"Civilization is the sum of material, spiritual and institutional inventions created under state administration."
"The origin of our civilization should be understood as like a flower bush, and all that is in this cluster is Chinese civilization."
"It is an undeniable fact that in the course of thousands of years of historical development before the unification of Qin, China's social structure has long been complicated."
Wen | Xu Oulu, a reporter for the news weekly "Lookout."
A hundred years after modern archaeology dug the first shovel in China, the discussion of the origins of Chinese civilization continues.
Some archaeologists insist that the Xia Dynasty represented by the Erlitou site can be regarded as the beginning of Chinese civilization, some scholars believe that the Longshan Era 4,000 years ago has entered the threshold of civilization in the ancient kingdom era, and more and more people have pushed the origin of Chinese civilization to about 5,000 years ago, represented by Liangzhu. Some scholars have pointed out that Chinese civilization can be traced back to about 8,000 years ago or even earlier.
To some extent, the difference stems from a different understanding of concepts such as "civilization".
When we talk about the origin of Chinese civilization, what are we talking about?
What is civilization
Lookout: In your opinion, what is civilization?
Wang Wei: Civilization is a brand-new stage in human culture and social development. This stage is characterized by the continuous development of material production, the continuous enrichment of spiritual life, the intensification of social division of labor and class differentiation, the development of different classes from social division of labor and class differentiation, and the emergence of a coercive public power state.
Civilization is the sum of material, spiritual and institutional inventions created under the administration of the state.
Material civilization is the embodiment of the level of development of productive forces, including the production of material materials and the development of science and technology on which civilization exists, mainly refers to the development of agricultural, animal husbandry, handicraft production technology and the progress of natural science knowledge, to a certain extent reflects people's ability to understand and transform the material world.
Spiritual civilization is the concept and ideology of civilized society, including people's knowledge and understanding of the world, which is mainly manifested in the achievements of religious belief, ideology, ethics and morality, culture and art.
Institutional civilization is the organizational form of civilized society, including the state political system, social power structure, management system, political system, etc. The emergence of the state is the most fundamental sign of entering a civilized society.
Chen Xingcan: Civilization really needs a clear concept. I think the origin of civilization is basically equivalent to the origin of the state. As far as the form of the state is concerned, there are differences between different eras and different regions. But in essence, they are mainly manifested in class oppression, social differentiation, with the oppressors, the oppressed, with systematic violence, with institutionalized public power, there is a state, otherwise it cannot be called a state.
But why is there a controversy?
On the one hand, it is not easy to distinguish between institutionalized oppressors and oppressed through the material remains of archaeology. For example, there are many violent things in the Maya civilization, and violent things in the Indian civilization seem to be rare. The same is true of other criteria.
On the one hand, the formation of civilization is a process, like a spectrum, where does the dividing line draw? When it comes to the origin of a nation or the origin of civilization, the biggest problem is this.
Civilization is a question, and what is a "Chinese" civilization is also a question. It is generally believed that Chinese civilization originated from the Central Plains, so is the Yangtze River Basin not included in this category? The discovery of Shang Dynasty tombs in Sanxingdui, Sichuan, Oceania, Jiangxi, and other places has changed our view of that region, but some people will think that it is Chinese civilization? According to Mr. Fei Xiaotong's "snowball" theory, Mr. Yan Wenming's "heavy petal flower" theory, and Mr. Zhang Guangzhi's "interaction circle" theory, those are all Chinese civilization. Originally, we thought that the origin of Chinese civilization was a single-seed, linear origin, but after so many years of research, we found that this was not the case. Not only 5,000 years ago, but a little earlier, the connection between different regions has increased, and finally become a whole. The origin of our civilization should not be understood as spreading from one place to the surrounding area like a candle, but should be understood as like a flower bush, and in this cluster is Chinese civilization. This is more in line with the reality of our reunification of a multi-ethnic state.
Li Shuicheng: I think that cities, metallurgy, and writing are actually the standards of the country in the true sense. The origin of civilization and the formation of a real state are still two levels, and the criteria are not the same. If we talk about the origin of civilization, can we pull the process a little earlier (than the emergence of the state) a little earlier? The civilization we are talking about here is the pre-national stage.
