Since 1933, however, artifacts from the Western Han dynasty unearthed at archeological digs in Xinjiang, Xi'an, Inner Mongolia, and elsewhere have spurred furious debate in the academic community about Cai Lun's place in the history of papermaking.
然而從民國二十二年以來，在新疆、西安、內蒙等地，陸續出土了羅布淖爾紙、灞橋紙、金關紙，根據相關出土的西漢文物，蔡倫發明造紙學說也引起正反兩極學者爭論不休。