Page 52 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

The Foundation of Chinese Civilization

L A T E P R E H I S T O R I C C H I N A ( c . 5 O O O - 2 O O O B C E )

Prior to the birth of modern Chinese archaeology, the best accounts of China s prehistory
were the learned sagas contained in the Shiji (Records of the historian) by Sima Qian (c. 145-
86 BCE) or the narratives in the Yuejue shu (c. 40 CE) by Yuan Kang (c. first century CE). The
latter mentions an Eastern Zhou philosopher who claimed that the Iron Age had been pre-
1
ceded by the Stone Age, the Jade Age, and the Bronze Age. Few people took this four-fold
periodization of human history seriously; most dismissed it as vagary, a position that was main-
tained even into the early twentieth century. In the 19105, for example, the Japanese archeolo-
gist Torii Ryuzo discovered what we now know to be Neolithic artifacts in northeastern China
but attributed their manufacture to "barbarian" peoples or minorities inhabiting the periph-
2
eries of China during the dynastic era. Today, after nearly a century of archaeological investi-
gations, we can discern a panorama of prehistoric China spanning nearly two million years.
Surveys and excavations performed in the Yellow and Yangzi River regions and in northeastern
China have yielded a framework of six coevolving regional traditions that ranges from the
Neolithic to the Chalcolithic Age.
Five of these six regional traditions, representing the late stage of China's prehistory
(c. 5000-2000 BCE), are represented in this exhibition. They comprise the following: in the
middle Yellow River basin, the Yangshao culture, distinguished by its polychrome painted
pottery (cats. 1-5), and one of its late continuations — the Taosi Longshan culture, with a
distinctive painted ceramic style of its own (cats. 25-27); in the upper reaches of the Yellow
River, the Majiayao culture (which also developed out of the Yangshao culture), whose splen-
did ceramics incorporate abstract and, more rarely, figural designs (cats. 6-9). The Dawenkou
and Shandong Longshan cultures inhabited the lower Yellow River area; they are represented
here by pottery incised with pictographs and elegant jadework (cats. 23-24). The Hongshan

culture, manifested in its jades, a terra-cotta torso, and ceramics (cats. 10-22), was situated in
northeastern China. The lower Yangzi River delta was peopled by the Liangzhu culture, asso-
ciated with jades that feature exquisite miniature carvings (cats. 29-36). The last established
nexus (not included in this exhibition) is in the middle Yangzi River basin, and its late-period
culture, Shijiahe, produced well-known, small-scale animal and human sculptures in terra-
3
cotta and jade. These cultures, whose artifacts manifest distinctive characteristics, were the
main forces in the formation of Chinese civilization; each bequeathed its heritage to the later
dynastic cultures.
The most significant contributions of archaeology to our understanding of prehistoric
China are the following: (i) in the absence of reliable written records, archaeology created a
framework for the prehistory of China; (2) it established that the Chinese dynastic civilization
did not originate solely in the Yellow River valley (as had previously been thought), but that it
was formed by a confluence of cultures inhabiting the lands bordering the Yangzi River, north-
Cat. 30, detail eastern China, and other areas. The peoples of each region, while interacting with those from

5i