I think strictly speaking, Liangzhu, Shuanghuashu, Nanzuo, Niuheliang, etc. are not really countries in the true sense, but are still in the dawning stage of moving towards the country, which can be called ancient countries or early civilizations. The first country in China was the Xia Dynasty, and before the Xia there was a stage of many nations, these ancient countries were one of the worlds, as my teacher Yan Wenming said, the essence of the petals of these civilizations was eventually absorbed into the chinese civilization around the flower bud, forming a unified country.
Early civilizations have outstanding archaeological discoveries, and I think an important element of civilization is that it has developed to the ability to build large-scale public works, which requires a machine to mobilize the resources of the whole society, and cannot be implemented without a certain social organization capacity and power organs.
I focus on the origins of Chinese civilization, but I prefer to express it in terms of the concept of social complexity. Whether it is the origin of civilization or the complexity of society, it is dynamic and developing, and the water of civilization has both standards and regional characteristics, and cannot be simply one-size-fits-all.
Photo of the collage: The picture above is the medal of the Beijing Winter Olympics released on October 26, 2021 (on the back) (courtesy of the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee); the picture below is the double link bi excavated from the Lingjiatan site (courtesy of the Lingjiatan Site Management Office)
Does civilization have standards?
Lookout: Does civilization have standards? Or can we find criteria to judge?
Wang Wei: Identifying the signs of civilization from archaeological discoveries is not out of subjective imagination, but according to the view that "the state is a generalization of civilized society", the emergence of the state is the most fundamental sign of civilization. In addition to the occurrence of the state, which can be proved by the written data of the time, many need to be identified through the remains of archaeological discoveries.
One of the greatest characteristics of the emergence of the state is the emergence of kings, the emergence of royal power. The emergence of royal power will leave traces in archaeological discoveries, that is, the capital city as the political, economic and cultural center of the country, as the place where the king resides and handles government affairs - palaces, the tombs of the king and other high-ranking nobles - the tomb, the big tomb, the symbol of the noble status of the magnate class - ceremonial utensils and ceremonial systems.
Chen Xingcan: Academically, there are 1200 kinds of criteria that can be found at home and abroad to determine the origin of civilization. Personally, I think it is difficult to have a standard that applies to all civilizations in the world, and the finer the draw, the more difficult it is to adapt to the whole.
The state and class should be hard standards, but how to find soft standards that can be corresponded to in archaeological discoveries is very difficult. The original civilization that is generally considered to be internationally does not have a uniform standard. For example, everyone recognizes that the Inca civilization is a civilization, but it has no writing, indicating that the knotted rope chronicle can also enter civilization and enter the national society.
Li Shuicheng: Civilization definitely has standards. And writing represents a very important quality in civilization. If Chinese civilization is pulled into the context of the three elements, it is not until the Shang Dynasty that the three elements of civilization are complete. But this has become what Mr. Xia Nai said, Chinese civilization is a bit like the legendary Lao Tzu, born with a white beard. Therefore, Chinese civilization must be pursued forward. It is an undeniable fact that China's social structure has long since been complicated in the course of thousands of years of historical development before the unification of Qin.
In fact, the civilization we are discussing is divided into different levels, and the civilization we are talking about here is the early civilization before the Shang Dynasty. During this period, the occurrence and development of civilization in various regions of the world are different, the material resources occupied are different, and the environment is different, which will form a regional civilization with different characteristics. The characteristics of the civilization process of ancient China are jade, lacquerware, pottery, etc., while in the West there are bronze, gold and so on.
Archaeology has a characteristic, what we see and study is material remains, those non-material things, such as political structure, organizational structure, production management institutions, generally can not see, can only be speculated through the material culture it created.
From the perspective of the overall evolution of civilization, there should be something common behind it, that is, with the development of productive forces, the accumulation of wealth, the differentiation of social classes, the establishment of the ruling class, the emergence of power, including the integration with religion, and finally reach the strict sense of the state level.
What are the criteria for judging early civilizations
Lookout: What are the criteria or signs of early civilization that you endorse?
