40 years ago today, on June 19, 1985 (May 2, 1985 lunar calendar), archaeologist Xia Nai passed away. Xia Nai On June 19, 1985, our country's famous archaeologist Xia Nai passed away. Xia Nai was born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1910. In 1934, he graduated from the Department of History of Tsinghua University and was admitted to the archaeology department of Tsinghua University for public-funded students studying in the United States. In 1941, he graduated from the University of London with a doctoral degree. He returned to China in the same year. He used to be a special member of the Preparatory Office of the Central Museum and a researcher at the Institute of History and Language of Academia Sinica. As early as 1945, through the excavation of the Qijia Cultural Tomb in Yangwa Bay, Gansu Province, he confirmed for the first time that the Yangshao Culture dated earlier than the Qijia Culture from stratigraphy, thus correcting the original wrong judgment on the staging of ancient Gansu culture. The traditional theory was revised according to the stratum relationship of the excavation, marking a new starting point for Chinese prehistoric archaeology. In the 1950s, he led a team to carry out archaeological excavations in Huixian County, Henan Province, and first discovered the ruins of the Shang Dynasty earlier than the Yin Ruins in Anyang. Expanded the understanding of Shang culture from the geographical and chronological aspects. In 1956, he presided over and participated in the excavation of the Ming Ding Mausoleum in Beijing. In 1974, he conducted on-site guidance on the excavation of the Han Tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha. A comprehensive study of the chronological sequence of Neolithic culture in various parts of China. Creatively used archaeological materials and methods to elucidate the outstanding achievements of ancient China in science and technology, and put forward original ideas on the routes of transportation between China and the West at that time. He was first awarded the Corresponding Academician of the British Academy, the German Archaeological Institute, the Italian Institute of Far East Research, the Royal Swedish Academy of Literature, History and Archaeology, the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, and the Third World Academy of Sciences. He is the author of "Archaeological Papers", "History of Archaeology and Technology", and the editor-in-chief of "Archaeological Discoveries and Research in New China", "Changsha Excavation Report", and "Huixian Excavation Report".