Abstract
In the last 30 years, field archaeology in China has uncovered the remains of the Shang dynasty, datable to the middle and the latter part of the second millennium B.C. It has been found that Chinese civilization as represented by these remains, located in the northernmost part of Honan province and north of the Yellow River, was very advanced and had already attained maturity, with a complete mastery of the technique of casting bronze, the possession of an independent writing system, and an efficient and complicated military and political organization; it was also characterized by an abundance of material well-being, a remarkable manifestation of a highly sophisticated decorative art, an exacting social system, and a theocratic religion dominated by excessive devotion to ancestor worship.
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Notes
- 1.
In the fifth year of Yin Kung of Lu (Duke Yin), Confucius noted the following event in Ch’un Ch’iu: “The duke reviewed a display of the fishermen at T’ang” (Ch’un Ts’ew, translated by James Legge in the Chinese Classics series, V, Part l [London, 1872], 19). In his translation of this entry, Legge followed the standard interpretation. The original meaning of this version has recently been discussed by Mr. Ch’en P’an, Research Fellow of the National Research Institute of History and Philology; Fu Ssu-nien, Director of the Institute at the time, wrote a lengthy supplementary note to this paper and advanced the interesting theory that the Chinese character wu 物, used in this connection and in many other ancient texts, really had the meaning that the term “totem” has in modern ethnology. Fu’s paper has been republished in the Collected Papers of Fu Meng-chen (in Chinese), IV (Taipei, 1952), pp. 236–240.
- 2.
Li [1], p. 181.
- 3.
Andersson [2], pp. 42–43.
- 4.
Liang Ssu-yung, in the English summary of Ch’eng-tzu-yai (Nanking, 1934), p. 11, gives the following list of fauna for the lower horizon:
Canis familiaris L. Pseudaxis cf. hartulorum.
Lepus sp. Elaphurus menziesanus Sowerby.
Sus sp. Ovis changi Teilhard and Young.
Equus sp. Bos exiguus.
Hydropotes.
Compare for stratigraphical details the Chinese original in the same report, p. 91. See also Ch’eng-tzu-yai: The Black Pottery Culture Site at Lung-shan-chen in Li-ch’eng-hsien, Shantung Province, edited by Li Chi et al., a translation by Kenneth Starr of Archaeologia Sinica, No. 1 (1934) (Yale Publications in Anthropology, 52 [New Haven, 1956]).
- 5.
Teilhard de Chardin and Young [3].
- 6.
Young and Liu [4], pp. 145–152.
- 7.
Tso-pin [5].
- 8.
Ibid., p. 14.
- 9.
The late Mr. Liang Ssu-yung, in his copious field notes on the Hou-chia-chuang excavations, mentioned positive evidences proving that inside the wooden chambers that housed the coffins in all the big tombs within this cemetery area there were elaborately carved and painted decorations.
- 10.
- 11.
Frankfort [8], p. 102; Pls. X, 16, and XXI, 41.
- 12.
Ibid., Pl. XIII, 23, 24; p. 102.
- 13.
Gordon Childe [9], pp. 132 ff. and Fig. 65.
- 14.
Boss [10], pp. 223 ff.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 239.
- 16.
Li [11], p. 69.
- 17.
Chavannes [12], p. 2.
- 18.
Li [13].
- 19.
Li [14], p. 576.
- 20.
Andersson, “Researches into the Prehistory of the Chinese,” pp. 43–44.
- 21.
Hou-hsüan [15], p. 81.
- 22.
See note 31.
- 23.
See note 31; see also Chang-ju [16].
- 24.
Amano [17], p. 236.
- 25.
Oral communications.
- 26.
See also Pien [18], pp. 121–133.
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Li, C. (2020). Origin and Early Development. In: The Beginnings of Chinese Civilization. China Academic Library. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9666-7_2
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