Don't hold Liangzhu too high.
Liangzhu is just one of the three major title parties that marketing numbers use to circle money, the other two being Sanxingdui and Yu Dynasty.
This is nothing more than catering to the blind sentiments of the ignorant masses, who believe that the history of Chinese civilization must be greater than or equal to 5,000 years, otherwise it is Western standards and hegemonism, as long as those who oppose this view are traitors and traitors, and a patriotic enthusiasm of great righteousness and awe lingers in their chests.
In fact, the academic community has long had a standard for measuring the history of civilization, with three theories, namely, cities, writing, and ceremonial architecture; and four sayings, namely, cities, writings, ceremonial buildings, and metal smelting.
Some people ask, why are these four criteria? Why should we agree with Western standards? We don't agree, what's wrong?
Quite simply, these four criteria were not casually proposed, but were put forward against the level of development of the social productive forces.
First, cities do not develop casually, but have a sufficient population and a level of agricultural development sufficient to feed them.
In the field of production, there must be a relatively complex social division of labor, each performing its own duties.
Since each of them has performed their duties, the product can not achieve 100% self-sufficiency, I am a blacksmith, I can not always eat iron, so it is necessary to have a more mature commodity economy, at least to have a general equivalent, always can not still barter, an axe can be exchanged for 15 grams of rice, so that everyone has to starve to death.
In addition, a city with so many people must have people and institutions similar to the form of government to manage, and it must also have efficient administrative management capabilities.
Second, writing is the most important symbol of civilization, a so-called civilization without a mature system of writing, that is not civilization.
First of all, administrative agencies need words to count the population, formulate laws, and issue documents and orders, as well as commercial contracts such as private sales and loans. Having a written word means that there was a relatively mature and complex state of social development at that time.
Moreover, a mature civilization must have relatively rich material and spiritual wealth, and words are precisely the carriers that can record and pass on these wealth.
Third, human beings have long been polishing very exquisite stone tools, pottery and jade, but metal smelting is an advanced production activity, because technically it involves changes in the form of matter, that is, the change of metal from solid to liquid, which already involves relatively advanced handicraft technology.
The method of making bronzes in the Shang Dynasty of the mainland is called the mud fan casting method, which is to pour copper water into the gap between the inner and outer fans, and then withdraw the mold after the copper water cools into a solid state.
This is not a technique that can only be mastered by people who can only make stone tools and pottery.
More importantly, this series of metal smelting work can not be completed by one person or a few people, but needs to mobilize hundreds of well-trained craftsmen who must perform their respective duties and cooperate with each other in their respective positions on the assembly line, which requires a very high level of social mobilization ability and social division of labor to complete.
In addition, the emergence of metal smelting technology will lead to the popularization and application of metal tools, and the productivity released by metal tools is far from being comparable to rough tools such as stone tools and wood tools.
Finally, the reason why ceremonial architecture is one of the standards is mainly considered in two aspects.
On the one hand, ceremonial architecture is generally majestic, such as the pyramids of Egypt. The establishment of such a ceremonial building means that the level of social division of labor, as well as the ability of social mobilization, coordination and the overall level of productivity, have reached a very high level, which is by no means possible for a prehistoric civilization.
On the other hand, the emergence of ceremonial architecture sent an important signal that royal power or clerical power had emerged, and early states began to form. Moreover, ceremonial architecture generally involves religion or sacrifice, which means that people have got rid of the state of running for life and have begun to calm down and think about metaphysical things such as life, death, the universe, laws, and the supernatural.
Only civilizations that meet the above criteria can be regarded as stepping into the threshold of civilization history from the level of productive forces and social development.
Should such a standard be agreed upon?
I personally think it is necessary to agree, don't say what western standards this is, Newton or Westerners, then newton's laws of mechanics we still have to agree?
Disagree? It seems that you are going to heaven.
Since we want to agree, let's move on to the next topic.
Has Liangzhu culture entered the state of civilization history?
First of all, the biggest hard wound is the text, liangzhu excavated cultural relics do appear on some symbols that can be expressed, but it is not a mature system. As a state of civilization, it is necessary to have a mature set of systematic text symbols.
How mature is the system? We can benchmark the Lianghe civilization, which is about the same time as the Liangzhu culture. Under the premise of about 3000 BC, the cuneiform script of the Two Rivers Basin can already be used to record accounts, issue documents, teach grammar, or engrave on stone tablets and other sacrificial supplies, which can be said to be used in all aspects of life, basically the oracle bones of the Benchmark Shang Dynasty. Therefore, it makes sense for academics to define the Shang Dynasty as the beginning of the history of our civilization.
Speaking of cities, the Liangzhu site has unearthed relatively large cities, with walls, tombs, altars and water conservancy works, and it seems that there are palace-like buildings. It can be seen that the urban scale of Liangzhu culture is still OK. But whether there is a relatively mature social division of labor and a commodity economy, it is difficult to say. But at least the size of the City of Liangzhu Site does not seem to be as large as that of the Erlitou Site.
From the official disclosure, there seems to be no very grand ceremonial building in the Liangzhu ruins, only some altars. The place where the supposed palace was said to have unearthed no real complex entities, but only extrapolated from the fact that a large number of jade and axes were unearthed.
Finally, metal smelting, the Liangzhu site unearthed a large number of stone tools, pottery and jade, but did not unearth any metal tools or tools, such as bronze, bronze and so on. It can be seen that the Liangzhu civilization at this time does not yet have the software and hardware conditions for smelting metals and creating metal appliances, and it is still far from the state of civilization.
In summary, I personally believe that Liangzhu culture is still far from entering a state of civilization.
If we have to forcibly graft the Liangzhu civilization into the history of Chinese civilization in order to draw conclusions about the 5,000-year history of civilization, I think this kind of self-deception is really unnecessary.
Without a 5,000-year history of civilization, you as a Chinese are inferior in the world? Isn't the United States only over 200 years old? Where have you seen Americans inferior?
On the contrary, it is this kind of patriotic thieves who shout empty slogans, deceive themselves, stir up wild entanglements, and casually escalate academic issues to political issues, so that the whole world really feels that we Chinese inferior.
Of course, the long history is worth our self-confidence, but if our self-confidence depends on history to give us blood transfusions, then I think we should still extate the tube and die early.