He led a national research institute at the age of 32, moved to China in his prime, and discovered the "Yangshao Culture"

Andersson was a famous Swedish geologist, paleontologist and archaeologist who spent his most creative years in China. He pioneered the study of Yangshao culture, opened the curtain on the excavation of the Peking Man site in Zhoukoudian, and became one of the founders of modern Chinese archaeology. Andersson's main academic legacy is collected in the Swedish Museum of Oriental Studies. From an Arctic explorer to a pioneer in Chinese archaeology, his life was full of adventure and breakthroughs.

Written by | Fan Ming

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874-1960), a famous Swedish geologist, paleontologist and archaeologist. In 1914, Andersson first came to China as a mining consultant for the Beiyang government. In 1921, he led the discovery and excavation of the Neolithic Yangshao culture in Henan, and was therefore called the "Father of Yangshao Culture". Andersson then went to Gansu and Qinghai to conduct surveys, discovering a series of previously unknown cultural relics from the Stone Age and Bronze Age. Andersson's scientific research reports were all published in the "Chinese Paleontology" sponsored by the China Geological Survey, which attracted widespread international attention and laid the foundation for modern Chinese archaeology. Modern geology has been closely related to paleontology, zoology and archaeology since its birth. Andersson's archaeological discoveries did not occur by chance during the geological survey process. His field surveys cover a wider range of interdisciplinary research fields in contemporary international earth sciences and have made great contributions to the search for human ancestors and the source of Chinese civilization.

Andersson personally experienced the vicissitudes of Chinese society during the Republic of China and the extremely difficult modernization process, including major events such as the pluralistic politics of the Beiyang period, the Hongxian Empire, the restoration of Zhang Xun, the May Fourth Movement, the National Revolution, and the Japanese invasion of China. He had direct contacts with important figures such as Yuan Shikai, Zhang Jian, Ding Wenjiang, Hu Shi, and Fu Sinian, and also had good personal relationships with the Swedish royal family, senior political and business leaders, and academic circles.

Andersson had a unique insight into the value of Chinese civilization. Together with his Chinese friends and colleagues, he built a bridge between Eastern and Western civilizations. Jan Romgard, a Swedish sinologist and historian of science, consulted a large number of original archival materials and interviewed many descendants of Chinese and Swedish scientists who participated in this great project. In 2018, he published Polarforskaren som strandade i Kina (Polar Explorers in China). In the book, the author tells the almost forgotten story of Sweden's first major scientific exchange with countries outside Europe in an era characterized by a desire for exploration.

Left: Oil painting of Andersson's portrait; Right: Cover of "Polar Explorers Stopping in China"

Safety Advisor to the Beiyang Mining Administration

Andersson was born in the parish of Knista in Närke, central Sweden, the only child of a farming couple. He was interested in geological research since his youth, and received a scholarship from the Swedish National Museum of Nature (NRM) as a teenager. He worked as a fossil collector in Närke and the Baltic island of Öland during the summer from 1890 to 1895. In 1892, Andersson entered Uppsala University to study, and in 1898 he was recruited by NRM to go on a polar expedition to Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean. The following year, Andersson returned to the Arctic as the leader of the expedition to Björnön. In 1902, he completed his interdisciplinary thesis "Björnön Stratigraphy and Tectonics", and received a doctorate in geology from Uppsala University. After graduation, he taught at the university. From 1901 to 1903, Andersson participated in the first Swedish Antarctic expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld. After returning from the expedition, the two co-authored the book "Antarctica: Two Years in the Ice and Snow", which won them world fame.

In 1906, Andersson was appointed director of the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU) and was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1911. In the process of industrialization and urbanization in Sweden in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the development of natural resources was regarded as a prerequisite for national modernization. Sweden is an important iron ore producer in Europe, and related scientific research is at the forefront of the world. It was against this background that the 11th International Geological Congress was held in Stockholm in 1910. Andersson was appointed secretary-general of the congress, and the Swedish Crown Prince Gustav Adolf delivered the opening speech. The main topics of the congress were iron ore resources, post-glacial climate change, glacial erosion, Cambrian fauna, Precambrian and polar geology. After the meeting, Andersson, as the organizer, facilitated a global survey of iron ore resources and climate change, and edited and published the two-volume World Iron Ore Chronicle. This conference became an important watershed in the history of Swedish geology and a prelude to the cooperation between China and Sweden in geology and archaeology a few years later.

In the winter of 1903, Andersson (center) and two expedition teammates were trapped in Hope Bay, Antarctica. This photo was taken after they were rescued.

