For example, an exhibition board in the carriage pit exhibition hall of the new Yinxu Museum reads: "The Shang Dynasty carriage inherited the basic framework of the Western carriage and scientifically improved the shape and structure of the carriage. ”
The problem is that the various parts of the Chinese carriage are completely sinicized, and the Chinese Shang Zhou and Qin dynasties have adopted a unique yoke tying method, and there is no trace of Western influence at all (in the West, the rope is directly tied to the horse's neck, so it cannot pull heavy objects), then the Chinese carriage will still come from the west? (below, the bronze carriage of the Qin Dynasty unearthed from the Terracotta Army)
Chinese carriage source
When discussing the origin of Chinese carriages, one of the first questions encountered is: before the carriage, did China have a car?
The so-called horse-drawn carriage is a horse-drawn vehicle. If there was a vehicle in China before the carriage, then it was enough to change the power source roughly, and if there was no vehicle before, then it was a new car and needed to start from scratch. If it is the latter, the "carriage" suddenly appears in Yinxu and opens a new carriage manufacturing, then it is indeed very sudden, and it may be foreign.
However, from the perspective of archaeology and the logic of the origin of vehicles, long before the Yinxu carriage, China had begun to use vehicles:
First of all, there is no exact answer to when the ancient Chinese car originated, but the Erlitou cultural site not only found rut marks, but also found the word "car", and later found rut marks in the Huaiyang Pingliangtai city site, so China has used vehicles at the latest 4200 years ago. Of course, it is not clear what the power source of the vehicle was at that time.
Secondly, in terms of the order of the development of the history of technology, the vehicle most likely originated from the rotary tool used for pottery, that is, the potter's wheel, a rotatable table top, on which the clay is turned into clay pots and other pottery vessels. From an archaeological point of view, there are potters in the 8,000-year-old cross-lake-bridge cultural site, and less than 6,000 years old in the two river basins in West Asia. So, the West Asian potter's wheel is from China?
According to Western archaeology, the earliest known image of a vehicle appears in the mosaic of the tomb of your in Western Asia, dating from about 3000 BC. Of course, if vehicle technology originated from the potter's wheel, and it only took hundreds of years for West Asia to evolve vehicles, then according to normal logic, when should vehicles appear in China?
It can be seen that the history of Chinese vehicles may be extremely long, but the initial wood is not suitable for preservation.
In short, no matter how you look at it, before the Shang Dynasty carriage, China had long used vehicles. As for how the horses came to be, and how they were combined with vehicles to form carriages, there are many possibilities, and it may not be said that they originated in the West. From this, it can explain why the driving methods of China and the West are different, and why the various parts of the Chinese carriage are named in Chinese, because after discovering the role of the horse, the main thing is to replace the power source, and then continue to improve the vehicle according to the characteristics of the horse. (Below, Shang Dynasty carriage pits and ruts)
Behind the West
Ten years ago, everyone would say that "there is no truth without a picture", but now we know that there is not necessarily a truth with a picture, and a complete video is needed to prove it, and sometimes even if the complete video is not enough, we still need to understand the cause and effect. Archaeology, on the other hand, is a "tacit evidence" under survivor bias, which can sometimes prove something, but sometimes it can't.
Especially in the absence of a complete chain of evidence, something cannot be proven. Was the potterwheel technology in the Lianghe River Basin invented independently, and what is the chain of evidence for its vehicle evolution? If not, how do we know that the vehicle was not introduced to China in the Lianghe River Basin? In contrast, the Chinese potterwheel technology, the guide chariot of the Yellow Emperor in the literature, and the oath of Xia Qi to fight against the Youhu clan may have indicated that there was a chariot that could accommodate three people at that time, etc., all of which show that China had already invented the vehicle. Even if not, can't China develop its own vehicles?
As for the origin of horse-drawn carriages in China, the West not only lacks a complete chain of evidence for dissemination, but also finds it difficult to explain the different driving methods and the Chinese naming of all parts, so at most it can only be said that "the form of changing the vehicle to a horse-drawn may have come from the West", or directly say that "the carriage may have originated from the West", rather than affirming that it originated from the West.
Therefore, there are some topics worth thinking about behind the carriage of the West, that is, why is it possible to identify with the West cleanly when there are other possibilities?
In contrast, although Chinese archaeological discoveries of painted pottery, gears, astronomy, etc. appeared earlier, the West does not believe that Lianghe painted pottery originated in China and Western gears originated in China.
Among them, especially astronomy, the 7,000-year-old Liulinxi site in Hubei Province and the 6,500-year-old Xishuipo site in Henan Province all prove that Chinese astronomy was very developed 6,500 years ago, so why didn't the astronomy of the Lianghe River Basin originate in China?
However, in the Western narrative, it was the Lianghe civilization that influenced ancient Chinese astronomy, and it was the Chinese faience that originated in the West (when China discovered the faience 10,000 years ago, the West did not talk about the possibility that the Western faience may have originated in China, but proposed its own independent origin).
In short, even if China discovers earlier evidence, the Western resistance is very strong, and unless there is 100% ironclad evidence, it is never easy to say that the West's inventions and creations originated in China! On the other hand, in the absence of ironclad evidence, some scholars have cleanly "surrendered" and affirmed that the carriage is neither objective nor strong enough?
Aftermath
There are three other points worth thinking about the topic of this article:
First of all, when it comes to the inventions and discoveries of China and the West, if the archaeological discovery is earlier in the West, then the West will usually argue that China originated from the West, and if the archaeological discovery of China is early, then the West will usually argue that the "independent origin" of China and the West is the same. On the contrary, many Chinese scholars are very honest, and often as long as the West is earlier, they will admit or acquiesce to the West, and do not dare to easily propose independent origins.
Second, the chronological systems of Sumer and ancient Egypt were basically determined before the advent of carbon 14, and the ages of their chariots and carriages are really not overestimated? After the emergence of carbon 14, the chronological systems of these two civilizations have not changed much. The subjective dating is so accurate that it is really amazing. Of course, the West is often inaccurate when it comes to China, which is strange!
Third, Wen Tiejun believes that there is no slavery in China, and the so-called Xia Shang slavery is a product of the adoption of the Western discourse system, that is, to measure and define Chinese history by Western standards. Wen Tiejun's view of Xia Shang society may not be correct, but his line of thought is obviously worth considering, China and the West are different, and China cannot be simply looked at by Western standards, which is the case in the origin of the carriage.