原籍台灣，為台灣新文學健將張我軍哲嗣，1954年畢業於台灣大學考古人類學系，1961年獲美國哈佛大學哲學博士，1961年至1973年間歷任美國耶魯大學人類學系講師、助教授、副教授、教授、系主任等職，1977年起在哈佛大學人類學系任教，張光直於1974年獲選為台灣中央研究員院士，1979年獲選美國國家科學院院士，1980年獲選為美國文理科學院院士，1987年獲頒香港中文大學榮譽社會科學博士。張光直的研究專長為考古人類學，在美國任教三十多年間，一直致力於考古學理論和中國考古學的研究和教學工作，在國際學界享有盛譽。張院士以現代考古學的方法和數據，對中國上古時代的歷史和文化有極深入的研究，先後出版專書十餘本，論文一百多篇，其中《古代中國的考古》(Archaeology of Ancient China)一書是西方世界了解中國上古時代歷史文化的最主要著作。張光直曾於1969年和1972年回台灣主持「台灣史前史研究」和「台灣省濁水溪與大肚溪流域自然史與文化史科際研究」兩項大型研究計畫，其結果不但為台灣古代歷史文化的重建有重要貢獻，而且對台灣考古學和人類學的研究發展也產生了重要影響。張光直曾經在四六事件中被逮捕，後來獲釋。自台灣大學考古人類學系畢業後留學美國，取得哈佛大學人類學博士學位。張光直
張氏學術主要成就有二：一、開創聚落考古(settlement archaeology)的研究，自1970年代在蔚為風潮；二、將當代文化人類學及考古學的理論以及方法套用在中國考古學領域，代表作《The Archaeology of Ancient China》 (1986年，中譯《古代中國的考古》) 一書迄今仍為涵蓋面最廣泛且討論最深入的中國考古學專著。
Born in Beijing, china, Kwang-chi Chang was the second child of Chang Wojun, a well-known Taiwanese historian. During his childhood years, Chang witnessed the corruption of the government, the suffering of ordinary people, and the invasion of the Japanese; he was also influenced by leftist ideology. Chang left Beijing for Taiwan with his family in 1946 when Taiwan was returned to China after its Japanese occupation. His experience in Beijing led him to develop a strong nationalist consciousness and sympathy for socialist beliefs, which later caused him to be jailed for a year as a political prisoner in Taiwan when he was eighteen. This experience apparently had a great impact on his decision to become an anthropologist in order to understand “why humans are the way they are” (Chang 1998, 75).
Chang was always a top student throughout his school years and was the favorite student of li chi (known as the father of Chinese archaeology for his contribution to the excavations at anyang) in the Department of Anthropology at Taiwan University. In 1955, Chang started his graduate studies in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, working with H. Movius, Jr., C. Kluckhohn, gordon r. willey, and L. Ward. After receiving a Ph.D. in 1960, he taught for many years at Yale University, where he established himself as a first-rate scholar in the discipline. In 1977 he returned to Harvard as the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology. He then became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and also served as vice-president of Academia Sinica in Taipei in the mid-1990s.
For decades, Chang’s major contributions have bridged the gap between eastern and western archaeologists by presenting Chinese archaeology to anthropological circles in the western world. He, however, did not limit his interests to Chinese archaeology. During the 1960s and 1970s he stood at the forefront of U.S. anthropology with regard to archaeological theory and was a leader in general methodological debates in archaeology and in the study of settlement patterns. As a native of Taiwan, he was a major player in establishing the field of Taiwanese archaeology. From the 1980s, in addition to academic pursuits, he made a tremendous effort to build collaborative relationships with archaeologists in the People’s Republic of China. In the 1990s, he overcame all political and administrative barriers to initiating the first Sino-American collaborative field project in China since the World War II. This project in Shangqiu, Henan, is dedicated to searching for the origins of the Shang dynasty, which has been a long-standing question haunting several generations of Chinese archaeologists (Ferrie 1995).
Over the years, Chang published numerous articles and monographs in English and Chinese, and the list of his publications is forty-one pages long (Murowchick 1999). His scholarly masterpieces include four editions of Archaeology of Ancient China (1963, 1968, 1977, 1986), Shang Civilization (1980), and Art, Myth, and Ritual (1983). These have been the most comprehensive and authoritative accounts of Chinese archaeology available in the English language for several decades, and they have been translated into many languages. His publications in Chinese have been equally influential. Presenting many fresh views of Chinese civilization, his Six Lectures in Archaeology (1986) and The Bronze Age of China (1983), both published in Beijing, have especially enlightened archaeologists in China.
In addition to archaeology, Chang had broad interests in many fields including art history, cultural anthropology, history, paleography, the anthropology of food, and sport. For four decades he “brought up” several generations of East and Southeast Asian archaeologists, and his former students are now spread over many parts of the world including North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Known to his colleagues, friends, and students as “K. C.,” Chang was a kind, warm, sympathetic, hardworking, and charismatic man with great wisdom and an excellent sense of humor. His extraordinary determination to overcome any difficulties in life is evident in his struggle with a devastating illness, which eventually claimed him in January 2001.
張光直
張光直著作
張光直著《考古學專題六講》
張光直著作
番薯人的故事(張光直作品系列)
為紀念張光直出版的《四海為家》
《商文明》張光直著作