The intersection of east and west.

In a small laboratory on the outskirts of Rapid City, South Dakota, a visiting researcher named Don Ivey is spinning around in his chair, staring at a small pile of dirt. His business card says "Where there is a trowel, there is a trip". He adjusted the truck driver's hat with his left hand. He pushed a pair of stainless steel tweezers into the dark soil with his right hand. "I found a pair of tweezers, right there," he said, taking out a rusty V-shaped metal strip and carefully putting it aside.

Last summer, Ivey drove his RV to this laboratory managed by the National Archaeological Research Center, participated in the excavation of a residential area in China in the19th century, and was buried under the legendary barren new city of deadwood in the west (once the hometown of wild Bill hickok and Disaster Jane). For three years, national archaeologists have been working at the rotten wood site in Montenegro, 50 miles northeast of Lapid. In August this year, they closed the excavation and sent the last box of bones, wood, metal and glass to the state's laboratory for analysis.

Excavation is the largest project in South Dakota: a project costing 500,000 US dollars started in May 2006 at 5438+0, after a developer announced plans to demolish a former restaurant and build a parking lot. Dead wood is a national historical landmark building, and archaeological evaluation must be carried out before demolition. When the researchers examined these cultural relics, they realized that these China residents who first came to the border town in 1876 left thousands of important cultural relics. This discovery helps to stimulate people's interest in the history of Chinese Americans, which has become the theme of recent books and documentaries on PBS. Even HBO's messy drama Dead Wood is set in Chinatown.

Archaeologists are sifting through the turbulent past of the city in the laboratory of Rapid City in the office park behind the hardware store. On a table next to Ivey's desk are newly labeled specimens, including two worn fedora hats, a set of opium cigarette cases and a pony 44 issued in 1860. Ivey has a19th century Sears catalogue on his knee, which can help him identify items. "People in China never shave," he said, looking at the metal bars on the tray and pulling out his hair. Tweezers are also used to smoke opium, but this one seems to be used for grooming.

Deadwood's Chinatown, like many other Chinatowns in the West, was built during the Italian employment boom in that country. 1874, george Armstrong custer, a general during the civil war, found that "gold can be found in Montenegro without experts" while patrolling in Dakota. Explorers, adventurers and lawless elements soon poured into the area. A pioneer wrote: "Ten thousand adventurers, excited gold diggers" struggled to defeat the dirt road leading to the dead wood. The first settlement was a jumble of canvas tents, partition shops and pubs, gathered by a muddy stream.

Hundreds of immigrants from China came to this lawless border and were no strangers to the gold rush. In the villages in the south of China, people call the United States "Golden Mountain", a place to find wealth. 1849 the California gold rush triggered the earliest wave of Chinese immigrants in the United States. In the next ten years, about 66,000 people came to the United States, most of whom were men. (About half of them stayed) Chinese workers went east to Nevada, Montana and Wyoming to look for opportunities. From 65438 to 0870, they accounted for nearly 30% of Idaho's population.

When the Chinese began to die, most people had learned to engage in fierce competition and racist negotiations with barbaric western countries. White miners have a deep prejudice against China people. Many people in China choose to avoid the highly competitive gold rush world and engage in heavy manual labor or service industry. In 1960s (19), at least one in every six China immigrants living in the United States was engaged in railway construction. Others become cooks, farmers, businessmen, blacksmiths and innkeepers. In the early days of the gold rush in Montenegro, more than 65,438+000 people were engaged in laundry work in deadwood and its surrounding areas, and deadwood was a monopoly industry, which won them the title of "Bathtub Knight" in a contemporary newspaper.

The wealth of Chinatown in deadwood grows with the development of this city. The local people soon called Montenegro "the richest 100 square mile on earth", and this prosperity finally created 100 billion dollars of gold. But by 19 18, with the exploitation of the main gold mines in this town, the deadwood economy had fallen sharply. China people leave other parts of the United States or return to China; To 1935, there are none left.

"Until recently, the history of the China community in deadwood attracted people's attention," said Ross Estep Fossa, director of the excavation department. In the laboratory of Rapid City, she spread out an old insurance map on a messy desk. "We have a shopping center, a game room, three homes, an apartment, a bakery, a hay barn and a laundry room," she said. The gambling hall and shopping center are the only buildings that still exist.

During the excavation, archaeologists dug a row of trenches nine feet deep along the street on an eighth of a mile of land. They dug out the old stone and brick foundations of the lost buildings in Chinatown with shovels and brushes, and traced the internal partitions and floors, some of which were hand-cut wood. Many of the cultural relics they unearthed are now kept in 630 boxes in Rapid City, and Fosha's team is cataloguing them. She said, "In this field, it takes two to three years to sort everything out every year. So far, the preliminary findings of archaeologists have emphasized the influence of western culture on China people in the dead wood: French meat cutters are buried next to Asian-style spoons, beer bottles are buried next to porcelain bottles containing rice wine, and gambling dice are buried next to them. " Mahjong. Rotten wood also has its own racial contradictions; 19 In the 1970s, whites called for restrictions on China's immigration. However, some historians believe that the relationship between white people in Montenegro and China people is better than that in other western places. Zhu Liping, a historian at Cheney East Washington University in Washington, said: "The outstanding thing about rotten wood companies is that China people can achieve economic mobility." . The local newspaper published an editorial against the national anti-China law. It is an act of trust for white people to buy China lottery tickets, because the lottery tickets are in Chinese.

Zhu is writing a book about immigrants from China in Montenegro, and he still doesn't know why they behave so well. But researcher Irene French searched the local archives for clues about the town's past. He speculated that a pioneer immigrant from China would help ease the tension. Faye Wong 1876 came to Montenegro as a chef. According to the oral history of his descendants, he was traveling with a group of miners and was attacked by criminals. Wang played very well. Because of his bravery, the miners awarded him two mining rights. He sold one for $75,000 and became one of the leading businessmen in deadwood. He owns shopping centers and casinos, and acts as a middleman between whites and China people.

Wang died during his visit to China in 192 1. His family in deadwood left soon, and so did other people from China. "But this town is still celebrating China New Year," added Fossa, who stood in front of Huang Guangyu's abandoned brick shopping center on a recent trip to deadwood. She hopes to excavate this building this year. "Look," she said, staring at a group of washed white letters on the door that read "Rules". She adjusted her sunglasses and was silent for a while. ""I hope archaeology can survive in this project, "Fosha added. These people have names. They have faces. These people are still alive.