Tracey Lie-dan Lu

20 September 1959-21 March 2016

Bibliographic Data

ID3793772
AuthorsP Bellwood (0000-0001-6033-9629), Sharon Wai Yee Wong
Year2017
Volume56
Issue1
Pages121-129
Publication date2017-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian perspectives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0066-8435 • E-ISSN: 1535-8283
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/asi.2017.0004
OpenAlexW2620383467
LanguageEN
References cited13

Tracey Lie-dan Lu(20 September 1959–21 March 2016) Peter Bellwood and Sharon Wai Yee Wong Click for larger view View full resolution an appreciation Professor Tracey Lie-dan Lu died in Melbourne on 21 March 2016 after a distinguished career at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, teaching and researching Chinese archaeology, museum studies, and cultural heritage. Tracey was born in Guangzhou. She commenced her archaeological career with a bachelor’s degree from Zhongshan University in 1983. In 1987, she obtained her M.Phil. in Archaeology from Beijing University. Between 1985 and 1989, she joined a large archaeological team in Guangzhou excavating the Western Han dynasty tomb of the Nanyue king Zhao Mo (d. 122 b.c.); wrote a popular book on this discovery, Nanyuewangmu yu nanyuewangguo (1990); and contributed several chapters to the two-volume Chinese report, Xihan Nanyuewangmu (1991). My first contact with Tracey was a letter from her dated 17 November 1988, sent from Hong Kong, where she was then living. Tracey had applied to the Australian [End Page 121] National University (ANU) that year to undertake a Ph.D. on the early historical period of southern Chinese archaeology represented by the Nanyue king, but was not successful in obtaining a scholarship. Since I make no claim to expertise in Chinese Han dynasty archaeology, I was reluctant to supervise such a topic, and in the following years before she commenced her Ph.D. research, I managed successfully to wean her away from the Han dynasty and to interest her in the Chinese Neolithic. In 1990, Tracey moved from Hong Kong to Melbourne with her mother and younger brother, found a temporary job as a bank clerk, and worked hard to improve her English. She kept in frequent contact with me during these intervening years and finally enrolled for a Ph.D. degree at the ANU in August 1994, supporting herself initially from other temporary employment, including a stint in the ANU library. She became an Australian citizen in 1995 after earlier being granted permanent residency, and finally received her long-awaited ANU Ph.D. scholarship in 1996. Tracey was one of my most driven students when it came to archaeology, absolutely determined to succeed at all costs. I have quite a massive file of correspondence with her, mostly dating between 1988 and 2000. Her determination to succeed is obvious in every letter. Tracey’s very successful doctoral thesis was published as a British Archaeological Reports (BAR) monograph entitled The Transition from Foraging to Farming and the Origin of Agriculture in China in 1999. During her enrollment, she was able to travel extensively in China to examine archaeological collections. She used funds obtained through ANU to visit Beijing for two months in 1995, as well as many Neolithic sites in the Yellow and Yangzi River regions of China in 1996. Tracey also participated in the excavation of the Daiwan Neolithic site in Hong Kong in 1996. One aspect of her research was the examination of the habitats and growth cycles of the wild rice and millets that sustained the Neolithic transition in China, which she did through observation of the ripening trajectory of wild foxtail millet in Shandong. Her findings were published in 1998 and 2002 (see bibliography below). Meanwhile, she began teaching herself to analyze starch grains and phytoliths from archaeological deposits and artifacts, an aspect of research that is evident very clearly in her publications. At this time, the Chinese government took away Tracey’s Chinese passport in retaliation for her adoption of Australian citizenship. I remember this circumstance as being rather unpleasant for her, yet it must have been a major reason for her decision to undertake her academic career in Hong Kong rather than mainland China. After receiving her Ph.D. from the ANU in 1998, Tracey held a temporary lectureship in the Anthropology Department in the New Asia College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) for five months in early 1999. She then won a Fyssen Award to visit the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) laboratory of archaeobotanist Patricia Anderson in Nice (1999–2000), where she conducted more research on rice and millet domestication. Her opportunity to

Ancient history · Archaeology · Bachelor · Scholarship · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Law · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

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