How did the right to speak about Tibetan archeology gradually transfer from Western scholars to Chinese scholars?

For example, Western scholars have almost no answer to the question of when early humans set foot on the Tibetan Plateau.

China News Service reporters He Shaoqing Yue Yitong

The writing in Tibet of China appeared after the establishment of the Tubo Dynasty in the 7th century AD. There was no documentary evidence for the long period before that. Since traditional Tibetan studies mainly rely on Chinese and Tibetan documents and a very small amount of Tubo epigraphs and slips, it cannot solve key archaeological questions about the origins of human beings, agriculture, and civilization in Tibet. After several generations of Chinese archaeologists, breakthroughs were achieved on these issues, and the right to speak about Tibetan archeology gradually transferred to Chinese scholars.

Scientific archaeological evidence shows that Tibetan culture and civilization have always been closely connected with mainland China. Why has its civilization always developed eastward? How can Tibetan archeology provide all mankind with a unique world sample of "Plateau Civilization"? Huo Wei, dean of the School of History and Culture at Sichuan University and director of the Institute of Chinese Tibetan Studies at Sichuan University, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service's "East-West Question" on this.

The interview transcript is summarized as follows:

China News Service reporter: What achievements and limitations have Western archaeologists made in their archaeological work in Tibet? When can China's archaeological work in Tibet be traced back to the earliest time?

Huo Wei: Tibetan archeology can be said to be an internationally renowned discipline. Before the peaceful liberation of Tibet, entering Tibet as a "Tibetologist" to conduct "archaeological" and "exploration" activities can be said to be a "patent" for Western scholars. Among them, the representative figure is the Italian Giuseppe Duzzi. He has made certain achievements in the research of Tibetan Buddhist art and the investigation of some ruins in western Tibet. However, in general, it is not very scientific, relatively scattered and unsystematic, and most of his work is based on ground collection and exploration.

Although Western scholars once opened the door to Tibetan archeology, Tibetan archeology in a truly scientific sense only really took off after the peaceful liberation of Tibet. Marked by the discovery of the Neolithic Karuo site in Karuo, Qamdo, Tibet by the famous archaeologist Professor Tong Enzheng, Tibetan archeology has entered the stage of underground excavation.

This site, which dates back about 5,000 years, has revealed to the world for the first time scientific evidence of prehistoric human survival activities on the Tibetan Plateau. It turns out that as early as the Neolithic Age, there were already settled people on the Tibetan Plateau. They used bone needles to sew clothes, grow millet (millet), make pottery, and even make exquisite decorations using animal bones, pottery fragments and seashells imported from distant places. While archaeologists obtained a large amount of scientific materials, they also raised the issue of mutual exchanges between the ancestors of the Karuo site and the Central Plains culture and the Neolithic culture of the Yellow River Basin.

The Tibet Museum displays a restored miniature of the house ruins at Karuo ruins in Tibet. Source: Visual China

China News Service Reporter: How has the right to speak about Tibetan archeology gradually transferred from Western scholars to Chinese scholars?

Huo Wei: Thanks to the continuous efforts of archaeologists of all ethnic groups, China has continued to make breakthroughs in the three most critical issues of early human civilization in Tibetan archeology, namely the origin of human beings, the origin of agriculture, and the origin of civilization. These areas were rarely explored by Western scholars in the past and lacked scientific archaeological materials. The right to speak about Tibetan archeology has gradually shifted to the hands of Chinese scholars.

For example, Western scholars have almost no answer to the question of when early humans set foot on the Tibetan Plateau. Through the efforts of Chinese scholars in recent years, we can safely say that around 50,000 years ago, humans had settled on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and began their civilization creation. Around 5,000 years ago, there were already Neolithic agricultural settlements like the Karuo site. People learned to grow millet on this land and later introduced highland barley.

Even in the documented historical period of Tibet, archeology is still rewriting and enriching Tibetan history to a great extent. For example, we found the "Inscription on the Departure of the Envoys from Tianzhu in the Tang Dynasty" built by Wang Xuance, the official envoy of the Tang Dynasty, in Jilong on the Sino-Nepalese border. The discovery of this stone tablet is currently the only physical evidence that proves the Tang-Tubo-Tianzhu road. It is more than a hundred years earlier than the Tang-Tibo Alliance monument in front of the Jokhang Temple today.

This is the most significant archaeological discovery in the history of Sino-Indian transportation and Tang-Tibet transportation since the 20th century. It shows that Chinese scholars have continuously made new achievements in the field of Tibetan archaeology by taking advantage of the favorable weather and location. At present, cutting-edge academic topics proposed by Chinese archaeologists on Zhangzhung archeology, Tubo archeology, Plateau Silk Road archeology, and Tibetan Buddhist cave temple archeology have attracted great attention from the international Tibetan scholarly community, and their research results are increasingly recognized by Chinese and foreign academic circles.