The early 20th century was one of the most transformative periods in Chinese history. The Qing emperor abdicated, warlords fought each other, and for the newly born Republic of China, iron and coal were important pillars of national modernization, while China's mining industry was completely under foreign control. Recommended by Erik Torsten Nyström, a Swede who had been a geology and chemistry teacher at Shanxi University, Gustaf Oscar Wallenberg, the first Swedish ambassador to China and Japan, negotiated with officials such as Wang Daxie, Minister of Education, Zhang Jian, Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, and Yang Tingdong, Director of the Mining Administration, for about two years. Andersson was hired as a consultant by the Mining Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of the Beiyang Government with a high salary. He took a year's academic leave from SGU and took a train through Siberia with Swedish colleagues including Erik Torsten Nyström and Felix Reinhold Tegengren, arriving in Beijing on May 16, 1914. On July 3 of that year, he celebrated his 40th birthday in Beijing and was received by President Yuan Shikai on the same day. What Andersson did not expect was that World War I would break out soon after, changing the world, and he himself would stay in China for 11 years.

Andersson was very clear about his duty as a mining consultant to the Beiyang government, which was to "represent the interests of the Chinese government under any circumstances" against the great powers. On the other hand, the Swedish government and business community also hoped that he would use this opportunity to serve the long-term development of Sweden's interests in China. Soon after arriving in Beijing, Andersson set about looking for new minerals and drawing resource maps. He and Xin Changfu and others soon explored a large iron ore in Pangjiabao, Hebei. In the second half of 1914, Andersson's most important work was to formulate regulations for China's mining industry. After Japan declared war on Germany at the end of August, he felt that the situation in Sweden was very similar to that during the Russo-Japanese War ten years ago. In the report "On the Future Steel Industry in China" submitted on November 28, Andersson suggested that the Beiyang government nationalize two important iron mines like the Swedish Parliament did that year, and his consulting contract was extended for one year. In the spring of 1915, Andersson met with Yuan Shikai for the second time and made a two-hour report using ore samples and drawings. In 1916, he was commended by the then President Li Yuanhong for his contributions to iron ore exploration.

In the preface to the English version of The Dragon and the Foreigner, Andersson wrote: "During my years in Beijing, I was fortunate to live in a circle of advanced intellectuals in science and culture who had received modern academic training. This allowed me to get to know another China - she was full of new spiritual power, eager to accept everything valuable in Western civilization, and at the same time aware of the valuable vitality of her cultural heritage." These knowledgeable people tried to rebuild their country from the chaotic situation. Ding Wenjiang (1887-1936) was the most outstanding one among them. In 1911, Ding Wenjiang returned to China after obtaining a double bachelor's degree in zoology and geology from the University of Glasgow in the UK. In 1913, he became the first director of the Geological Research Institute newly established by the Mining Administration. At the beginning of the new year of 1915, Andersson met Ding Wenjiang, who had just returned from an investigation in Yunnan, in the office of the Mining Administration in Bingmasi Hutong, Beijing. Ding Wenjiang's honest character, profound academic background, extraordinary talent, and pure English, like a clear stream in the Beiyang officialdom, left a deep impression on Andersson.

Despite the political turmoil, it did not hinder the free rise of scientific research. In 1915, Ding Wenjiang and Andersson began to plan the development prospects of China's geological science. Faced with multiple difficulties such as lack of talent, funds, books and modern experimental equipment, they decided to start from three aspects. The most urgent task was to establish and improve an independent geological survey as soon as possible, which was what Ding Wenjiang had done before. To this end, Andersson helped Zhang Hongzhao, Ding Wenjiang, Weng Wenhao and others train the first generation of Chinese geologists, and also led students to conduct field internships. The second was to establish a geological museum and further build a knowledge base of geology, which was what Andersson was thinking about. In addition, it was to continue the exchanges and cooperation with the Swedish NRM that had already begun. Andersson took the opportunity of returning to Sweden to visit relatives during the summer vacation to analyze the minerals and fossils he and Ding Wenjiang found during their investigation in China in the laboratory in Stockholm, and took photos of some exhibitions of his old employer, the Swedish SGU, as a template for the planned geological and mineral exhibition hall. In the Mineral Administration, people called Andersson "Consultant An".