Wang Wei: The "Chinese Civilization Exploration Project" is mainly based on the archaeological discoveries of several Duyi sites such as Liangzhu, Tao Temple, Shi'an, Shijiahe, etc., combined with the archaeological achievements of other central sites, and with reference to the situation of other ancient civilizations in the world, summarizing the key characteristics of entering the civilized society from the archaeological discoveries in the absence of the discovery of the text at that time:
First, remarkable progress was made in prehistoric agriculture and handicrafts. Agricultural production technology development, in some areas, agricultural production tools compared with the previous significant improvement, the emergence of new types of tools, resulting in increased production efficiency. At the same time, millet agriculture in the north and rice agriculture in the south have accumulated rich experience in production technology after more than 5,000 years of development. The grain produced will have a relatively large surplus, and a small number of people can be separated from agricultural production and specialized in high-tech handicraft production and social management and primitive religious sacrifices.
Second, the handicraft industry has made remarkable progress, and some handicrafts with high technical content have been specialized and controlled by the elite. The exquisite handicraft products produced by skilled craftsmen show that there was indeed a specialization in the high-tech handicraft industry at that time. Most of these exquisite handicrafts became ceremonial vessels to show the identity of the holders, so it is reasonable to speculate that the production of these high-end artifacts has been controlled by the elite.
Third, there has been a significant concentration of population, forming cities. The development of agriculture has led to the reproduction of the population. In some areas with faster cultural and social development, the number of settlements has increased significantly, and there has been a concentration of unnatural causes of the population. In the central areas of some regional civilizations, there have been capitals as political, economic and cultural centers, characterized by the huge scale of settlements, covering an area of hundreds of thousands or even millions of square meters. There are clear functional partitions in the settlement, including palace areas, handicraft workshop areas, tomb areas, and general residential areas.
Fourth, the social differentiation between the rich and the poor and the rich and the noble and the lowly has become increasingly serious, forming an aristocratic class that controls the wealth and power of society. Society is severely divided, with the emergence of minority domination over the majority. Some high-tech or scarce valuable utensils - ceremonial utensils were formed to reflect the initial ceremonial system of the holder's noble status. As for the types of ritual vessels, they vary from place to place.
Fifth, society has formed a pyramid-like social structure, and there have been kings who are at the top of the pyramid and integrate military command, social management and religious sacrifice powers. In order to demonstrate the authority of the king, a large number of laborers were mobilized to build huge ruins of the capital, and large high-grade buildings (palaces) inhabited by the king and high-ranking magnates were created.
Sixth, blood relations are still preserved and combined with geographical relations, playing an important role in maintaining society. People live together in groups, and bury them together to form a clan. In The capital and some central cities, a combination of blood relations and geographical relations is formed. The king and his relatives still maintained nominal kinship with the general public, but in fact had become the masters of society, and their tombs were either located in a corner of the public cemetery or became a separate cemetery.
Seventh, violence and war have become relatively common social phenomena. During this period, violence led to unnatural deaths everywhere, such as being buried in the foundations of large buildings as a foundation stone. And wars are frequent. Since about 5500 years ago, there has been a phenomenon of burial weapons - stone cymbals in tombs everywhere. In high-grade tombs, jade stones that are often made with exquisite burials and have no traces of use indicate that the owner of the tomb has mastered military command. With the frequency and scale of wars, the status of the chief of military power continued to increase. The military command in their hands developed into a royal power that dominated everyday social life.
Eighth, a regional polity governed by the crown and a bureaucratic management institution subordinate to the king were formed. Each regional civilization has a relatively stable region. People in this region have common living customs, common cultural genes, and perhaps common primitive religious beliefs, and there are relatively close kinships in different small areas of this region, centered on the highest level of settlement in the region, the King of Duyi, forming a political, economic, and cultural social network, and the King is the core of this regional network. Although the bureaucracy is not easily confirmed in archaeological findings without written materials, the various regions of civilized society without exception require officials as a guarantee of maintaining the king's rule.
Li Shuicheng: I think that large-scale public works, jade, metal, cities, and writing are all important criteria for judging early civilization.
Jade represents the development of productive forces and the differentiation of social hierarchies, and is also the embodiment of hierarchy. Chinese has always regarded jade as a very elegant, noble, and authoritarian object, and jade has five virtues, so it has been given a mysterious color. We have developed a very developed jade culture as early as the Hongshan and Liangzhu stages. Behind the manufacture of jade is a very complex industrial system, to some extent, the mining and production of jade is no less difficult than bronze, and can even be placed in the same position as bronze. I remember that in 2006, when Lun Furu, an academician of the British Academy of Social Sciences, visited Peking University, I discussed this issue with him, and he agreed with this. Later, I wrote about this at his invitation. I think one of the characteristics of Eastern civilization is the civilization element represented by jade, which is also a very key cultural trait. Jade is closely related to the ancient Chinese ritual system and civilization, jade and gods, witch trinity, along with the large number of jade production and use, gradually appeared the elements of civilized society such as writing, copper smelting, cities, and human martyrdom.
