Such a high civilization was not born out of nowhere.
When and where are the more distant roots?
This year, the project of exploring the source of Chinese civilization ushered in a bright moment, and began to enter the public field of vision from the academic circles. In the past 20 years, this project has focused on 2,000 years from 5,500 to 3,500 years ago, including important sites in this period of the country. With the mode of deep combination of archaeology and natural science, it tries to answer a question: How did Chinese civilization originate?
Those two thousand years were the key stage of the origin of Chinese civilization. At that time, agriculture and productivity developed rapidly, material wealth increased sharply, social differentiation intensified, and then the state and kingship appeared. According to Engels, the state is the generalization of civilized society. During this period, the ancient city of Liangzhu in the Yangtze River valley and Niuheliang in the West Liaohe River valley have developed quite a culture, which can even be called a country. The preliminary conclusion of the source exploration project is that more than 5,000 years ago, China has entered a civilized society.
Another problem followed. If the Chinese civilization was formed 5,000 years ago, such a high level of civilization was not born out of nowhere, but when and where did the more ancient roots take place?
In a series of early Neolithic discoveries, the dawn of civilization has emerged. According to the current archaeological achievements, around 8,000 years is another critical period, which some scholars call the origin of Chinese civilization. With the deepening of the research on the origin of Chinese civilization, the “Five Thousand Years Up and Down” has not only changed from legend to archaeological evidence, but also the historical context of the “Eight Thousand Years Up and Down” has gradually become clear.
Beast-faced bone dagger unearthed from Erlitou site in Yanshi, Henan. Photo/Erlitou Archaeological Team, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The Myth of the Origin of Civilization
The Chinese Civilization Exploration Project started in the spring of 2002, led by the Institute of Archaeology of China Academy of Social Sciences and Peking University Institute of Archaeology and Culture, combined with more than 400 scholars from 20 disciplines, made a detailed study of the origin stage of Chinese civilization. This project focuses on four city-level sites in Liangzhu, Zhejiang, Taosi, Shanxi, Shimao, Shaanxi and Erlitou, Henan, as well as the central sites in the Yellow River, Yangtze River and Liaohe River basins, and draws a general outline of the origin, formation and early development of Chinese civilization. In the research of origin, a fundamental question is hard to get around: What is civilization?
For a long time, the global archaeological community has taken three elements as the criterion for judging civilization: metallurgy, writing and city. In the 1980s, the “three elements of civilization” came to China with the popular British archaeological classic The Earliest Civilization. These three elements are extracted from the archaeology of the two river basins and Egypt in the west, which is the origin of modern archaeology in the world. China’s prehistoric social development model is different from that of the two river basins and Egypt, and the same elements have different meanings in different societies, so the “three elements of civilization” are not fully applicable to China.
The tombs of Wenjiashan in Liangzhu Ruins Group in Zhejiang Province are full of jade articles. Photo/Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
An intuitive example is the different meanings of metallurgy in the east and the west. In the west, after the invention of bronze smelting technology, it was widely used as a production tool and weapon, which promoted the development of agriculture and the escalation of war. After the bronze smelting technology was introduced into China from West Asia, it was widely used in the manufacture of ritual vessels, combining with the developed pottery-making technology in China, and made a variety of bronzes. Even in the highly developed Bronze Age of China, bronze ware did not make a significant contribution to agricultural development.
Therefore, an important task of the Chinese civilization exploration project is to determine the standard of civilization origin in China. This standard must be based on archaeological discoveries in China. Among them, the discovery of Liangzhu Ancient City in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province and Niuheliang Site in Jianping, Liaoning Province provided important clues. Especially in the ancient city of Liangzhu, in the past 30 years, archaeologists have excavated high-grade tombs, altars, palaces, rice, city walls, large-scale water conservancy projects, etc., and a developed settlement about 5,000 years ago has surfaced completely.
On the basis of these findings, in 2018, the expert group of source exploration engineering set four standards of civilization: in terms of productivity, agriculture and handicraft industry have developed to a considerable extent; Obvious social differentiation; A city that appears as a political, economic and cultural center; The emergence of kingship. Later, domestic scholars put forward some views one after another, but the coincidence rate of these elements, such as country, city, kingship and class differentiation, is quite high.
Of course, different views still exist.