Collecting ancient fossils

In March 1916, the Mining Administration renewed the five-year consulting contract with Andersson. At the same time, he made a major decision, that is, to submit his resignation to the Swedish government, resign from the permanent position of the director of SGU and move to China. This was an unusual event in Sweden at that time, which attracted public attention and media coverage. Andersson believed that he and Ding Wenjiang were engaged in a new, interesting and pioneering career in the history of geology. From then on, he regarded his residence in Dacaochang Hutong, East Huangchenggen, Beijing as his real home - at home he was called "Master An", and China became Andersson's second home. In the summer of 1916, the Geological Survey officially opened in No. 9 Courtyard of Bingmasi Hutong (now No. 15 Courtyard), and launched the largest international scientific cooperation project in Sweden at that time. Andersson and Ding Wenjiang had a tacit understanding, and together they created many miracles in the study of Chinese geological history and prehistoric history. The Geological Survey was the earliest, largest and most internationally renowned national research institution established during the Republic of China period, and became the starting point of modern science in China.

The former site of the Geological Survey Institute in Bingmasi Hutong, Beijing (photo by the author)

When Andersson first arrived in China in 1914, he went to the Zhaitang coalfield in the west of Beijing to investigate and collected a large number of Jurassic plant fossils nearly 200 million years ago, thus discovering the organic origin of stromatolite. In early 1916, he passed by the Yellow River at the junction of Shanxi and Henan on his way back from an investigation and excavated some snail shell fossils on the steep cliffs of the river bank. After analysis and identification by experts from the Swedish NRM, these fossils came from the Eocene about 56-34 million years ago, and were the first Tertiary strata discovered in China. In the summer of the same year, Andersson discovered ivory, buffalo and rhino bone fossils in Shanxi and Beijing, and had never heard of these vertebrates living in such a cold and dry place before. This series of discoveries made Andersson strongly feel that his collaborative research on Chinese prehistory with Ding Wenjiang would be a rare opportunity in his lifetime. 15 years ago, Andersson had stood on the Antarctic continent with a completely different climate, but faced the same challenge. That expedition discovered a large number of new sites and species, providing strong evidence for the "continental drift theory."

After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, China's political forces fell into a state of division. Due to a lack of funds, Andersson's geological survey work was also seriously hindered. In July 1917, when Zhang Xun restored the Qing Dynasty and occupied Beijing, "Mr. An" hung the Swedish flag in the courtyard of Dacaochang Hutong, which became a temporary shelter for his Chinese colleagues, friends and their families. That year, Andersson invited Thore Halle, a paleobotanist from the Swedish NRM, to work in China for a year to conduct paleobotany surveys on the Carboniferous coal beds about 300 million years ago. Zhou Zanheng, one of the first graduates of the Institute of Geology, worked in China with Thore as an assistant. With funding from the Swedish side, the 25-year-old Zhou Zanheng came to Sweden as the first Chinese student on November 7, 1918, and studied Mesozoic paleobotany under Thore Halle at the NRM. He was the only Chinese in Stockholm that year, and he adapted very well to life there and quickly learned Swedish. The Swedish newspaper Daily News also interviewed Zhou Zanheng and published his photo on the front page of the newspaper.

1919 was a year of great changes in China's modern history, and also a key year in the history of Sino-Swedish scientific cooperation. As a translator and scientific consultant, Ding Wenjiang accompanied Liang Qichao to attend the Paris Peace Conference and inspected Europe. He felt more and more urgent to save the country and integrate China into the ranks of modern countries through industrialization. In July of that year, Ding Wenjiang visited Andersson's homeland Sweden at the invitation of Heller and arrived in Stockholm on the 21st. In 1904, Kang Youwei lived in Stockholm (the affectionate name for Stockholm by local Chinese) and was deeply attracted by the lakes and mountains and cultural customs there, but Ding Wenjiang did not have so much leisure. Accompanied by Heller and Zhou Zanheng, he visited the recently completed NRM laboratory and office. That night Heller hosted a banquet for Ding and Zhou, as well as guests such as Ding Gran, a geologist who had worked in China, and Axel Lagrelius, an entrepreneur and sponsor. At the dinner, Ding Wenjiang learned about Sweden's mining and steel industry in detail from several experts present. He took a train overnight to the northern city of Kiruna to visit Sweden's largest iron ore mine.

