Beyond the Yellow River: How China Became China -- Lawler 325 (5943): 930 -- S... - The Diigo Meta page

• 23 Aug 09
  

  Dawei Gao

  Archaeology in China:
  Founding Dynasty or Myth?
  Andrew Lawler
  
  A new crop of archaeologists, less willing to take ancient texts at face value, are challenging the existence of a legendary dynasty.
  
  
  Figure 1
  
  Mythical creature? A turquoise dragon found at Erlitou, an important early site in the central plains area of the Yellow River. When discovered in 1959, the settlement was hailed as the capital of the legendary Xia dynasty, which was described in early texts. But recent excavations, coupled with new dating, cast doubt on that claim, as well as on the accuracy of the texts detailing the rise of the Xia.
  
  CREDIT: CHEN GUOLIANG
  
  [Larger version of this image]
  
  ERLITOU, CHINA—In the 6th century B.C.E., Confucius referred to the ancient Xia dynasty as China's first, based on documents that were old in his day. For generations of Chinese scholars, the Xia was China's initial great flowering of civilization, inaugurating a history that unfolded in methodical fashion from city-state to empire (see main text and timeline, p. 930). But there was no physical evidence for the dynasty's existence, so in 1959 an archaeological team set out to find its seat. Along this marshy section of the Luo River in the central plains of the Yellow River Valley, they uncovered a 300-hectare site dating to roughly the correct period—and promptly hailed it as the long-lost first capital.
  
  But did the Xia, said to have flourished from 2100 B.C.E. to 1600 B.C.E., really exist? New, unpublished dates and excavation data from this modest site challenge its status as the capital of the Xia. "We have proven that Erlitou is the largest and most culturally developed site with the biggest population," says Chen Guoliang, an assistant researcher at the site, standing in a gentle spring rain on the roof of the dig house. "But what it was exactly requires more research."
  
  Until the archaeological finds of the past half-century, most of what we knew of early Chinese history was based largely on ancient texts, which have a status here somewhat compara

  Science China archaeology 中国 考古学

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