Chinese from **? Sima Qian tells us that the Chinese came from the Yan and Huang Emperors, and later, with the discovery of the Dawenkou and Longshan cultures, scholars added Xuan You, and revered the Yan Emperor, the Yellow Emperor, and Xuan You as the "Three Ancestors of China." In recent decades, with the rapid development of molecular anthropology, foreign countries have been able to trace the genes of human beings back to Africa and find the original Adam and Eve. If China one day also makes significant progress in anthropology, it may be able to find the original ancestors of the Chinese. However, in recent years, there have been many advances in anthropologists in China, and combined with the latest discoveries in archaeology, we can finally trace the origins of Chinese civilization.
The birth and development of human beings are closely related to the environmental changes of the earth. Therefore, before talking about the origin of Chinese civilization, let us briefly talk about prehistoric human history.
The Quaternary Ice Age began 2 million to 3 million years ago and ended in 150,000 years ago. The ice sheet of the Quaternary Great Ice Age was very large, reaching around 50°N on the southern margin of the European ice sheet; The front edge of the North American ice sheet extends south of 40°N, including mountain and foothill glaciers near the equator, which once extended downward to lower levels.
Therefore, during the Great Ice Age of the Quaternary Period, there were few places suitable for human life. Due to its unique geographical location, the African region has formed good conditions for the birth of human beings, which is why modern humans originated in Africa.
3.2 million years ago, the first hominins were born, and a fossil of an hominin with the characteristics of both humans and chimpanzees was found in East Africa, known as "Lucy, the grandmother of man". In the early 1.8 million period, Homo erectus was born in Africa, and then Yuanmou Man, Peking Man, Heidelberg Man and other Homo erectus people successively walked out of Africa. More than 400,000 years ago, Neanderthals occupied Europe, and 300,000 years ago, Denisovans emerged from Neanderthals** and occupied East Asia and other regions.
Generally speaking, in the history of human evolution, there have been at least dozens of human races, such as Madame Rudaud, Heidelberg Man, Neanderthals, Denisovan and Florisians, etc., all of whom have lived on the earth for tens of thousands of years, but due to the harsh environment outside Africa, the number of early human populations out of Africa was greatly limited, resulting in their slow evolution, and finally defeated and integrated by modern Homo sapiens. Among the genes of modern humans, Neanderthals have genes that occupy 17%, and the genes of Denisovans occupy 05%。
Between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, modern humans left Africa many times and gradually spread around the world. The first to leave Africa were dwarf blacks and browns. They were adept at seafaring and fishing, expanding along the coastline, but when they moved north to the Mediterranean, they lost to the Neanderthals. They thus developed eastward, along the coast of the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia to the coast of East Asia, the Korean and Japanese archipelagos, to the northward steppes of Northeast Asia, and into the Americas. The descendants of their stay in Asia were later largely integrated into the yellow race, which is found in varying numbers in modern yellow people.
70,000 years ago, when the Earth's temperatures began to warm up after a long period of severe cold, light-colored people (both white and yellow) followed the migration path of dark-colored people out of Africa. The first group of dwarf black and brown people who left Africa have spread all over the world after 20,000 years. Due to the long period of low temperature of the earth in the early days, the population of the indigenous people around the world has been greatly reduced, and they have been integrated into the yellow race.
More than 60,000 years ago, the ancient yellow people arrived in Southeast Asia along the coast of South Asia.
More than 30,000 years ago, a yellow race with the M122 mutation entered China from Southeast Asia, and they are the Sino-Tibetan language group. If the ancestor of the Chinese is found through molecular anthropology, it may be in this group. There were two routes for this Sino-Tibetan yellow group to enter China, one was in Yunnan, where they later developed into the Chinese-Tibeto-Burman language group, and the other was in the Pearl River Valley, where they later developed into the Miao-Yao and Zhuang-Dong groups. At that time, brown people were also active in China, and later merged with yellow people to form the Altaic language group, which later became the ancestors of ethnic groups from West Asia to Northeast China. (Nature**: Pan-Eurasian languages may originate from the same Chinese ancestor 9,000 years ago).
At the same time, there were also human races that entered China from Central Asia through the northern steppes, but later they left no descendants.
20,000 years ago, these yellow people gradually began to fish, hunt and gather in the plains and river basins of China.