In addition, the construction of large public works is also one of the most important symbols, such as the pyramids of Egypt, the large city sites of Liangzhu and the dam. If a society develops to the point of having the ability to build such large-scale public works, it also has the foundation of civilization. This means that you have to mobilize huge social resources and human resources, and at least there must be corresponding political organizations and the highest authority behind them in order to organize, coordinate and manage a series of complex project construction. Such societies are also called chiefdoms or complex societies in the West.
There are also some scholars who emphasize etiquette, which is very abstract, in fact, like jade, cities, and large-scale public facilities construction have the element of etiquette, which can only be possessed by a certain status.
China is vast, almost the size of the entire european region. If we compare the civilization of Greece and Rome with Northern Europe, it is completely different stages of social development, which shows that the development of civilization is regional. It is also difficult for China to have a unified standard. If Chinese civilization is viewed as a whole, its characteristics are pluralism and unity, there are regional systems, and the origin of Chinese civilization is holistic, and it is necessary to understand it under this basic framework.
The origins of Chinese civilization can be traced back to where
Lookout: According to current archaeological findings, where can the origin of Chinese civilization be traced back?
Wang Wei: I think that at present, it can be traced back to the Liangzhu culture, the late Dawenkou culture, and the Lingjiatan culture, all of which are about 5,000 years.
At present, the central plains area is more eye-catching is the double locust tree site, but it is somewhat different from our civilization standards, the social differentiation is not obvious, and there are not many burial items in the tombs. There is an explanation in the academic community, which may be the Zhongyuan model.
Some scholars have summarized the Central Plains model as follows: there are certain differences in social status, but do not emphasize the differentiation between the rich and the poor, and the social order is orderly but does not rely on severe punishment; the productive forces are gradually improved but not luxurious; the reality is not addicted to religion; rely on blood relations, attach importance to collective interests, do not hurry, and seek health in stability.
We believe that the above characteristics of the Central Plains civilization model may be one of the important reasons why it later became the mainstream of Chinese civilization.
Chen Xingcan: At present, it is mainly about 5,000 years ago. Among them, Liangzhu has done more work and the evidence is relatively sufficient.
In the five to four thousand years ago, the society in which early civilizations appeared was far from Liangzhu alone, and we see many such examples in archaeology. For example, the Lingjiatan ruins of the same era as Liangzhu, the late Dawenkou and so on. For example, I think that the late Dawenkou period may have been an early country that entered civilization, and the Jiaojia ruins have both cities and large tombs, and the degree of social differentiation is very deep. Social complications also occurred in this era in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and the upper reaches of the Xiliao River.
Li Shuicheng: If discussed at the level of the emergence of large-scale public works construction, 5,000 to 4,000 years is one of the most critical periods for the formation of Chinese civilization. As Mr. Su Bingqi said: "The cultural roots of more than one million years, the beginning of civilization in tens of thousands of years, the ancient country of five thousand years, and the unified entity of China for two thousand years." ”
According to existing archaeological findings, the late Yangshao culture is a very important dividing line, that is, the first half of 5,000 to 4,000 years ago (around 5,000 to 4,500 years ago). Liangzhu, double locust tree and the recently re-excavated Nanzuo ruins, etc., the main body at this important time, there are very large-scale public works discovered, it can be seen that this is a stage of accelerated accumulation of civilization elements, and then into the Longshan era, began to stride towards the real sense of the country, from "gods of personnel" to "Shinto religion". A large number of archaeological remains at this stage show the differentiation of the rich and the poor, the creation of private property, the emergence of classes, and even the formation of quasi-state political entities, in this sense, the exploration of the origin of Chinese civilization must begin from this period.
The reason why I attach importance to this stage is to emphasize that the origin of Chinese civilization should be placed in the stage of five thousand to four thousand years, and there is another major reason, which is an important period for the beginning and development of Egyptian civilization and West Asian civilization. From this point of view, the origin and evolution of Eastern and Western civilizations have their own synchronization. ■