The 6^th World archaeology conference was held at the University of Dublin, Ireland from June 29, 2008 to July 5, 2008. A Chinese delegation was led by Professor Wang Wei, who is the director of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IA CASS), and leader of the Chinese delegation, was invited to this conference.

    Other members of the delegation included: Yang Yang, director general of International Cooperation Bureau of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Chen Xinchan, deputy director of the IA CASS, Yan Yalin, deputy chief of the Archaeology division, Cultural Relics Preservation department of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Zhou Yunfan, division chief of International division, International Cooperation Bureau, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Liu Yunchun, division chief of the Literature, History & Philosophy department, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Wang Xuerong, deputy directory of the Conservation and Research Center of Cultural Heritage of the Institute of Archeology, CASS.

     The main mission for Chinese delegation was to attend the 6^th World Archaeology Conference and petitioning to host the 2010 World Archaeology conference. Meanwhile, by attending the conference, they came to a better understanding of the organizational structure of the organization as well as its operating procedures; such as its institutional structure, ways to form the chairman, mode of conference, topics, preparation and reception. These efforts were made in conjunction for preparation for the 2010 meeting.

     The meeting of committee members was held on afternoon of July 3. There were 60 persons in attendance at this meeting, including its director, regional representatives and representatives form each participating country. The agenda mostly focused on: voting for new Chairman, Vice chairman, secretary and treasurer, modifying the conference constitution, selecting the country to hold the 7th conference in 2012 and the 2010 meeting.

     Chinese delegation also submitted a letter of intent to apply to undertake the 2010 meeting for the world archaeology conference held by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the State Administration of Culture Heritage. The letter of intent was approved by the committee. In addition, Professor Chen Xinchan was nominated to be conference director and East-Asian representative. Professor Wang Xuerong was voted to be representative of China.

 

Translated by

Jie Yang, Mark Davis & Jenny Wong