1.50,000 years ago, at the end of the Quaternary Ice Age, modern Homo sapiens was already almost all over the world (including about 230,000 years ago, they entered the Americas), but they all lived by fishing and hunting, and the total population may be only a few million people, and the average life expectancy is only 15 years. After the end of the Quaternary Ice Age, the Earth's climate warmed, but in 130,000 years ago, the earth ushered in a "cold spring", which was the new fairy wood event, because a comet hit the earth. So, until 1About 10,000 years ago, as the earth's climate became more and more suitable for human survival, human civilization accelerated and entered the Neolithic Age.
In Chinese history books, history begins with the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. Especially the history since the Yellow Emperor, Sima Qian has a clear record in the "Historical Records" "Five Emperors Benji". But unfortunately, the current archaeological and historical records can confirm that the history began in the Shang Dynasty. There are still great difficulties in the history of the Xia Dynasty and the correspondence of historical books, let alone the history of the Five Emperors period. Therefore, for the time being, the ancient history of the Chinese nation can only rely on molecular anthropology and archaeology. However, it is not known when new archaeological discoveries will confirm the historical records, so I hope to see this day sooner.
Shortly after entering the Neolithic period, about 1The Agricultural Revolution first took place 10,000 years ago in the Levant region of West Asia. At this time, the Sino-Tibetan yellow people who entered China from Yunnan were mainly active in the north, and this group of people was the common ancestor of the Han, Tibetan, Qiang, Burmese and other ethnic groups, who developed millet agriculture, but the Burmese later returned to Southeast Asia. The Sino-Tibetan yellow people, who entered China from the Pearl River basin, were mainly active in the south, and these people were the ancestors of the Liangzhu people and the modern Miao, Dai, Dong, and Zhuang peoples, who developed rice agriculture. According to Fu Qiaomei's research, the population of the north and south was divided at least 9,500 to 19,000 years ago, but slowly merged 8,000 years ago.
Archaeologists usually divide the Neolithic into early, middle, and late periods, and we sort out this division.
The early Neolithic period dates back 9000 to 7000 years ago, when the Earth's climate entered the "Holocene Warm Period". Due to the vast territory of China, the Neolithic culture showed geographical diversity and uneven development, which can be described as starry and colorful. The Jiahu culture (7000-5800 BC) and Peiligang culture (6000-5000 BC) in Henan are the main representatives of this period. The reason why both Jiahu and Peiligang cultures are used as representatives is related to climate change and the disruption of Jiahu culture.
8,200 years ago, there was a rapid abrupt climate change event around the world (82ka event), the temperature dropped by 6 degrees or more, lasting 2-4 centuries, milder than the previous cooling of the New Fairy Wood Period, but much more violent than the cooling after that. During the cooling period, there was a great migration of the ancient ancestors. This migration caused the ancestors of the first phase of Jiahu to leave the local area, and then the ancestors of Peiligang went south to fill in.
In addition to the Jiahu culture and Peiligang culture, there were also Xinglongwa culture in Northeast China, Cishan culture in Hebei, Houli culture and its successor Beixin culture in Shandong during the same period. Among them, Jiahu culture, Cishan culture and Peiligang culture are the sources of Yangshao culture in the Central Plains, while the Houli culture and its successor Beixin culture in Shandong are the sources of the later Dongyi Dawenkou and Longshan cultures.
According to genetic research, all 13 effective genes extracted from the Jiahu people are O2, and the O2 gene accounts for 70% of the current Chinese genes, so the Jiahu people are undoubtedly one of the ancestors of modern Chinese.
The average height of the Ja Lakers is 18 meters (it can be seen that there was plenty of food at that time), and learned to make wine, which is the first group of people in the world to learn to make wine, and also invented the bone flute, which is also the world's earliest flute. The Jiahu site also found tortoiseshell inscriptions, which are likely to be the source of oracle bone inscriptions.
According to scholar Li Shuo's research, the origin of the Chinese from Yanhuang is the result of the Zhou people's own legend as the origin of the whole China, and the claim that the Chinese originated from the Loess Plateau is biased. According to molecular anthropological research, the Chinese entered from Southeast Asia and evolved into northern and southern ethnic groups. The northern ethnic groups can be divided into three ethnic groups: the Central Plains, the Northeast and Shandong (Dongyi), all of whom are the ancestors of the Chinese. The Northwest group, the Yanhuang branch, did not appear until the middle Neolithic period, and they may be descendants of the Northeast group.
