Where did China's first major archaeological dig take place?

Dr. dig responds:
Modern archaeology was introduced to China in the first decade of the 1900s with the discovery of the Shang oracle-bone inscriptions at Anyang in Henan province and the Han-Tang manuscripts, paintings, textiles and wooden slips from Dunhuang and Jiuquan in Gansu province.

Torii Ryuzo (Japanese 1870-1953), may have been the first trained archaeologists to work in China. In 1895, Torii surveyed sites dating from the Neolithic to the Han period and found polished stone axes and spearheads in the Liaodong peninsula of northeast China.

Aurel Stein (1862-1943), a Budapest born citizen of Great Britain, conducted large-scale surveys in China, and his work yielded valuable information about ancient China, most notably the paintings, textiles, prints, manuscripts that he removed (some say plundered) from the Mogaoku Grottoes in Gansu province, and which are now in the British Museum and elsewhere.

For the history of Chinese archaeology, you might want to check out from your public library (or order it on interlibrary loan) an excellent book entitled The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology. Celebrated Discoveries from the People's Republic of China, edited by Xiaoneng Yang. This book accompanied an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1999.