The work of Andersson and others was not only a short-term project on the natural history of China, but also closely related to the polar exploration and research on the earth's climate change by Swedish scientists since the late 19th century. In 1913, Andersson and Nordenskiöld founded the Swedish Antarctic Committee together. They originally planned to cooperate with the British Museum to carry out a new round of Antarctic scientific research, but it was stranded due to the outbreak of World War I. September 4, 1919 was a day of great significance in the history of Sino-Swedish cooperation. The main members of the Antarctic Committee held a meeting and decided to change the name to "China Committee". They suggested that the government transfer the funds originally promised to the Antarctic scientific research to Andersson's research plan in China, with Lagrelius as treasurer. Crown Prince Gustav Adolf was a well-known archaeologist and art connoisseur, especially obsessed with oriental history and culture. He became the new chairman of the China Committee in 1921, further enhancing the reputation of the Chinese project and helping to obtain more private and state funds. After the crown prince ascended the throne in 1950, he was still enthusiastic about the work of the China Committee until his death in 1973.

Signed photos of Andersson's visit to China and Ding Wenjiang preserved in the Stockholm Oriental Museum (photo by the author)

In the autumn of 1919, the ship "Beijing" of the Swedish East India Company set out from Karatsu Port, Japan, to return to Sweden. When passing through Shanghai, it was loaded with 82 boxes of animal and plant fossil specimens, which were planned to be transported to the Swedish NRM for identification before returning to China. Unfortunately, the ship crashed in the Taiwan Strait, and all the paleontological fossils sank to the bottom of the sea. This was almost all the fossils collected by Andersson and Heller in China since 1914, as well as the collection of paleobotany fossils that had not yet been identified by the Geological Survey of China. This meant that all the previous efforts of scientists from the two countries were cleared, and everything had to start from scratch, which dealt a heavy blow to the newly started Sino-Swedish geological cooperation. Zhou Zanheng, who was in Stockholm, was directly affected. His original study plan was to analyze and study this batch of paleobotany fossils with his mentor Heller. For this reason, Heller had to borrow Crown Prince Gustav Adolf's private collection as a substitute, and later collected a new batch of fossils with the help of Andersson and his assistants. Zhou Zanheng returned to China after completing his studies in 1922 and became China's first paleobotany expert.

Painted Pottery Culture of Yangshao Village

In the second year after the sinking of the "Beijing" ship, the newly established China Geological Survey and the Sino-Swedish cooperation encountered a strong competitor. The American Museum of Natural History in New York planned to organize a comprehensive interdisciplinary survey of China. They intended to use Beijing as a base and transport the excavated fossil specimens back to New York for analysis and identification. The reason was that China did not have an institution that mastered modern analytical research methods. In order to avoid conflicts and duplication of work, Ding Wenjiang and Andersson wrote to the US side to inform the Geological Survey of the planned survey area and divided it into different research fields. The two felt that it was urgent to establish a professional journal in the name of the Geological Survey to publish the cooperative scientific research results of Chinese and Swedish scientists, and set up a special publishing fund for this purpose. Due to a shortage of funds, Andersson donated nearly half of his consultant salary, a total of 25,000 silver dollars, and officially published the journal "Palaeontologica Sinica" in 1922. Unlike many countries that only want to steal resources from China, the cooperation plan between China and Sweden has created a new win-win model.

Thanks to Andersson's efforts, the Swedish China Committee decided to use the funds it received from the government to pay for transportation between China and Sweden, Andersson's field surveys, and the cost of collecting specimens by young students hired by the Geological Survey. By 1924, the funding exceeded 100,000 silver dollars. In order to adapt to the upcoming increase in workload, such as returning fossil specimens analyzed in Sweden on time, and writing scientific reports and papers in a timely manner, the research teams in Stockholm and Uppsala also expanded rapidly, recruiting new research assistants and doctoral students. Crown Prince Gustav Adolf and Lagrelius also participated in the fundraising work, for example, they won the sponsorship of the publication of "Chinese Paleontology" from Swedish match king Ivar Kreuger. The journal edited by Ding Wenjiang later became a world-class academic journal. In 1922, the Geological Society of China was established, and the Geological Survey built China's first public natural science museum-Geological and Mineral Exhibition Hall and Geological Library. Andersson served as the third curator of the exhibition hall.