In the early Jiahu-Peiligang period, the lush oak forests began to become an important part of human rations**. Acorns, the fruit of the oak forest, contain a lot of tannins and hydrocyanic acid, which has a poor taste and can be poisoned if eaten in large quantities. People learn to grind acorns and cook them, remove the tannins, hydrocyanic acid, and other components in them before eating. Stone grinding discs and grinding rods are often found in early Neolithic sites, which were mainly used to grind acorns (found at the Donghulin site in Beijing and at the persimmon beach site in Jixian County, Shanxi Province).
In the middle and late Jiahu-Peiligang era, China entered the agricultural era. More than 8,000 years ago, the Chinese domesticated millet and millet in the north and rice in the south (the exact time is still disputed), and a large number of millet and millet were unearthed at the Chifeng Xinglongwa site and the Wu'an Cishan site.
Millet and millet have a coarse taste and need to be simmered with a mustache.
During this period, the land of China was generally a matriarchal society, and jade culture was also born, and the earliest known jade artifacts of Chinese age were found in the Xinglongwa site. During this period, people from the north and south also began to integrate (Fu Qiaomei: 8,000 years ago, the process of integration and cultural exchange between the north and the south began).
The Yangshao period (5000 BC to 2600 BC) was another thrilling prehistoric era after the Pei Ligang era. At that time, the earth entered the "Yangshao Warm Period". This period was a critical period in the origin of Chinese civilization.
The Yangshao era can be divided into two periods, namely the city-state era and the ancient kingdom era. Because from the middle and late Yangshao period (about 3800 BC), China entered the accelerated stage of the origin of civilization. According to the release of the latest results of the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project in December 2023, from about 5800 years ago, there have been obvious social differentiation in various regions of China, which can be divided into the ancient kingdom era from 5800 to 3800 years ago, and the dynastic era from 3800 to 3500 years. The era of the city-state was the era of "great harmony under heaven", when the climate was suitable, resources were abundant, but the population was relatively scarce.
Yangshao culture is famous for painted pottery.
In the early Yangshao period, in addition to the Central Plains, there was also the Hongshan culture in the northeast (according to the research of Professor Li Hui's team at the School of Life Sciences of Fudan University, 6200 years ago, a Yangshao cultural group went north to the West Liaohe River Basin and created the Hongshan culture), the Dawenkou culture in Shandong, and the Hemudu culture and Daxi culture in the south.
In the middle of the Yangshao period, the south began to rise, giving rise to the Lingjiatan culture and Xuejiagang culture in Anhui. This corresponds to the first stage of the ancient kingdom era (around 5800-5200 years ago), represented by the Niuheliang site of the Hongshan culture, and the social form has developed to the ancient stage of primitive civilization.
In the middle and late Yangshao period, the society also entered the second stage of the ancient kingdom era (around 5200-4300 years ago), social differentiation was further prominent, and the ability to mobilize social resources was strengthened. Behind it is climate change. Beginning in 3300 BC (5300 years ago), the climate became cold and arid, coupled with the early human development, the northern ethnic groups went south, and wars began to occur frequently, resulting in cultural changes in most of the five archaeological fauna in China after a few hundred years: the Hongshan culture in the northeast went south (according to molecular anthropological research, the Hongshan culture group may have migrated to the Loess Plateau in the northwest, that is, the Laohushan culture, which became the source of the later Shiyuan culture), and part of the Yangshao culture in the Central Plains merged with the Hongshan culture, Part of the westward migration led to the transformation of the Dadiwan culture in the northwest into the Majiayao culture, the Lingjiatan culture in the southern center was destroyed, the Songze culture in Jiangsu and Zhejiang perished, the Liangzhu culture began, the Daxi culture in Huguang perished and became the Qujialing culture, and only the Dawenkou culture in Shandong was basically stable.
Based on this period of history, let's try to reconstruct the controversy between Yanhuang and Chiyou. At the end of the Yangshao culture, about 5400 years ago, the descendants of the Hongshan culture migrated to the Loess Plateau due to climatic reasons, and developed the Laohushan culture, corresponding to the Yellow Emperor tribe in the historical books. The Laohushan cultural group ushered in a great military development, and learned chariot technology from the northern grassland region and became famous for it, and was called Xuanyuan by the history books. Yangshao culture corresponds to the Yandi tribe.
