The first Shanghai Archaeology Forum (SAF) was held this morning in the Art Theater of the China Art Museum Shanghai (formally Expo Shanghai China Pavilion). Mr. Yang Xiong, Mayer of Shanghai joined the ceremony and gave a welcome address, which was followed by two congratulatory addresses delivered by Mr. Tong Mingkang, Deputy Director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and President of China International Council on Monuments and Sites, and Professor Colin Renfrew from the University of Cambridge. The Opening Address was given by Professor Wang Weiguang, the President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

 

 

Professor Wang Wei, Director of the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences offered a brief Introduction to the process of 2013 SAF Selection Program. The major archaeological field discoveries and researches were announced as follow:

 

 

MAJOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD-DISCOVERIES

1. Early Ceremonial Constructions at Ceibal, Guatemala, and the Origins of Lowland Maya Civilization

2.  Kodumanal: An Early Historic Industrial-cum-Trade Centre of South India

3.  Sacral Place of the First Metallurgists of Urals

4.  In Search of the Pyramid Settlements: Archaeology of Everyday Life at Giza

5.  Searching for a Lost Civilization: New Findings from the Liangzhu Archaic City     

6.  Archaeological Research on the Ancient Temples of the Upper Amazon in Peru

7.  Göbekli Tepe (Southeastern Turkey) – Megalithic Sanctuaries and the "Neolithic Revolution"

8.  Worldview and Social Histories Materialized at Monuments in Teotihuacan, Mexico   

9.  Shimao: A Stone-Walled Settlement of the 2nd Millennium BC in Northern China

10.  Rulers of Mycenaean Laconia: New Insights from Excavations at the Palatial Settlement of Ayios Vasileios near Sparta

 

 

MAJOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH FINDINGS

1.  Discovery of Archaic Humans from the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition of Southwest China

2.  Patterned Variation at the Beginnings of Complex Society     

3.  The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire     

4.  The History of Urbanism at Angkor – A Giant Low-Density City

5.  Ancient Kura 2010-2012: Human-Environment Interaction in Neolithic Southern Caucasia  

6.  The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor 

7.  The Village Ecodynamics Project: Pueblo Societies Through Time in the US Southwest

8.  Archaeological Investigation of the Temples of the Sun and Moon in Trujillo, Peru        

9.  In Search of the Origins of Chinese Civilization: a Long-term Transdisciplinary Program

 

 

 

The SAF is a global initiative dedicated to promoting the investigation, protection and utilization of the world’s archaeological resources and heritage. It serves as an international platform for the illumination of archaeological research and its significance and relevance to the world today.

 

The SAF Selection Program recognizes individuals and organizations that have achieved distinction through innovative, creative, and rigorous works relating to our human past, and have generated new knowledge that has particular relevance to the contemporary world and our common future. It aims to promote excellence and innovation in archaeological research, raise public awareness and appreciation of archaeology, advocate the protection and conservation of the world’s archaeological resources and heritage, and facilitate international collaboration and partnerships between scholars and others from different countries.

 

 

The SAF Selection Program consists of two categories: major archaeological field-discoveries and major research findings. Selection in the first category is made for archaeological excavations or surveys that have yielded major discoveries significantly furthering or even altering our knowledge of the human past, locally and/or globally. Selection in the second category is made for archaeological research that is based on rigorous studies on specific subjects and/or laboratory and scientific analyses. They may be comprehensive and multi-year research projects, or major breakthroughs in theory, method or technique, or groundbreaking works of synthesis based on updated archaeological findings. The nominations can only be made by the SAF Advisory Committee consisting of 151 renowned scholars in various fields of archaeology and cultural heritage from 45 countries.

 

There were 99 valid nominations made for consideration in the inaugural Shanghai Archaeology Forum.  The nominations were reviewed and adjudicated by the SAF Selection Committee comprising 40 international experts from 17 countries in the world according to the highest international standards of excellence and impartiality. A total of 19 nominations, including 10 major archaeological field-discoveries and 9 research findings, have been short-listed by 2013 SAF Selection Program.

 

We extend our warmest congratulations to those on the final list of 2013 SAF Selection Program.