A group photo of the founding of the Geological Society of China: On the far left is Andersson, on the far right is German-American geologist Amadeus William Grabau, and in the front row from the left are Zhang Hongzhao, Ding Wenjiang, and Weng Wenhao

In the spring of 1921, at Andersson's request, Carl Wiman, professor of paleontology at Uppsala University, sent Otto Zdansky, a young Austrian doctoral student, as his assistant to enhance his competitiveness against the United States. Zdansky's work was funded by the China Committee, and he proposed that all papers published based on his research be signed by him personally. Around 1900, paleontologists from various countries were looking for the origin of mankind. KA Haberer of the German Embassy in China once purchased a large number of dragon bones in a pharmacy in Beijing. After being identified by German paleontologist Max Schlosser, one of them looked very much like a human tooth. In 1918, Andersson investigated the remains of early human activities in the Chicken Bone Hill area of ​​Zhoukoudian, Beijing. Three years later, he learned that there were larger and better dragon bones in the nearby Dragon Bone Hill, so he arranged for Zdansky to go there and conduct excavation work under the guidance of the famous American paleontologist Walter W. Granger. The results were very fruitful, thus opening the curtain for the excavation of the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site.

In late autumn of 1920, Andersson sent his assistant Liu Changshan to western Henan to search for mammal fossils. At the end of the year, Liu Changshan brought back hundreds of stone axes, stone knives and other stone tools to Beijing, all purchased from the same place - Yangshao Village, Mianchi County. In April 1921, Andersson brought five people to Yangshao Village, 15 miles away from Mianchi County, for the first time. They observed, photographed and investigated around the village every day, and found the coexistence of painted pottery and stone tools on the gully section. In eight days, they collected and purchased a large number of stone tools and pottery fragments, as well as a small number of bone tools and clam tools, and filled four large boxes and transported them back to Beijing. After returning to Beijing, Andersson did a year of archaeological research and preliminarily determined that Yangshao Village was an important cultural relic of ancient China. He told Ding Wenjiang and Weng Wenhao about his ideas, and received their support and obtained approval from the Beiyang government. In October 1921, Andersson, Yuan Fuli, Shi Danski and others conducted the first modern archaeological excavation in China in Yangshao Village. They excavated a total of 17 excavation sites in 36 days and unearthed a large number of cultural relics.

Yangshao painted pottery from the Oriental Museum in Stockholm

After returning to Beijing, Andersson began to identify these cultural relics. In the era when the C-14 dating method had not yet been invented, the only method was to compare with cultural relics with a confirmed age in the same period. However, in China at that time, there was no cultural relic that could be used as a reference. Therefore, Andersson had to expand his vision beyond China and searched for a large number of documents and materials about the Anau cultural site in Central Asia more than 7,000 years ago by Western geologists. He found that the pottery unearthed in Yangshao Village had extremely similar patterns and colors to the painted pottery in Anau. Andersson wrote the book "The Culture of Ancient China" based on the excavation of the Yangshao site, and first proposed the concept of "Yangshao Culture", overturning the hypothesis that China had no Stone Age. After systematic and comprehensive research, identification and demonstration, experts unanimously confirmed Andersson's judgment that the Yangshao site was a cultural relic of the Neolithic Age of the Chinese nation. "Yangshao Culture" became the first officially named ancient cultural system in the history of Chinese archaeology, and Yangshao Village also became the starting point of modern Chinese archaeology recognized by the academic community.

For a long time, Ding Wenjiang had shouldered the financial burden of the family. At the end of 1921, Ding Wenjiang resigned from the Geological Survey Institute and became the honorary director, and Weng Wenhao took over the position of director. Ding Wenjiang sold his property in Beijing and went to Rehe to serve as the general manager of Beipiao Coal Mine Company, but he still maintained a great influence in the academic world and often traveled between Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, and Chaoyang County, Rehe, where Beipiao was located. Whenever Ding Wenjiang returned to Beijing, he would stay at Andersson's home in Dacaochang Hutong. They often chatted over breakfast while drinking tea. At midnight, the two temporarily forgot their busy daily lives and sat in the courtyard under the starry sky of Beijing to enjoy a moment of tranquility. Sometimes in the evening when Ding Wenjiang was free, Hu Shi and Weng Wenhao would visit him. This was a very rare time for communication between wise men. Later, Andersson recalled: "Our greatest pleasure was to listen to the geologist Dr. Ding Wenjiang's sharp portrayal of the political figures of the time with his undisguised skepticism, and Hu Shi always cleverly added ideological annotations to such descriptions."

