In 1926, he served as provost of Peking University, and in the following year he led an expedition to northwest China to conduct archaeological investigations.

From 1934 to 1937 he investigated the Early Neolithic culture in Shaanxi Province, discovered by his team of archaeologists who carried out excavations at the Doujitai site in the middle Yellow River Valley, where his approach was said to have served as a model for archaeological methodology.

[2] Xu was instrumental in conducting the first modern study of China's early "myths" based on the reports of antiquaries findings by archaeologists.

Xu became a research fellow of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and surveyed Gaocheng in 1959.

As a historian, Xu authored the 1943 book, Zhongguo gushi de chuanshuo shidai ("The legendary times in early Chinese history"), where he comments that the name of Five Emperors was not mentioned until the Warring States era and cannot be found in earlier works such as the Zuo Zhuan, Guoyu, Lunyu, Mozi or Mencius.