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theSinitic
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Topic: Sinitic Civilization began in 3000 BC in Liangzhu Posted: 08-Jun-2014 at 23:31 |
Part I: The Broken Path
I have often wondered why Chinese spoke of 5000 years of
continuous civilization in China while westerners claimed China only has
3000 years. The difference had usually been attributed to the Chinese
for using mythological basis to rack up years for its homegrown
civilization while westerners only acknowledged China's civilization for
the duration of its written history which had only begun 3000 years
ago.
For many Chinese, though hardly the majority, mythological
reference serves just as well as true historiography. In Chinese
folklore, a sagelike emperor called Huangdi, situated around 5000 years
ago, was said to have used military might to pacify barbarians headed by
a warlike figure, Chiyou, in order to start the prosperous society
of Huaxia peoples, the supposed ancestors of Han Chinese supra-ethnic
peoples. Rumour has it that this was the period when the ethnocultural
backdrop for the Han Chinese developed since Han Chinese supposedly
viewed themselves with prideful regard for achieving distinct
nationhood against those less civilized than they.
Therefore the mythology of Huangdi and Chiyou served as a
reference for the ideal of "civilizing the barbarian masses". It
reasoned civilization in China was created when some men suddenly
realized their civilized status by arbitrarily assigning barbarian
status for those whom they have deemed necessary to civilize which is
another way of saying a superiority complex was key to implementing
civilization. By converting this ideal into a parameter for the search
of China's ancient civilization, many archaeologists discovering
upon the artifactual remains of China's neolithic past began to draw
associations between the two.
Where they found the ending phase of one Chinese neolithic
culture became perceived to indicate where an ancient battle was lost
against some more civilized conqueror. Where they found the beginning
phase of a Chinese neolithic culture became perceived to indicate
transition towards a more civilized status. In other words they
mistook what they discovered through archaeology to necessarily
reflect events portrayed in the Huangdi and Chiyou mythology by using
the same ideological justification which perpetuated that mythology in
the first place. But in this manner, the archaeology was never verified
to demonstrate whether ancient Chinese civilization existed at all.
Rather, all that had been accomplished was the needless rendition of
mythology as truth.
No grave site of Huangdi nor Chiyou could actually be
identified since identifying them would entail the required
historiography to reveal the locations of neolithic ceremonial burial
sites. Needless to say those do not exist. Despite this, efforts were
not made to halt early Chinese archaeology from vainfully assigning
various grave sites as the final resting grounds of various mythological
characters.
To be continued in Part II: Clearing a New Path
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http://hwyst.hangzhou.com.cn/wmyzh/content/2013-10/09/content_4920423.htm
Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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theSinitic
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Posted: 09-Jun-2014 at 14:21 |
Part II: Clearing a New Path
Ever since the old archaeology of
China shifted away from focusing on mythological understandings new
scholarship has been able to forge ahead in the reassessment of earlier
finds. For example the previous narrative which tried explaining the
Shang dynasty's rise through its manifestation of cultural superiority
over the Xia dynasty is no longer accepted as truth although we ought to
keep in mind that such fabrications can still be epigraphically
analyzed to gleam important clues about the nature of Chinese mythos.
The mythos of cultural superiority may after all be an important
propaganda tool in the eyes of rulers but such narrative devices fall
short of explaining exactly how the ruler achieved his position in the
first place. Rather such events can be explained easily through the use
of historical epistemology, sociological frameworks, historiography,
and archaeological materials.
Through historical epistemology we
may come to understand that it may have been the Shang dynasty whom had
innovated writing's use in China in ways hitherto not well understood.
The Shang dynasty capital discovered at Anyang was the final in a series
of capital transitions which moved them around the map of China. This
was not unlike the move of the Ming capital from Nanjing to Beijing.
Archaeologists were caught by surprise that at Anyang ancient priests
carved their famous oracle script on animal bone fragments for the
purpose of divination. The bones which bore inscriptions had contained a
treasure trove of important details about the ancient Chinese such as
food, rituals, battles, celebrations, etc. Because much of the
vocabulary on these divinatory items have been identified through
linguistics and literary epistemological studies it is undoubtedly
certain that the implementation of Chinese writing in present time can
be traced back to oracle script itself. But setting that aside,
elsewhere in the world, archaeologically speaking as well as
epistemologically, ancient writing discovered was always utilized in
other ways than divinatory processes. To take the famous case, in
ancient Sumerian civilization, tablets containing information in
cuneiform script were used to catalog trade items going about their
exchange between merchants. Archaeologists the world over now agree
that writing's utilization for accounting among other purposeful/task
driven motives must have a necessary part to play for writing's
development overall in any civilization such that it cannot be singled
out when determining the path of China's ancient civilization.