Gansu Archaeology and Peking Man

At the turn of 1922 and 1923, Andersson and Tan Xichou of the Geological Survey excavated China's earliest dinosaur fossils in Mengyin, Shandong. Zdansky identified it as a sauropod long-necked dinosaur that had never been discovered before, and later named it "Euhelopus Zdansky". In order to find possible connections between the prehistoric cultures of the Central Plains and Central Asia, Andersson led a team to the Northwest along the Yellow River in June 1923. He firmly believed that Chinese civilization, like other ancient civilizations, relied on the gifts and nurture of the great river basins. The expedition team visited and explored Gansu and parts of Qinghai with a radius of 400 kilometers centered on Lanzhou, and discovered and systematically excavated about 50 sites including Qijiaping, Zhujiazhai, Machangyan, Banshan, etc., covering prehistoric civilizations from the late Neolithic Age to the early Bronze Age. Especially in the Taohe River Basin, a tributary of the Yellow River, Andersson found the most abundant and abundant cultural relics of Chinese painted pottery. On October 29, 1924, the expedition team returned to Beijing with 225 boxes of cultural relics.

The 16-month investigation and excavation in the northwest region made Andersson completely abandon professional geological surveys and devote the rest of his life to archaeology. In early 1925, Andersson exhibited the archaeological discoveries of his trip to the northwest at the Geological and Mineral Exhibition Hall in Fengsheng Hutong, which caused a huge response. In the spring of the same year, he gave a series of lectures at various universities in Beijing and published an investigation report in the "Chinese Paleontology". People were surprised to learn that there were so many prehistoric cultural relics similar to the Yangshao site in the western border. Andersson's achievements also attracted widespread attention from the international academic community. Explorers and archaeologists from the United States, Britain, France and other countries came to China for archaeological excavations. The fierce international competition caused Andersson's uneasiness, and the Sino-Swedish cooperation that had lasted for eight years faced huge challenges. Driven by the efforts of Andersson, Ding Wenjiang, Weng Wenhao and others, the two governments signed an agreement in February 1925, first of all, all the cultural relics obtained by Andersson's archaeological excavations were transported to Sweden for record and preliminary research, and then half of them were returned to China in seven installments.

Gansu archaeological relics collected by the Stockholm Oriental Museum

At this time, Andersson faced two choices: on the one hand, the professorship of geology at the Stockholm Polytechnic was waiting for him to take up the post; on the other hand, he received a two-year contract extension as a mining consultant for the Beiyang government. With the agreement between the Chinese and Swedish governments, Andersson's top priority was to return to Stockholm to establish a museum to collect the half of the cultural relics that belonged to Sweden. To this end, he applied for and was approved to leave his position as a consultant in Beijing for one year, postponed his professorship in Stockholm until 1927, and the plan to establish a museum was fully supported by Crown Prince Gustav Adolf. On May 20, 1925, Andersson completed a complete report on the cooperation between Swedish and Chinese scientists since 1918 and the archaeological excavations that had been sent and returned. After working in China for 11 consecutive years, he set off on his return journey on July 1 of that year. Many people came to see him off with his second wife and assistant Elsa. On July 17, Andersson and his wife arrived in Stockholm, and a new job was about to begin.

In the year after returning to Sweden, Andersson wrote the book "The Dragon and the Foreign Devil", which introduced his experiences and observations in China. It was later translated into many languages ​​and published. In 1926, the Swedish government appointed Andersson as the professor and curator of East Asian archaeology of the newly established "Eastern Museum" (Östasiatiska museet), and rented the third floor of the new building of Stockholm Business School as the museum site. The Oriental Museum has both research and exhibition functions. For this purpose, Andersson recruited and trained professionals to prepare and photograph archaeological excavations. From 1926 to 1927, Crown Prince Gustav Adolf and the Crown Princess traveled around the world, conducting research in archaeology and art history. China was the most important stop on this trip. On August 11, 1926, Andersson returned to Beijing with Xin Changfu and Lagrelius. One of their important missions was to make various preparations for the Crown Prince and his wife who came to China in October. During the visit of the Crown Prince and his wife, Andersson, Weng Wenhao and others plan to hold an international academic conference to showcase the results of cooperation between China and Sweden over the years.

Before leaving Sweden, Andersson wrote to Professor Wieman in Uppsala to learn about the recent progress of the paleontology department led by him in fossil dating. Soon after arriving in Beijing, Andersson received a reply from Wieman, in which the two words that shocked him the most were: "Homo Sp"! Since Andersson went to Zhoukoudian for investigation eight years ago, he has never forgotten that there may be a cave hiding the secret of human origin. His long-awaited and most desired conclusion has finally been confirmed. In fact, after returning to Uppsala, Shi Danski soon found the teeth of primitive humans in the fossils in Zhoukoudian. However, Shi Danski, who was introverted and cautious, did not report this discovery to Andersson in time. On October 22, 1926, Chinese and foreign scholars held a grand welcome party for the crown prince and his wife in the auditorium of Peking Union Medical College. Liang Qichao, Weng Wenhao and others gave reports. This was the first time that Chinese scholars summarized the newly started Chinese archaeology and Sino-Swedish cooperation. Before the end of the welcome party, Andersson announced the discovery of two human tooth fossils in Zhoukoudian, bringing the meeting to a climax.

