Kwang-chih Chang

Kwang-chih Chang (; April 15, 1931 – January 3, 2001), commonly known as K. C. Chang, was a Taiwanese anthropologist, archaeologist, and sinologist who was the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology at Harvard University. He also served as the vice-president of Academia Sinica and as a curator at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He helped to bring modern, western methods of archaeology to the study of ancient Chinese history. He also introduced new discoveries in Chinese archaeology to western audiences by translating works from Chinese to English. He pioneered the study of Taiwanese archaeology, encouraged multi-disciplinal anthropological archaeological research, and urged archaeologists to conceive of East Asian prehistory (China, Korea, and Japan) as a pluralistic whole.

Early life Chang was born in Beijing on April 15, 1931, the second son in a family of four children. His paternal grandfather was a farmer in Taiwan. His father, , moved in 1921 to complete his education in Beijing, where he met and married Chang's mother. Wo-chun later became a professor of Japanese literature and language at Peking University and developed a reputation as a leading literary figure.

In 1946, Chang moved with his family to Taiwan. His close association with his older brother, who had chosen to remain in mainland China, led to a year-long imprisonment during the White Terror when he was 17 years old. He enrolled in National Taiwan University in 1950 to study archaeology and anthropology. After graduating in 1954, he moved to the United States to complete doctoral studies and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1960. His doctoral dissertation was titled Prehistoric Settlements in China: A Study in Archaeological Method and Theory. Most of his books of personal research are preserved in the International Center for East Asian Archaeology and Cultural History, Boston University.

Selected works In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Chang, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses more than 100 works in more than 200 publications in 9 languages and more than 9000 library holdings.

The Archaeology of Ancient China (1963), 2nd ed. (1968), 3rd ed. (1977), 4th ed. (1986)

Rethinking Archaeology (1967) Settlement Archaeology (1968) Fengpitou, Tapenkeng, and the Prehistory of Taiwan (1969)

Early Chinese Civilization: Anthropological Perspectives (1976) Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives (1977) Shang Civilization (1980) The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC (1999) "The Chinese Bronze Age: A Modern Synthesis", in Art, Myth and Ritual: the Path to Political Authority in Ancient China (1983) "The Rise of Kings and the Formation of City-states", in

Honors Association for Asian Studies (AAS), 1996 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies