How Old Is Chinese Civilization? - Ancient Civilizations DOCUMENTARY

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There is only one thing I can think of that can be corrected: Yu is not a figure with mythical power that fixed flooding with his power, but an engineer that left his family for decades to plan and build a waterwork project that fixed the flooding problem. The myth was his sacrifice earned him the leadership of his people. Of all myths in Chinese history, this is probably one of the more realistic ones.

Yu the Great is described in historical texts as a hands-on engineer building a drainage system through a mountain that finally resolved the problem of flooding and made the region inhabitable for Chinese people. His technique of diverting flood waters by draining them to the Yellow Sea was more successful than the technique of suppression with dikes used by his predecessors. Yu was known for engaging in hard toil alongside his men, so much so his feet were calloused and his skin became black and leathery from the sun. The myth where he uses a magical battle axe is not canonical but belongs to a fringe text and is a later embellishment that most Chinese people do not know about. The classical understanding of Yu the Great is of a great hydraulic engineer with a great work ethic and who worked alongside his men on the most laborous tasks.

I am from Nepal where we have many different Tibeto- Burman tribes. It is said that my tribe's ancient origins lies in ancient China (possibly mountains of Yunan and Sichuan) from where my ancestors migrated and moved southwards through Tibetan plateau and eventually settling in the present-day Nepal about atleast a millenia ago. There are lots of myths and legends passed down from generations about our migration from there going through many forests and mountains and arriving in our present home. Nepal, Bhutan, North-east India have long been inhabited by Tibeto- Burman speaking populations which trace their ancestry to the Western China and South east Asia (due to intermixing).

No culture just springs out of nowhere.....for the shang dynasty to exist, there would be a precursor government polity/culture. Because, hear me out....a fully developed language with writing system doesn't just spring up overnight. Truly, a government like the shang dynasty doesn't just spring up overnight without centuries of consolidation from smaller settlements.

Confucius is among hundreds of ancient Chinese schools of thought (诸子百家). Han and later Dynasties promoted Confucius because it emphasizes order and authority of the emperors, but you can't say the other schools (诸子百家）are not Chinese.

There is one point I want to add. There were 10 mainstream ancient philosophies influenced China, not just the Confucius. We had Taoism (specialized in human and nature relations), Mo (specialized in engineering designs), Zong Heng (specialized in Diplomacy and political strategies), Sun Zi (The art of war), Fa (specialized in Laws), Yin Yang (specialized in the order and trend of universe), These are the 6 out of the 10 mainstream of philosophies dated around 500 BC and influenced all the way to modern China.

China has a civilisational continuity of NO LESS than: 3600 years if you consider the internationally-recognised sophisticated written language; 4300 years if you consider the archaeological formation of a country; 4700 years if you consider the establishment of scientific Chinese calender; 6000 years if you consider the split of languages; 7000-8000 years if you consider the birth of script and record of knowledge; 9000 years if you consider the root of Chinese's totems, astroobservations, Yin-Yang and preference of jade; 12000 years if you consider the archaeological discoveries in argriculture and the legendary 3 sovereigns.

Sima Qian was known as the great historian. His account of the Shang is extremely accurate and corroborated with the writing on the oracle bones. This is amazing because Sima Qian lived 1000 years after the fall of the Shang. The accuracy of this works is not in doubt by most Chinese historians. Sima Qian did provide a list of the Xia kings and events that preceded the Shang. The problem is with three sovereign five emperor stuff that preceded the Xia. If Sima Qian account is to be taken literally, than some of these emperors and sovereigns would have live 100+ years plus or more, which is not very likely in ancient time.

One of the major problems on understanding Chinese civilization before Shang is the writing system. Oracle script during Shang shows a very refined writing system, which means that there should be a more primitive version of it in pre-Shang era. But so far no decrypted piece of such supposed writing have been found, despite several pre-Shang cities with integrated palace, defensive wall system and hydraulic works have been revealed by archeologists. But technically there ARE pre-Shang civilizations in China. It's just so far we don't know for sure what they called themselves, how far and how early they reached, or their definitive relation between Shang and the tribal states of the time.

As a history teacher you've helped me grow so much Kings and Generals! My area of speciality is Modern China and you've strengthened my Ancient!

I heard from the most recent findings is that the Xia dynasty actually existed. The problem was that the dynasty wasn't called the "Xia" dynasty. There are a lot of artifacts from that time but not enough literary records to claim that dynasty was "XIa," so it was probably under a different name.

