Chen Tiemei

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisChen.

Chen Tiemei
Trần thiết mai
Born	(1935-06-30)June 30, 1935 Shanghai,Republic of China
Died	October 25, 2018(2018-10-25)(aged 83) Beijing,China
Occupation(s)	Physicist, archaeologist, professor, journal editor, writer
Known for	Pioneeringarchaeological science,founder of Chinese quantitative archaeology
Academic background
Education	Peking University Leningrad University
Academic work
Discipline	Physics, archaeology
Sub-discipline	Archaeological science, quantitative archaeology,geochronology,radio carbon dating,liquid scintillation counting
Institutions	Dalian Institute of Technology Peking University German Archaeological Institute
Main interests	Paleolithic China,paleoanthropology,Chinese ceramics,Quaternary science

Chen Tiemei(Chinese:Trần thiết mai;30 June 1935 – 25 October 2018) was a Chinese physicist and archaeologist, considered a pioneer in scientific archaeology and a founder of quantitative archaeology in China. He was a professor and Director of the Scientific Archaeology Laboratory atPeking University.

Life and career

Chen was born on 30 June 1935 inShanghai,Republic of China. After graduating fromShanghai High Schoolin 1952, he tested into the Department of Physics ofPeking University.In August 1954, he was sent by the Chinese government to study physics atLeningrad Universityin the Soviet Union.

Upon graduation in 1959, Chen returned to China to teach at theDalian Institute of Technology.In 1961, he became a faculty member of the Department of Technical Physics at Peking University. In 1973, he was transferred to the Department of Archaeology and served as Director of the Scientific Archaeology Laboratory. He became a full professor of archaeology in 1989 and a doctoral advisor in 1994.He was proficient in English and Russian, and taught himself German and Japanese. He was a corresponding member of theGerman Archaeological Institute.

Chen died on 25 October 2018 in Beijing, at the age of 83.

Contributions

A pioneer in scientific archaeology, Chen established China's firstradiocarbon datinglaboratory usingliquid scintillation countingat Peking University.He was instrumental in establishing laboratories and training personnel for carbon-14 dating in China.He dated more than 20palaeolithicandpaleoanthropologicalsites, and proposed the first chronology forPalaeolithic China.From the early 1990s, Chen pioneered and developed scientific methods to determine the geographical origins of ancient ceramics and porcelain.

Chen published more than 30 papers in influential journals includingNatureandActa Archaeologica Sinica.He served as an editor of domestic and international journals includingQuaternary Science ReviewsandQuaternary Geochronology.

After retiring from Peking University, Chen dedicated himself to writing. He published the monographsQuantitative Archaeology( định lượng khảo cổ học ) in 2005,Scientific Archaeology( khoa học kỹ thuật khảo cổ học ) in 2008, andConcise Statistics for Archaeology( đơn giản rõ ràng khảo cổ môn thống kê ) in 2013.