Crown Prince Gustav and his wife (first and third from left in the front row) visited Taiyuan. Xin Changfu is the first from right in the front row, Lagrelius is the second from left in the second row, and Andersson is the first from right

On November 14, the front page of the Swedish newspaper Daily News published a news titled "500,000-year-old Peking Man discovered in Uppsala". Although this important discovery was not unanimously recognized by the academic community at the time, it laid a good foundation for the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Geological Survey and the Union Medical College, the establishment of the Cenozoic Research Laboratory, and the large-scale excavation of the Zhoukoudian human site. Finally, on December 2, 1929, Pei Wenzhong unearthed the first complete Peking Man skull fossil. The cooperation between China and Sweden in paleontology and archaeology has been fruitful. The Stockholm Polytechnic Institute, Uppsala University and the Swedish National Museum of Natural History have established long-term cooperative relations with China, and some of the work continues to this day. Between 1922 and 1929, more than half of the papers in the journal "Chinese Paleontology" sponsored by the Geological Survey were published by Swedish scientists or Chinese and Swedish scientists in collaboration. The autumn of 1926 was the highlight of Andersson and Ding Wenjiang's lives. The two became superstars in Sweden and China.

Unfinished business

In the winter of 1926, the famous Swedish explorer and geographer Sven Hedin came to Beijing to negotiate with the Beiyang government, planning to open a route from Berlin to China for the German Lufthansa Airlines and organize a comprehensive scientific survey of Northwest China mainly by Western scientists. With Andersson's advice and help, Hedin visited Weng Wenhao, director of the Geological Survey, and signed an agreement in February of the following year. When the content of the agreement was announced, it aroused strong dissatisfaction in the domestic academic community. On March 5, representatives of academic groups such as the Archaeological Society of the Institute of Peking University and the Antiquities Exhibition Hall held an emergency meeting to establish the "China Academic Society Association" and issued the "Declaration Against the Arbitrary Taking of Chinese Antiquities by Foreign Countries". Andersson was inevitably involved in this dispute, mediating and communicating between the two sides. After repeated negotiations and consultations, Hedin finally signed a cooperation agreement with the China Academic Society Association on April 26. On May 9, 1927, the Northwest Scientific Expedition Team composed of Chinese and Swedish scientists set out from Xizhimen Railway Station. It took eight years and achieved remarkable achievements.

Left: Andersson’s “Gansu Archaeological Records” published in “Chinese Paleontology”; Right: Andersson preparing exhibition for the newly built Oriental Museum

On the same day that the Northwest Expedition set off, Andersson also boarded the Trans-Siberian train in Harbin, bidding farewell to his second homeland where he had lived for 12 years. The last two years of busy travel, especially the ups and downs of various disputes about Hedin's Northwest Expedition, made Andersson physically and mentally exhausted. After three months of recuperation in his seaside villa in Stockholm and the Italian Riviera, he gradually recovered. In the following years, Andersson began to classify and organize the cultural relics excavated and acquired from China, exchange ideas with colleagues from various countries, and hold academic conferences and exhibitions. He was busy and productive. In 1929, Andersson founded the Journal of the Far Eastern Museum. In the first issue, he briefly reviewed his experience in China. His two books, The Chinese and Penguins and Children of the Loess: A Study of Chinese Prehistory, were published one after another. Between 1931 and 1933, due to the appreciation of the Swedish krona and a shortage of funds, the publication of the Chinese Paleontology encountered difficulties, and the Chinese archaeological collections of Uppsala University could not be returned on time. Andersson made a lot of efforts to finally solve these problems.