Im just going to correct one thing, Chinese historians or any historic books say that Yu does not have any superhuman or supernatural strength, but rather took 13 contineous years digging and dredging the flood. Not to mention his father is the one that started this digging many years before as a small leader, but got punished and sentenced to death as the river is always flooding out and killing people every year at the high season. IN FACT, the idea and concept about one saving the flood from rivers or ocean appeared everywhere in the world, almost all civilization starts with this kind of myth, but Chinese version is the ONLY, yes the only version that is saved by human power through many years of dedication and hardworking and planning, while other versions around the world are all about a godlike being using super power.

The Oracle Bones, of the Shang, which dates back to 2nd Millennium BC. They say the Oracle bone scripts evolve continuously to the modern version of Chinese writing. The Shang script of the Oracle bones was sophisticated enough, that without a doubt, it was passed down from an earlier version. Nothing develops in a vacuum. Even if the evidence of the Xia and Zhou were minimal, the existence of such a Shang kingdom, means something less developed must have existed previously.

I was taught that it takes the Great Yu 大禹 8 years along with a lot of manpower to deal with the flooding yellow river. There is a famous tale, 三过家门而不入, that he passes by his home several times in the years without returning to his house and see his family, indicating the sacrifice he made to achieve the greater good. The tale is recorded in one chapter in《孟子》, a Zhou dynasty classic.

Chinese isn't just Han. This is a recurring assumption that many westerners make to this day. Han people just happen to be the majority but what they call 'foreigners' are still considered Chinese of ethnic minority groups. It's been this way for millenia. Even Hans are in fact a collection of different ethnicities depending on how far one wants to go in history.

Among the Chinese archaeologists they still argue whether Xia existed or not. The older generation tends to question it, the newer generation tends to believe it certainly existed. Before the Shang Capital was excavated, Shang's existense was questioned, too. People were awed by how Sima Qian's accuracy of recording Shang's descent records, he only messed up one of the record (he thought the brother of Shang's first king succeeded the throne, but Oracles suggest it passed directly to the eldest son). This kind of accuracy means Sima Qian must have other literature to support him, cause the founding of Shang was 15 centuries ahead of him. Those records we can never find. But it also make one wonder, would Sima Qian write Xia's descent records without similar support? Oracle characters was a rather sophisticated, and it is unreasonable for Shang people to only use it for argury or fortune-telling, but not to use it for recording, governing and business. However, other than turtle shells, ancient Chinese were mostly wrote on bamboo sheets, which can not withstand the chemical and biological erosion. The curently, the ealiers bamboo sheets found is from the B Tomb of Marquis Zeng (written time around 433 BC). The sheets were preserved only because buried by water with antiseptic solutes. It might be very hard to find wrting characters from Xia time. However, Erlitou is the only place many researcher considered as Xia Capital. In the same period, there are quite a few huge settlements in China that are excavated, like Yangshao in Shanxi Province, Heitao in Shandong Province, Liangzhu in Zhejiang Province (considered foreign of Xia), San Xingdui in Sichuan Province (considered foreign of Xia), ect. Even miles beside the Shang capital there was Longshan culture ruins, which is also around Xia time. In Hubei Province, there was a huge fortress ruin excavated which takes up 0.4 million squre meters with a moat of 30 meters wide, scholars speculate it as the fortress of southern people defending northern armies. When Mongol conquered Song they went near this place, the City of Xiangyang, which hold 8 years before fallen. Could it be the fortress of southern city states (such as earlier mentioned Liangzhu) defending Xia troops? I tend to believe Xia existed, other than the ruins we discussed, there are lots of other ruins around Erlitou, which already form up a ruling center. And apparently they are a power that the southerners feared.

Xia most likely existed. Shang was also previously thought to be mythical until modern archaeology found oracle bones. Sima Qian was an amazing historiographer for his time

Looking at Fu Hao and concluding that Shang society was egalitarian is like taking a look at Empress Wu Zetian and conlcuding that the Tang society was egalitarian, or taking a look at Joan d'Arc and conlcuding that medieval France was egalitarian, or taking a look at Matilda of Tuscanny and concluding that medieval Italy was egalitarian or....you get the point. There are like half a dozen reasons that can explain Fu Hao's position within Shang society before jumping to the conlcusion that the Shang were egalitarian. Off the top of my head, a reasonable explanation could be that Fu Hao would have been part of (or close to) the nobility, which means that she could bend the "rules" better than the average woman could.

Thanks for posting on one of my favorite civs and cultures guys, brightened my day a lot so thank you and please keep doing these :)