Around 2900 B.C., the Laohushan culture and Yangshao culture first broke out in the Hanquan area (near Yuncheng, Shanxi) after the war broke out (corresponding to the battle of Hanquan in the history books, "Historical Records" recorded, "Xuanyuan, the Shennong clan declined, the princes invaded each other, tyrannized the people, and the Shennong clan was able to conquer. So Xuanyuan is Xi to use the gange, in order to levy not to enjoy, the princes and guests from ...Emperor Yan wanted to invade the princes of Ling, and the princes returned to Xuanyuan), the Tiger Mountain cultural group had the upper hand, but it could not completely defeat the Yangshao cultural group, so an alliance was concluded with the Tiger Mountain cultural group as the leader, forming the second phase of the Miaodigou culture, and some of the Yangshao ethnic groups who wanted to develop independently and did not want to form an alliance moved westward to form the Majiayao culture, which later evolved into the Qiang and Tibetans.
The Battle of Hanquan was not only the beginning of the integration of the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor in the north, but also a period of accelerated integration of the northern and southern ethnic groups (Fu Qiaomei: 8,000 years ago, the process of integration and cultural exchange between the northern and southern groups began, and there was a trend of intensification 4,800 years ago).
More than 100 years later, the Dawenkou culture (corresponding to Chiyou in the history books) invaded the Yangshao culture and was defeated by the alliance of the Laohushan cultural group and the Yangshao cultural group, and Chiyou was killed (corresponding to the battle of Zhuolu in the history books, there are many controversies about the location of Zhuolu, the most likely is Shanxi Yuncheng Jiezhou, not Hebei Zhangjiakou). The ruling class of the Dawenkou culture fled to the south and established a new rule in the Sanmiao region, which belonged to the southern ethnic group, and became the ancestor of the Miao people. This may also explain why the Miao and Dongyi ethnic groups are not genetically identical, but they follow the Chiyou culture.
After the alliance between Yan and Huang, the Miaodigou culture became the strongest culture in the Chinese cultural circle at that time. It is not only found in the entire middle reaches of the Yellow River, but also in the Dawenkou culture in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Daxi culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
This period was a period of transition from a matrilineal society to a patrilineal society. The father's surname was also produced, but many of them were next to female characters, such as Jiang, Ji, Ji, Fei, etc., which were differentiated from the matrilineal tribe. This period also gave rise to the dragon and phoenix culture. In 1987, the early tomb of Yangshao culture was excavated in Henan Province, and a dragon made of mussel shells was unearthed next to the male tomb owner, which is the earliest dragon found so far, and is known as "the first dragon in China".
The phoenix appeared earlier than the dragon, and the ivory carving of "Double Bird Chaoyang" found at the Hemudu site is the earliest "phoenix totem" in China.
In the Yangshao era, there was a "painted pottery road" between China and the West, that is, from Central Asia to the northern grasslands and then to the Central Plains, Yangshao painted pottery was transmitted from the West through this route, and later bronze, sea shells, cattle, sheep, horses, and wheat were also transmitted through this route, and the millet and pigs domesticated by the Chinese also spread to the world through this route. Among them, cattle, sheep and bronze objects were introduced to China around 3000 BC. Humans in Central Asia also domesticated horses around 3000 BC, but the horse breed was not perfect at that time, and it was not until 2000 BC that the nomadic revolution and the Aryan migration were triggered (except for China, the other three ancient civilizations died out at this time), and it was not until the late Shang Dynasty around 1000 BC that horses and carriages appeared in China, and it was not until the end of the Warring States period that the cavalry revolution and the rise of the steppe empire were triggered.
The late Neolithic period (2600 BC to 2000 BC) is represented by Chengziya (Longshan site) in Longshan Town, Licheng, Shandong, Rizhao Liangcheng site, Luoyang Wangwan culture in Henan, Shiyuan culture in Yulin, Shaanxi (Shiyuan people are the ancestors of the Zhou people), Xiangfen Taosi culture in Shanxi, Majiayao culture in Lintao, Gansu, Qujialing and Shijiahe culture in Hubei, and Liangzhu culture in Yuhang, Zhejiang. During this period, the level of social complexity continued to increase, with the emergence of primitive castles, city walls and large buildings, the division of classes, rich and poor, and the society moved towards the era of national civilization.