After Andersson left China, Ding Wenjiang returned to the academic world, and the two kept in touch through correspondence. During this period, the political situation changed greatly: the Beiyang government fell, the Nationalist government moved its capital to Nanjing, Beijing became "Beiping", and the highest academic hall of the Republic of China, the Academia Sinica, was established. In 1933, Ding Wenjiang traveled to Western Europe and the Soviet Union to learn about the operation of academies of science under different social systems. On his way back in August, he passed through Stockholm and revisited the old place, visited Andersson, Heller and others, and visited the newly built Oriental Museum. At Andersson's home, the two old friends held a cup of tea and had a long talk. They talked about the old times, science and politics, the East and the West... It seemed to have returned to the Da Caochang Hutong in Beijing more than ten years ago. This was also the last time the two met. Shortly after Ding Wenjiang returned to China, he was invited by Cai Yuanpei, the president of the Academia Sinica, to serve as the general secretary of the Academia Sinica. In early 1936, 49-year-old Ding Wenjiang died young from gas poisoning while exploring for coal mines in Hunan, leaving behind a story of "encountering a soulmate in the mountains and streams".

In late November 1936, Andersson came to China for the third time with the last batch of cultural relics to be returned. He got off the taxi in front of the newly built building of the Geological Survey, which had moved to Nanjing. Zhou Zanheng, the first Chinese scholar who had studied in Sweden, greeted him and said in Swedish: "Welcome back to China." He also had dinner with Weng Wenhao, who was also the Secretary-General of the Executive Yuan. During his visit to China, Andersson gave a series of lectures in Nanjing and Beijing, and had academic exchanges with his peers. In June 1937, he signed a brief investigation agreement with Fu Sinian, Director of the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica in Chengdu, and formed a "Xikang Investigation Team" with his colleagues from the Institute of History and Philology, West China Union University, and Sichuan University to search for prehistoric sites around Chengdu and Xikang. However, the outbreak of the "July 7 Incident" forced the investigation team to end its work ahead of schedule, and Andersson's plan to publish his latest research results in the "Chinese Paleontology" was thus thwarted. An exhibition of these returned cultural relics was also held at the Geological Survey. Many items, including hundreds of prehistoric painted pottery, disappeared during the war years.

The upper left picture shows the Swedish National Museum of Natural History, which was completed in 1916. The other three pictures show the buildings of the Stockholm Oriental Museum from 1926 to 1946, 1946 to 1962, and 1963 to the present day (photographed by the author)

Between October and November 1937, Andersson witnessed the Battle of Songhu and the Japanese-occupied Peking. He took photos of the Japanese bombing of Zhabei in a room on the 11th floor of the Shanghai International Hotel. In Peking, Andersson stayed in Room 304 of the Beijing Hotel, opposite the luxurious suite where Crown Prince Gustav Adolf and his wife stayed 11 years ago, which was now occupied by the Japanese. The unrecognizable ancient capital made him very sad, and he said goodbye to the city a few days later. After returning to Sweden via Vietnam at the end of May 1938, Andersson wrote the 21-chapter, 272-page "China's Fight for the World", which was published in English in 1939. In the first half, Andersson described the changes in China since he left last time, from the Northern Expedition, the Nanjing government, to the New Life Movement, the Guangdong-Guangxi Incident, etc. The second half includes Japan's policy toward China, the resistance activities of the Chinese military and civilians after the "July 7 Incident", the attitudes of various countries towards the Sino-Japanese War, and Andersson's analysis of the future direction of East Asia. This book may be the earliest English work to give the world a detailed introduction to the war that was taking place in China at that time and to explain the global significance of China's War of Resistance.

When Andersson first came to China, World War I broke out, and when he left for the last time, it was the eve of World War II. Andersson believed that the most glorious things in his life were polar expeditions and his work in China. In Sweden, he was called "China's Gunnar" (Gunnar is Andersson's middle name). In 1939, Andersson retired at the age of 65 and continued to engage in research and writing. He died of illness in Stockholm on October 29, 1960 at the age of 86. Andersson always believed that the Chinese civilization, which has lasted for thousands of years, has never been interrupted and is unique in human history. He is full of hope and expectations for China's future. This fall, several Chinese researchers came to the Evolutionary Museum of Uppsala University to conduct cooperative research. With the help of modern 3D scanning technology, they digitized the original specimens of mammal fossils shipped from China more than a hundred years ago, so as to study and share fossil data in the form of high-resolution visualization. On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Sweden, I hope that the cooperation between the younger generation of scholars from the two countries will write a new chapter for the cause pioneered by Andersson.

References

[1] Jan Romgard: Polarforskaren som strandade i Kina, Fri Tanke, Stockholm, 2018.

[2] Han Qi: From mining consultant, fossil collector to archaeologist: Andersson’s scientific activities in China, French Sinology (Volume 18), 2018.

[3] Li Xuetong: Revealing the World Significance of China’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression: Andersson and China’s Fight for the World, Studies on the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, 2022.

Stockholm, November 19, 2024

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