In 2010, archaeologists at Erlitou Site in Henan Province painted tombs. Photo/Erlitou Archaeological Team, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Han Jianye, a professor at the School of History of Renmin University of China, said that the “Civilization” in the eyes of most archaeologists is basically the translation of words like civilization in Spanish. Generally, it is based on Engels’ assertion that “a country is a generalization of a civilized society”. In most cases, the origin of civilization and the origin of a country are studied as the same thing. Feng Shi, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of China Academy of Social Sciences, understands “civilization” from the China tradition. The word “civilization” in Yi Zhuan and Shang Shu means “morality” expressed through inner moral cultivation, which is the spiritual pursuit to separate people from the animal world. Therefore, the state of a civilized society should be that “human beings are well-known for their cultivation of morality, while society should be well-known for its system construction and etiquette perfection”.
To sum up, regarding the understanding of civilization, one point of view attaches importance to the degree of social development, while the other point of view attaches importance to cultural achievements.
Han Jianye agrees to combine the two. He defines “Chinese civilization” as a “highly developed and long-lasting comprehensive entity created by material, spiritual and institutional creation” owned by the Chinese nation. This view emphasizes that the origin and formation of Chinese civilization should be distinguished. The formation of civilization is marked by the emergence of national society, and there is still a long process of origin before.
Interestingly, no matter according to the civilization standard put forward by the source exploration project or the concept of civilization in China’s traditional documents, some scholars of the two viewpoints have reached an agreement on the coordinate point of the origin of civilization in eight thousand years.
Put together pottery pieces at the excavation site of Niuheliang site in Liaoning province. Photo/Niuheliang Site Excavation and Research Group
Wang Wei, chairman of China Archaeological Society, summed up his understanding of the origin, formation and early development of Chinese civilization: Chinese civilization was laid thousands of years ago, originated in 8,000 years ago, accelerated in 6,000 years, entered a civilized society in more than 5,000 years, the central plains rose in 4,300 years, the dynasty was established in 4,000 years, the royal power was consolidated in 3,000 years, and a unified multi-ethnic country was formed in 2,200 years. He told China Newsweek that distinguishing the two concepts of “origin” and “formation” of civilization is a pioneering work in the study of the origin of civilization. He hoped that the next step of the project of exploring the origin of Chinese civilization would be to go back to 8,000 years and further explore the stage of the origin of civilization.
Han Jianye believes that 8,000 years ago, an orderly society and a certain degree of social differentiation appeared in most parts of China, resulting in a more advanced and complex ideological concept and knowledge system, including cosmology, ethics, history, astronomy, mathematics, symbols, music and so on. These ideas and knowledge systems have been passed down to this day and constitute the core connotation of Chinese civilization. What’s more, at that time, the cultures of most parts of China had been preliminarily blended and connected into a rudimentary “early China cultural circle”, and there was the sprout of “early China” in culture. Therefore, the first step of the origin of Chinese civilization was taken eight thousand years ago.
Eight-year-old thread
The origin of civilization needs time, place and harmony. From the natural environment, 8,000 years ago was a period suitable for reproduction. From 8,000 to 6,000 years ago, the climate was warm. At that time, the climate of the Yellow River Basin was similar to that of the Yangtze River Basin today, and the climate of the Yangtze River Basin was similar to that of South China today.
Thanks to the warm and humid climate, agriculture has developed rapidly. Rice farming has spread from the Yangtze River Basin to the Huaihe River Basin, and millet farming has been popularized in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the north and south of Yanshan Mountain. Stone shovels and bone shovels in the site during this period indicate that agriculture has developed from slash-and-burn farming to shovel farming. Agriculture makes people settle down, population increases, villages increase, handicraft industry develops, and society progresses in an all-round way.
Eight thousand years ago, a bright dawn was undoubtedly the Jiahu site in the Central Plains.
Archaeological excavation site of Shicun site in Shanxi province. Figure/State Administration of Cultural Heritage
In the 1980s, a series of amazing cultural relics were unearthed at Jiahu site, such as tortoise shells with symbols, some of which are almost the same as those of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Jiahu site has opened people’s eyes. It turns out that the life of 89,000 years ago can be summarized by two words: primitive and backward. At that time, people already had a rich spiritual life, and even had exquisite musical instruments.
