Shao Wangping

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Shao Wangping (邵望平) (born 1937) is a renowned Chinese archaeologist. She married Gao Guangren (born 1938), a fellow archaeologist and colleague at the Institute of Archaeology. Both Shao and Gao graduated from Peking University, where they studied from 1945 to 1959. Their shared academic background and professional collaboration would later define their careers and cement them as important academics in their own rights. Still, it is recognised that Shao's influence stretched far beyond her husband's (Hein et al., 2023^[1]) due to the extent and significance of her work in leading fieldwork, producing detailed excavation reports throughout her academic career and collaborative work with other academics.

Shao was unique in that she did not have children, so she could focus on her research more intensively than many of her female peers who were parents. In this regard, she was similar to Zheng Zhenxiang, another prominent archaeologist, who also balanced her personal and professional life through support from her spouse. She still had to challenge the stigma around her upbringing: her career was tainted by being from a land-owning family (Shao, Li 2011^[2]). The PropertylawinChina (or rather, the challenges for farmers to achieve land ownership in rural areas under the Chinese government) places a heavy taboo on land that was owned by individuals in urban areas, with the widespread belief that land is unavailable and unfairly concentrated in the hands of 'landlords' (Johnson, 2019^[3]). This tension has resulted in violence and uprisings throughout history, such as in 1949, where up to two million farmers considered 'landlords' were killed across the country). Shao's family, and Shao by extension, were therefore criticised for their land ownership. Possibly because of this reputation, she wasn't awarded the title of Research Associate and Professor at the Graduate School of the Institute until 1990, despite having already made significant contributions to the academic sphere.