Wang Wei: Chinese civilization indeed has a history of 5,000 years

Author  :       Source  :    People's Daily Online ( July 19, 2012 )     2012-07-12

Ye Xiaonan

The following is a report entitled “Clear outline emerges for origin of Chinese civilization” on the People's Daily Online.

Wang Wei, head of Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said to the reporter of People's Daily that judging from archaeological findings, Chinese civilization indeed has a history of 5,000 years.

Exploration on Chinese civilization in early times

The historical records of China take the period of Yellow Emperor and Yan Emperor as the beginning of Chinese history and Chinese civilization is considered having a history of 5,000 years.However, all the earlier records and narrations about the period of Yellow, Yan, Yao, Shun and Yu emperors are from the later historical records and many are legendary stories. Therefore, many people in academic circle are skeptical of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization and some foreign scholars even doubt whether the Xia dynasty, the first dynasty in China, had really existed."Only by archaeological excavation to get new evidences can these suspicions be eliminated. The latest archaeological research result is the hard evidence that China really has a history of 5,000 years," Wang said.

Archaeological excavation can provide important evidences

Wang said that with over 10 years’ exploration of the origin of Chinese civilization, it has obtained an overall knowledge about the formation, evolution and stages of Chinese civilization in early times.The Niuheliang Site in Liaoning province and Lingjiatan Site in Anhui province have had about 5,000 years of history. The findings of large noble tombs, where buried many exquisite jade wares and vessels, and grand sacrifice sites indicate that the hierarchical differentiation had become serious in some places early in 5,000 years.The sites of some large cities and palaces such as Liangzhu Site and Taosi Site explained that before the establishment of Xia dynasty, the states had appeared in some regions which had a rapid development of culture and society and the civilization of ancient states had begun since then, Wang said to the reporter."The appearance of agriculture, handicraft, metropolises, serious social differentiation, pyramid-shaped structure and top leaders in these sites are earlier than that of the Xia dynasty and it shows that primary civilization and early states had already shaped at that time, which is an important evidence to the 5,000 years ‘ history of Chinese civilization," Wang said.The next step will focus on the research of early civilization in different regionsWang pointed out that next they will deeply research early civilization in different regions of China as well as the origin and formation of the overall Chinese civilization.It is said that the initial task of the third stage exploring the origin of Chinese civilization has basically finished and the later task is about to launch and will last until 2015.

 

 

Editor: Yu Hua

Editor: