Watson William. China before the Han Dynasty

Second Printing (with corrections). — Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1966. — 264 p. — (Ancient Peoples and Places, Vol. 23).Until the last few years, the archaeology of China has been a matter of fragmentary knowledge, speculation, and uncertainty. Since the war, however, much new information has come to light and, above all, the results of research have been organized so as to be available to scholars in a field where previous books have become out of date more rapidly than in any other. A new picture is being built up of early China, which is now presented to the English reader for the first time.
There are two reasons for this spectacular progress. Firstly, excavation in China had lagged far behind the West in the techniques of digging and recording, so that many of the finds—valuable and often very beautiful in themselves—were unlocated and undated and so of limited value to the archaeological historian. Now, however, controlled excavations are conducted there with standards of precision comparable to those expected in the West. Secondly, the results of this research have, especially since 1949, been more and more fully documented in learned periodicals. The task of assembling the evidence and comparing material relics from all over the vast territory of China is now much easier than hitherto. Sites previously excavated inadequately and objects already forming parts of museum collections are being reinterpreted and are gradually falling into place in the general pattern.
Mr. Watson's expert knowledge of Chinese enables him to keep pace with this advance. Much of the information contained here has never before been published in English. To the new material, moreover, he has been able to apply the critical standards current in European and American archaeology, and so to produce a book which the specialist will find an important addition to knowledge, and which will be a source of pleasure to every reader interested in Chinese history and its background.The Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods.
The Earlier Bronze Age: the Shang Dynasty.
The Later Bronze Age: the Chou Dynasty.
The Art of the Bronze Age.