Reporter from China News Service: Does "The Inscriptions of Tianzhu in the Tang Dynasty" prove the existence of the legendary figure Wang Xuance? Can you tell us more about the unearthing process and significance of this stele?

Huo Wei: Documents have recorded that during the Tubo period, around the 7th century AD, there was an important international passage between China and India. Wang Xuance, the envoy of the Tang Dynasty, used this passage to travel to India. When Wang Xuance was on his second mission, he encountered civil strife in Tianzhu. Wang Xuance and his deputies, with the help of Tubo Songtsen Gampo, Princess Wencheng and Nibala, helped Tianzhu quell the civil strife and completed the mission.

Although Wang Xuance often appeared in many folk tales at home and abroad as "the most powerful man in the Tang Dynasty", before the discovery of "The Inscription of the Envoys from Tianzhu in the Tang Dynasty", there were many doubts in the academic circles about the history of Sino-Western exchanges in the Tang Dynasty. Both Wang Xuance and the ancient Fanni Road related to the envoy route had great doubts about its existence. Chinese and foreign archaeologists have explored the remains of this ancient road many times. For example, at the end of the 19th century, the French scholar Lévi Glisson went on a field trip to find the remains of the inscription that Wang Xuance built on Qijue Mountain in India. However, in the end he had to "consider the mountain to be overgrown with vegetation and difficult to climb, so he returned disappointed."

In June 1990, during our archaeological survey in Geelong, with the help of local people, we found an inscription with a width of 81.5 cm and a residual height of 53 cm, with a hada hanging on it and covered with butter. The fellow village head told us that the local Tibetan people respect this "stone" engraved with Chinese characters very much and think it is a "spirit" that can protect the peace of the place.

Part of the inscription "Inscription on the Envoys of Tianzhu in the Tang Dynasty". Photo provided by interviewee

After scrubbing the inscription, the text on the stele gradually appeared. The first thing that caught the eye was the inscription "The Emperor of the Tang Dynasty was sent out by Tianzhu" written in seal characters. Although this stele has been damaged, there are still 24 lines of regular script inscribed on it, which have the characteristics of Tang Dynasty inscriptions in terms of calligraphy and format. After research, it records Wang Xuance's third mission. It is the earliest Tang Dynasty inscription discovered in Tibet and is also an important evidence of the Tang-Tubo-Tianzhu road.

Reporter from China News Service: Why does the trajectory of Tibetan civilization always develop eastward? How does Tibetan archeology provide all mankind with a unique world sample of "plateau civilization"?

Huo Wei: The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the area with the highest average altitude on earth and has long been considered a "no-go zone for human life." The scientific discoveries of Tibetan archeology have shattered this myth with a large amount of physical evidence, and provided the anthropological basis for why early humans were able to adapt to the plateau and survive and develop in the cold and hypoxic conditions.

In addition, Tibetan archeology also shows the world from the cultural characteristics how the people living on the plateau formed their own cultural characteristics in religion, art, philosophy and other aspects through their artistic creation, which has become a very important Tibetan cultural symbol.

Through Tibetan archeology, we can also see that from prehistoric times to various historical stages, the overall development trend of people living on this plateau is eastward, closely connected with the inland.

For example, as early as 5,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Karuo site had close contact with the upper reaches of the Yellow River; Princess Wencheng and Princess Jincheng of the Tang Dynasty came to Tibet, bringing advanced religion, culture, institutions, regulations, clothing and technology from the Central Plains, which accelerated Tibet's integration into the Chinese cultural circle centered on the Tang Dynasty; Tibet was incorporated into the central administrative jurisdiction of the Yuan Dynasty, establishing a subordinate relationship between Tibet and the central government, which remained unchanged until the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

These historical facts are enough to prove that Tibet has been an integral part of China since ancient times. If we ask what the background of Tibetan culture is, the background of Tibetan culture is in the East Asian cultural circle and is a member of the pluralistic and integrated family of the Chinese nation.

Interviewee profile:

Huo Wei was elected as a first-level professor of liberal arts in 2026, an outstanding professor of Sichuan University in 2019, a candidate for the Ministry of Education’s Important Talent Program, and a national-level teaching teacher. He is currently a professor of archeology at Sichuan University, a doctoral supervisor, the academic dean of the School of History and Culture (School of Tourism, School of Archeology and Museology) of Sichuan University, and the director of the Institute of Chinese Tibetology at Sichuan University, a key research base of the Ministry of Education. He serves as the final evaluation judge of the National Social Science Fund and the convenor of the archaeological group, and the president of the Sichuan Provincial Archaeological Society, among other academic positions.

Source: "Dongxi Wen" WeChat public account