In the early stage of the Longshan period (around 2300 BC), the inheritor of the Dawenkou culture, the Longshan culture, invaded the Central Plains, and the land of China entered the Yushun era. This era corresponds to Yu Shun. Mencius said that Shun was born in Feng Zhu, moved to Negative Xia, died in Mingtiao, and the people of Dongyi were also. "Bamboo Book Chronicle" also records: Xi Yao was in decline and was imprisoned by Shun. Shun imprisoned Yao in Pingyang and took the throne. Shun imprisoned Yao, reinstated Saidan Zhu, so that he would not see his father. In other words, after Yao grew old, his prestige in the tribal alliance gradually decreased, so Shun took the opportunity to imprison Yao in Pingyang (the site of Tao Temple), and soon imprisoned Yao's son Danzhu, so that their father and son could not see each other, and finally seized the throne.
Yao saw that Shun's power was getting bigger and bigger, and he once wanted to win over Shun, and married his two daughters to Shun, in fact, he wanted to be close, but the role of harmony only lasted for a short period of time.
The invasion of the Longshan culture represented by Shun may not have been so fierce, and it could later evolve into the legend of Chan Rang (there are also history books that refer to Shun as the Yu Dynasty). Yao led part of the royal family to move from the Heluo area to Taosi and rebuild the dynasty in Taosi.
The ruins of the Tao Temple. Shun was a military strongman, and during his reign, the Longshan culture also expanded to the Guanzhong Plain, developing the Longshan culture of Shaanxi (the time span of the Longshan culture in Shaanxi was 2300-2000 BC). According to the "Book of Shang", Shun also conscripted Gonggong, Sanmiao, Kun and Huandou.
The place where Shun died is also disputed, and historical records record that Shun died in Cangwu on the way to the south and was buried in Jiuzhi Mountain. But Mencius said that Shun died in Mingtiao, and Cangwu was located in Mingtiao Mountain. Under the conditions at that time, it was unlikely that Shun Nan would conquer Hunan, and Mencius's statement should be more accurate. Of course, it is not excluded that Shun was driven away by Yu and died in a foreign land.
There are also many controversies in the place of Shundingdu, among which the more mainstream saying is Pusaka, that is, Shanxi Yuncheng, although far away from Shandong, but it is true that the middle of the Guanzhong Basin and the Luoyang Basin, and occupy the Yanchi mine, is indeed suitable as the capital.
However, Shun was not the ruler of Longshan culture. Shun was born as a commoner and lived in the middle of Yangshao and Longshan cultures (born in Feng Zhu, moved to Negative Xia, and Negative Xia is controversial in **, I think it is Puyang). Later, after Shun Daiyao, some descendants of the Shaohao tribe moved to the Guanzhong Plain, so the Qin people later worshipped Shaohao as a god.
The ruins of the stone ridge. During this period, in the Shaanxi region, in addition to the Tao Temple, the most famous site is also the stone pass, they are the descendants of the Tiger Mountain cultural group, and they are also the ethnic group that stayed in the local area after the Yellow Emperor moved south. In the beginning, Shiyuan and Taoji were not opposites, both of which were established 4,300 years ago, and around 4,100 years ago, the ancestors of Shiyuan invaded Taosi and became the rulers of Taosi. (This historical time is not recorded in the history books).
When the Shiyuan people invaded Taosi, the Central Plains was in a period of great floods, and the Central Plains region was too busy to take care of itself, so it was naturally powerless to fight back. However, the Shiyuan people also died out later, for unknown reasons, and Di Nan, the deputy leader of the Shiyuan archaeological team, speculated that it may have had nothing to do with foreign invasions, but to climate change.
The environmental reasons behind this may be climatological 42ka event. At that time, the large-scale cold wave reduced the grain production of Shiyuan, degraded the land, and the huge pressure of survival forced the people of Shiyuan to go all the way south, and finally occupied Taosi.
In the late Longshan period, the Chinese completely domesticated soybeans, and wheat was introduced to China through Central Asia and northern Xinjiang, and the Chinese's five grains (rice, millet, wheat, millet, and soybean (beans)) were finally complete.
4.After 2 ka, the temperature rose again, so that at the end of the Longshan period, the land of China entered a flood-prone period, and the civilizations in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River embarked on different development paths. The Yellow River basin needs to be controlled by Dayu, and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are deeply affected, and social development has come to a standstill, which has also led to the Central Plains and the northern region catching up and starting a new round of civilization development, and then forming a historical trend centered on the Central Plains, which has become the basis for China's historical development.