All along, our country has a long historical tradition, our ancient civilization is and once the ancient times of several civilizations have been preserved to today's ancient civilization, the ancient country or in the invasion of self-destruction, or barbarian attack lost itself, leaving only a people infinite nostalgia of the ancient country name, although today's academic circles at home and abroad for the formation of Chinese history is still a great controversy, but for the glory of Chinese civilization no one can deny.
The research of various ancient civilizations in the world today is based on the evidence of archaeological excavations since the emergence of archaeology, and the situation in China is different from other ancient countries, because the history of our country has not been interrupted since ancient times, coupled with the Chinese tradition of revision since ancient times, so our country has many ancient historical classics that have been handed down to today, and the history of civilization that once defined China for five thousand years has been proved under the archaeological evidence since the founding of the People's Republic of China and the overseas auxiliary evidence that has been unearthed continuously. Redefining the formation time of ancient Chinese civilization may have matured to this era.
The formative period of ancient Chinese civilization
Ancient Chinese civilization as a representative country of East Asian civilization, in when to form in fact has a very important significance, because ancient China has always been a radiant existence, when the Chinese civilization appeared, when to begin to have an impact on the neighboring countries of East Asia These are the key to the study of the history of the Far East, when the Qing Dynasty Opium War China's door was opened, Westerners have always adhered to the Chinese civilization from the Zhou Dynasty, that is, stopped at the time stage of three thousand years.
By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the continuous excavation of oracle bones in Anyang, Henan, from the archaeological evidence and urban architecture, proved that the Shang Dynasty recorded by Sima Qian did exist, and the royal lineage of the Shang Dynasty was also consistent with the historical records, from that time on, the formation time of Chinese civilization was advanced by six hundred years, from the perspective of the formation period of the Shang Dynasty culture, the Chinese civilization at that time actually had the characteristics of many cultures in the ancient era. There is growing evidence that the prehistory of Chinese culture at that time should have developed from the Longshan culture.
In the 1950s, Zhengzhou Shangcheng in Henan defined it as the capital of the Shang Dynasty and the Yin Ruins, which was recognized by the world, and then the earlier Erlitou culture was discovered on the land of Henan, which Henan officially defined as the Xia capital four thousand years ago. In fact, there is a mysterious and inextricable connection between the Longshan culture and the Yin Ruins of the Shang Dynasty, many people think that the formation era of Chinese civilization should be earlier than the Longshan culture and the Erlitou culture, but suffering from the fact that everyone has not found enough evidence, archaeological activities are not random can be excavated in a large area in one place, many times archaeology is accidental.
This is always too accidental, so that Chinese archaeology is known as a decision in the future can be providence, and the continuous appearance of bronzes has made ancient China known as the peak of bronze civilization, especially in 1975, the Majiayao site in the Yangshao culture in Dongxiang County, Gansu Province, unearthed bronze war knives before 3000 AD, which broke the history of China's civilization for five thousand years. Because the Bronze Age is generally within the scope of 3,000 years of ancient civilizations in the world, but who would have thought that China in the East had a bronze battle knife five thousand years ago.
The emergence of cities and writing
The ruins of the palace found in Yanshi Erlitou, Henan, are named the ruins of the capital city of the Xia Dynasty in today's china, but some scholars also call it the site of the early Shang Dynasty, and they really can't understand the meaning of this title. The city found in the town of Longshan in instigation in The Dragon Mountain culture should be the legendary City of tanguo, pingliangtai in the Huaiyang area is the capital of Taihao Fuxi, Dengfeng should be the duyang city of ancient Dayu, yanshi is xihao city, the initial capital of the Shang Dynasty, and in the subsequent time because the Shang Dynasty moved the capital many times and became a medium-sized city.
The earliest origin of the text has long been not the former Shang Dynasty oracle bone, because the excavation of archaeological evidence has made more and more ancient sites unlock the true face, Comrade Guo Moruo, as a member of modern history, he once pointed out that the scratching symbol unearthed in the Yangshao culture is actually the earliest origin of chinese characters, this kind of symbol is in line with the ancient Chinese mythological history of Cangjie characters, Some of the unique symbols in the pottery in the Dawenkou culture at the back point are actually in line with the oracle bones of the Shang Dynasty.
Similar symbolic characters actually appeared a lot, the historical context of the evolution of Chinese characters in this archaeological process is actually clear, our Chinese characters in the distant past is indeed a symbolic script, the ancient countries within the world are also roughly this process of change, but later changes in the Westerners' writing evolved into today's alphabet, and Chinese characters still have the color of ancient civilization, becoming a unique existence in the world's writing system.
Before the liberation of many Chinese cultural relics serious loss, not only foreigners steal, but also some Chinese lawbreakers of self-theft, at that time a lot of bronze and five or six thousand years ago jade lost to Western countries and the United States, a few years ago the United States Freer Art Museum in the ancient Chinese jade has this symbol, and Japanese scholars in the study of the evolution of Chinese culture is also believed that the Dawenkou culture should actually be the Spring and Autumn famous book "Shang Shu" mentioned in the "Island Yi". It lived in the coastal area of ancient China in the east.
Five thousand years of civilization need to expand
Defining China in terms of five thousand years of civilizational history is too short-sighted, and it is simply a disrespect for those excavated cultural relics. In fact, from the remarks of Mr. Tang Lan, a famous archaeologist in our country in the last few years, many articles have been published, and he directly explains that China is a country with a history of civilization of more than six thousand years, and these conclusions seem to be a very difficult thing to accept in the eyes of many scholars at home and abroad, but the reasons and archaeological evidence that has been unearthed have actually proved this, and it is not arrogant to expand the scope of civilization history, and we are not South Korea.
Why is it that the traditional concept of Chinese academia today has always been that the ancient Chinese civilization has been calculated relatively slowly and time is relatively short? This is actually a profound historical reason, since the beginning of modern history, many Chinese scholars for the study of archaeological history has been full of follow the West, not suitable to apply the Western foreign history point of view, they apply the definition and view of Western history is actually just distorting the truth of Chinese history, for example, the size of the ancient Chinese state and the Western countries is a very debatable thing.
The Xia Shang Zhou recorded in the literature is considered to be a unified dynasty, and the countries in the ancient books should also be independent countries in the eyes of foreign scholars, because the ancient West is a small country dotted with dots, so the table should think that China should also be like this, in fact, from the perspective of traditional Chinese literature, the Qin Dynasty did not achieve true unification before, and the spread of Central Plains culture during the Shang Dynasty has a large range. The division of the princely states of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the later system of local administrative district chiefs are very similar, and the Five Hegemons and Seven Heroes are a period of cultural unity and administrative division.
Once people were superstitious about the history recorded by the ancients, archaeology in China after the rise of modern scholars began to distinguish the authenticity of ancient history, many times many scholars even formed an extreme "before the Eastern Zhou Dynasty did not believe in history" view, in fact, today we advocate to use the inheritance and abandonment of the point of view to look at ancient documents, but not to let everyone blindly believe in the ancients, nor blindly doubt the ancients. Combined with the ruins of civilization on the land of the Middle Ages today, the five-thousand-year view of the history of civilization may be outdated.
summary
I think that today's estimation of the value of ancient Chinese civilization is actually not enough, ancient China in the scope of East Asia and the progressive role of world civilization is actually underestimated, there seems to be an invisible hand in the middle of this process, in fact, whether it is from Yangshao culture, Longshan culture, Dawenkou culture, it is enough to prove that China's civilization history should be between seven thousand years and eight thousand years. The history of the use of bronze can be traced back at least from the Majiayao site in Gansu to five thousand years.