Jia Hu is not the only highland. At about the same time, ethnic groups in other areas were marching towards civilization. For example, the Shangshan site in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, 10,000 years ago, discovered the earliest domesticated rice in China. Besides rice, other phenomena of Shangshan culture are also worthy of attention, such as divination and pottery-making techniques. In the Shangshan cultural site at Qiaotou, Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, divination symbols dating from 9,000 to 8,500 years ago were found. In the southwest of Dongting Lake in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, 7800~7000 years ago, a large-scale sacrificial site and exquisite white pottery sacrificial vessels appeared in the Gaomiao site, and the precocious religious sacrificial rites and space concepts gradually formed …
Around 6,000 years ago, the process of civilization began to accelerate. Millet in the Yellow River Basin spreads to the Yangtze River Basin, while rice spreads northward to the Hanshui River Basin and the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. At this time, the population and settlements increased significantly, forming a central settlement, such as the Zhudingyuan site group in Lingbao, Henan Province, and several large settlements with a scale of one million square meters appeared.
From 2019 to 2021, archaeologists discovered a huge central settlement at the site of Shicun, Xia County, Shanxi Province. The settlement has built a surrounding trench, which is about 4 meters wide and 3.5 meters deep. It is the prototype of the moat of later generations. Military defense has become necessary, which means that there is a war between settlements, which is also a manifestation of social complexity and settlement centralization. Archaeologists have also dug out stone carvings and pottery carvings dating back 6,000 years from the soil. They are shaped like peach pits, which are actually imitations of silkworm chrysalis. These silkworm chrysalis sculptures are the earliest images of silkworm chrysalis in China at present, and with the unearthed Moraceae pollen, archaeologists infer that the ancestors here have already started to raise silkworms for silk reeling, which is an important clue to the origin of silk. Shicun Site, as a sparrow for dissection, reflects the appearance of a “big city” around 6,000 years ago.
By 5,500 ~ 5,000 years ago, various regions have officially entered the stage of civilization. At this time, the complexity of society is not the same as that of 6,000 years ago.
Taosi Site in Shanxi (part). Figure/State Administration of Cultural Heritage
The recently discovered site of this kind is the site of Shuanghuaishu in Gongyi, Henan Province in the Central Plains, which dates back about 5,300 years. During the continuous excavation from 2013 to 2020, archaeologists discovered a metropolitan settlement site with an area of 1.17 million square meters. The site was surrounded by three wide ring trenches: the inner trench, the middle trench and the outer trench, forming a tight defense system. Some archaeologists believe that the ruins in Heluo area, the core area of Central Plains civilization, have filled the key materials of the origin of Chinese civilization. More than 30 years ago, the discovery of Liangzhu Ancient City in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Niuheliang Site in the West Liaohe River Basin dwarfed the Central Plains during this period, resulting in the confusion of the so-called “civilized depression in the Central Plains”. The site of Shuanghuaishu is considered as an evidence to break the “Central Plains Depression Theory”.
The excavation of the old “Star” sites Liangzhu Ancient City and Niuheliang Site is still going on. Recently, in the latest progress of the Chinese civilization exploration project released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Niuheliang site has published new achievements. In archaeology, the significance of Niuheliang Site lies in that it is one of the evidences of pluralism in the origin of Chinese civilization, which subverts the traditional concept of cultural unification in the Central Plains. This proves that Chinese civilization is not dominated by the Central Plains from beginning to end. More than 5,000 years ago, each region entered the civilization era. In the process of cultural exchange and integration, the Central Plains civilization gradually formed and expanded its leading edge, and finally became the dominant of Chinese civilization. To understand the origin and development of Chinese civilization, “multiple integration” is still the core framework.
The longer the history, the more ethereal it is, and the more sparse and incomplete the evidence left in the soil. Returning the hardships of the original people from 8,000 years ago to 5,000 years ago can not only satisfy our endless curiosity about the past, but also answer more accurately: who we are and where we came from.
Whether or not the origin of 8,000-year-old civilization can be universally recognized, it is undoubtedly meaningful to look back at what happened 8,000 years ago. On a longer-term scale, it allows us to observe the evolution of human society, and it also enlightens us on the perceptual level. Although our life is quite different from that of the ancient ancestors, some things remain unchanged.