LI Ling was born in Xingtai, Hebei. His original family home was located in Shanxi and he grew up in Beijing. He worked in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia for 7 years, then went to Beijing in 1975. In 1977, he was enrolled into the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (the institute later became part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CASS), then working on the research of inscriptions on bronze under the supervision of Zhang Zhengliang in 1979. He graduated with a master degree in History in 1982.
LI joined the Archaeological Team of CASS between 1982 and 1983. In the Research Center for Agricultural Economy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, he researched the history of pre-Qin agricultural institutions. Since 1985 he has been professor of Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University.
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