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[[underlined]] PREFACE. [[/underlined]]

    In drawing up the following report on our archaeological researches in northern and central China during the period 1923-1934, I have had primarily in mind two distinct though closely related classes of readers.
    Of these, the first has naturally consisted of specialists in the Chinese field, already familiar with that country's ancient past as we have known it hitherto, but who will welcome such new light on that topic as our investigations may throw.  The second category comprises students of antiquity more especially interested in the archaeology of lands other than China; but who may wish nevertheless to consider also, for purposes of comparison, the earlier development of that great civilization which gradually took on coherent and individualized form in northern China---first in the basin of the Huang Ho or Yellow River.
    The better to serve the needs and interests of both these groups of inquirers, I have endeavored to make of this report something more than a mere day-to-day record of work actually done---of ground covered, of obstacles and opposition encountered, and of the results that we were able to attain.  While of course always striving for entire objectivity and scientific accuracy of statement, I have at the same time kept constantly before me the fact that investigations such as ours are still in their pioneer phase in China; and that therefore in their recounting they call for a more generalized method of presentation than do reports on similar work in lands whose archaeology is better known.
    Hence I have tried as far as possible to discuss our efforts in the light of our whole existing knowledge of China---of her history and prehistory; of her geography and topography and climate; of her fauna and flora and mineral products; of her ancient customs (many of them still surviving as "living fossils", embedded in the everyday life of the present); and of