The Study Of Folke Bergman And The Archaeology Of Northwest China

Folke Bergman is the only member of The Sino-Swedish scientific Expediton to the North-Western Provinces of China with a degree in archaeology.As the discoverer of the Juyan Bamboo Slips of the Han Dynasty and the Xiaohe cemetery,his archaeological achievements are little known.During his expedition,he collected a large number of historical relics,including stone tools,bronze and iron tools,coins,bone and horn tools and documents,providing reliable information to restore the historical and cultural landscape of northwest China.He investigated numerous sites,including city sites,beacons and tombs,correcting erroneous mapping information from his predecessors and leaving behind accurate mapping information.He has provided many important academic insights in identifying the location of the city of Juyan,studying the origins of the Lop-nor civilisation,examining the relics of key sites along the Silk Road,and exploring the migration of the ancient peoples of Loulan and the interaction between China and the West.This article focuses on the influence of the development of Swedish archaeology and Sinology on Bergman,and analyses the reasons for Bergman’s move towards archaeology in the age of the exploration boom.It is because of his professional archaeological background that he was able to achieve significant successes in his later expeditions to the northwest.At the same time,this paper compares Bergman’s archaeological activities in northwest China,restores Bergman’s rich archaeological harvest in northwest China,sumarises his archaeological findings,and discusses his academic views.It attempts to illustrate the contribution of Bergman’s archaeological activities to the development of archaeology in north-western China.On the one hand,he provided rich historical material for historical research in the northwest and drew the attention of Chinese scholars to the archaeological endeavours in the northwest,while on the other hand his archaeological results contributed to the study of Sinology in Sweden.