Li Ji was a Chinese archeologist. He is considered to be the founder of modern Chinese archeology and his work was instrumental for proving the historicity of the Shang Dynasty

Shang Dynasty

The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

.

Li Ji stems from a wealthy family of the Hubei province

Hubei

' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...

, where he was born in 1896 in the city of Zhongxiang

Zhongxiang

Zhongxiang is a county-level city of Jingmen, central Hubei province, Central China. Zhongxiang means "Blessed with propitious omen", which was gifted by Emperor Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty. Zhongxiang is a well-known historical and cultural city in China....

. In 1918 he left for the United States to study anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 at the Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. He received his PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 degree in 1923 and worked for a short time at the Freer Gallery of Art

Freer Gallery of Art

The Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...

 in Washington. After that he returned to China to teach at the Nankai University

Nankai University

Nankai University , commonly known as Nankai, is a public research university based in Tianjin on mainland China. Founded in 1919 by educators Zhang Boling and Yan Fansun , Nankai University is a member of the Nankai serial schools. It is the alma mater of former Chinese Premier and key historical...

. In 1925 and 1926 he did archeological excavations for the Yangshao culture

Yangshao culture

The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China. The Yangshao culture is dated from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC. The culture is named after Yangshao, the first excavated representative village of this culture, which was discovered in 1921...

 in the southern part of the Shanxi province

Shanxi

' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....

. In 1928 he became the first director of the archeology department of the Academica Sinica and started to teach at the Tsinghua University

Tsinghua University

Tsinghua University , colloquially known in Chinese as Qinghua, is a university in Beijing, China. The school is one of the nine universities of the C9 League. It was established in 1911 under the name "Tsinghua Xuetang" or "Tsinghua College" and was renamed the "Tsinghua School" one year later...

 as well.

Li Ji led the excavations at Yinxu

Yinxu

Yinxu is the ruins of the last capital of China's Shang Dynasty. The capital served 255 years for 12 kings in 8 generations.Rediscovered in 1899, it is one of the oldest and largest archeological sites in China and is one of the historical capitals of China and a UNESCO World Heritage Site...

 near Anyang

Anyang

Anyang is a prefecture-level city in Henan province, People's Republic of China. The northernmost city in Henan, Anyang borders Puyang to the east, Hebi and Xinxiang to the south, and the provinces of Shanxi and Hebei to its west and north respectively....

  from 1928 to 1937 until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War

Second Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...

 prevented further work. These excavations yielded the discovery of a royal palace and over 300 graves including 4 royal ones. The recovered artefacts comprised among others early bronze casts and a large number of oracle bone

Oracle bone

Oracle bones are pieces of bone normally from ox scapula or turtle plastron which were used for divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty. The bones were first inscribed with divination in oracle bone script by using a bronze pin, and then heated until crack lines appeared in which the...

s, which represent the earliest significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing. Those findings finally established the historicity of the Shang Dynasty, which still had been a subject of debate up to this point.

After the war Li Ji fled to Taiwan when the communist under Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

 took power in mainland China. There he became the head of the archeology and anthropology departments of the National Taiwan University

National Taiwan University

National Taiwan University is a national co-educational university located in Taipei, Republic of China . In Taiwan, it is colloquially known as "Táidà" . Its main campus is set upon 1,086,167 square meters in Taipei's Da'an District. In addition, the university has 6 other campuses in Taiwan,...

 in Taipeh. He died on August 1 of 1979 in Taipeh.

Works

• The Formation of the Chinese People. An Anthropological Inquiry (1928)
• The Beginnings of Chinese Civilization (1957)
• Anyang (1977)