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http://hwyst.hangzhou.com.cn/wmyzh/content/2013-10/09/content_4920423.htm
Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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theSinitic
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Posted: 09-Jun-2014 at 16:06 |
China stone axes 'display ancient writing'
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23257700
Edited by theSinitic - 09-Jun-2014 at 17:05
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http://hwyst.hangzhou.com.cn/wmyzh/content/2013-10/09/content_4920423.htm
Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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theSinitic
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Posted: 09-Jun-2014 at 17:13 |
I can't believe I haven't done this earlier but I'm going to link you
guys to the Shanghai Archaeology Forum site. SAF was the initial basis
of the live recording that I've linked to in my signature. Their
international selection committee awarded the Liangzhu discoveries as
being tantamount to the discoveries in Egypt, being placed fifth. In English and Chinese: http://121.199.37.213/index.php/saf-2013/2013saf_projects/ - Index for the various recognition awards for 2013 http://121.199.37.213/index.php/liangzhu/ - The Liangzhu project http://121.199.37.213/index.php/tanyuan/ -
This is also important as it is a multidisciplinary program aimed at
resolving civilizational origin in China and gives a cursory overview of
Liangzhu's importance
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http://hwyst.hangzhou.com.cn/wmyzh/content/2013-10/09/content_4920423.htm
Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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hansun
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Posted: 10-Jun-2014 at 16:36 |
The Liangzhu culture seems very important. It had grand structures and highly sophisticated culture, unrivalled by anything in the region. What's really interesting is that the focal point of alcohol intolerance coincides with the Liangzhu area.
Edited by hansun - 10-Jun-2014 at 16:51
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theSinitic
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Posted: 10-Jun-2014 at 23:37 |
I believe that is correct. A case can quickly be built around the association of alcohol intolerance spreading in conjunction with Japonic rice agriculture which certainly developed to a high degree within that highly concentrated region. To elaborate one could say that rice agriculturalists were somehow extensively oriented/aligned towards that spot either because the genes for alcohol intolerance came from that area or that social organization was accelerated in areas with particularly high concentration of those alcohol intolerance genes.
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Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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red clay
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Posted: 11-Jun-2014 at 08:54 |
are you aware that oracle bones, compleat with script, have been found in Mexico, and dated to the Olmec era?
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Sander
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Posted: 11-Jun-2014 at 18:43 |
Originally posted by red clay
are you aware that oracle bones, compleat with script, have been found in Mexico, and dated to the Olmec era? |
That sounds interesting. I somehow missed that. A few years ago I read a paper about the identification of Shang (like) characters on some Olmec celts. At the very least, the scholars' claim was well supported.
Edited by Sander - 11-Jun-2014 at 18:54
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theSinitic
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Posted: 12-Jun-2014 at 00:40 |
Off topic but, the most striking evidence actually points to Banpo where there is a direct coincidence of cleft face designs impressed into pottery which match the Olmec designs for cleft face. That would lead to the origin of the Olmecs with the Tibeto-Burmans/Austronesians, not the Sinitics. The Austronesians didn't originate in Liangzhu. They originated in Cishan-Peiligang and if anyone is interested I can supply them the various papers which discuss towards that conclusion. If there was a correspondence of more than 10 percent using a swadesh checklist then I'd be happy to oblige you all with writing a paper concerning the ties between the two continents myself but otherwise it's a negative point for the origin of Sinitic civilization.
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http://hwyst.hangzhou.com.cn/wmyzh/content/2013-10/09/content_4920423.htm
Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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theSinitic
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Posted: 12-Jun-2014 at 01:52 |
http://www.academia.edu/867576/Did_Ancient_China_Influence_Olmec_Mexico
On second thought I made a mistake. After reexamining the samples I find no similarity at all. Most likely it was the author's presumptuous mistake as well. The Banpo cleft head is modeled off of a fish/man hybrid and the cleft's properties have a connection with the anthropomorphic features of a man's face superimposed on the image of a fish seen from the front.
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http://hwyst.hangzhou.com.cn/wmyzh/content/2013-10/09/content_4920423.htm
Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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