The Great Temple Project: in Search of the Sacred Precinct of Mexico-Tenochtitlan;

(6) William Doelle, James Venter, & Sharon Hull (Archaeology Southwest, USA): The Earliest Farmers in the Southwest of America;

(7) Alasdair Whittle & Alexander Bayless (Cardiff University, English Heritage): The Times of Their Lives: High-resolution Radiocarbon-based Chronological Analysis of the European Neolithic, through Formal Modelling;

(8) Stephen Shennan (University College London): Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe (EUROEVOL);

(9) Eske Willerslev (University of Copenhagen): Population Genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia;

(10) Zhao Zhijun (IA CASS), Martin Jones (Cambridge University), and Xinyi Liu (Washington University in St. Louis, USA): The Origin and Spread of Broomcorn and Foxtail Millets;

(11) Norman Hammond (Cambridge University): Cuello: the Economic and Social Origins of Maya Civilization.