1、China: Tradition and Transformation Lecturer: Liew Jien中国的传统与转型 SWUFE,2. Early China: The Birth Of a Civilization,2.1 The archaeological RecordAgriculture seems to have started in North China in the region of the great bend of the Yellow River, in a fringe area between wooded highlands on the west a
2、nd swampy lowlands on the east, where hunter-fisher folk could domesticate animals and begin to cultivate plants for food. It then spread along the middle and lower course of the Yellow River and out over the North China Plain, which, despite severe winters, was well suited to agriculture in primiti
3、ve times.,In fact, this center of early Chinese civilization resembled in some ways the homes of other ancient civilizations the flood plains of the Nile in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, and the Indus in modern Pakistan.In each case, rainfall was too light to produce forests that h
4、ad to be removed before tilling could begin, and the great river, if adequately controlled, provided ample water and replenished the soils fertility with periodic floods.,It is significant that the North China plain is the part of agriculture East Asia most accessible by land from India and West Asi
5、a. As far as we now know, many basic elements of ancient civilization appeared much earlier in West Asia and the Indus Valley than in East Asia and therefore may have spread slowly across the steppes and mountains of Central Asia to the North China plain. Examples are the cultivation of grains like
6、wheat; domestication of animals such as sheep, cattle, and horses; The wheel and chariot; bronze and iron.,Recent finds, on the other hand, have shown that pottery goes back as far in East Asia as anywhere in the world-perhaps some 10,000 years-and that bronze may have been produced even ealier in n
7、orthern Thailand than in the middle East. Rice, the chief cereal of East Asia today, is of Southeast Asian origin, and its cultivation was well established in the Yangtze Valley by prehistoric tines.,The prehistoric Chinese also produced silk, which spread to the West very much later. Some important
8、 domestic animals were of different derivation pigs. chickens, and dogs for food and the water buffalo for rice cultivation. The basic agriculture tool of East Asia has always been the hoe, in contrast to the plow of the West. The most characteristic Paleolithic remains are stone choppers; in the re
9、st of the “old world” they are chipped stone axes. Neolithic remains in East Asia are typified by halfmoon-shaped stone knives and grey pottery with mat and cord markings, both quite different from Western Eurasian artifacts.,There is, thus, good reason to assume that in East Asia agriculture and ea
10、rly civilization developed quite independently of Western Eurasia. The culture that arose around the bend of the Yellow River in northwest China was probably based on this East Asian culture but seems to have also received enrichment from regions to the West. However, there is no evidence that these
11、 influences were brought by invaders or migrants, and the Neolithic peoples of North China and possibly their Paleolithic predecessors appear to have been the direct ancestors of the modern Chinese. Even at this early time the culture of North China showed distinctive East Asian features.,2.1.1The P
12、ainted and Black Pottery Cultures,Two distinct cultures, named for their characteristic pottery, occupied North China in late Neolithic times.They were first thought to show a clash between West Asian and local influences, but more recent studies have proved that the Black Pottery culture in large p
13、art followed the Painted, occupying most of its area.,The Painted Pottery culture, which is also known as Yang-shao from a type site in northwest Honan, is found throughout North China, except for Shantung province in the extreme east, and it lingered on longest in Kansu province in the northwest. I
14、ts most famous site is the partly excavated village at Pan-po near Sian (the ancient Chang-an), which dates from the fifth millennium B.C. The culture is typified by large bulbous pots, painted in read and black, usually with bold geometric designs. While it bears some resemblance to the painted pot
15、tery of West Asia, one cannot assume that it was merely a culture borrowing from the West, because there is no clear archaeological trail by which it could have come.,The Black Pottery culture, also called Lung-shan from type sites in Shantung, covered the same area as the Painted, except for the ex
16、treme northwest, and also extended into Shantung and the middle and the lower Yangtze valleys. It is typified by a very thin, shiny, black pottery. This culture showed that since the time of the Painted Pottery new influences form West Asia, such as domesticated sheep and horses and the potters whee
17、l, had reached North China. It also showed strong cultural continuity with the following bronze age. For example, it shared the same hollow-legged tripods, a common system of divination, and town walls of pounded earth, much like those that still may be found in North China today.,2.1.2 The Bronze A
18、ge,Bronze casting by the piece-mold process, different from the method used in ancient West Asia, made its appearance in China by the middle of the second millennium B.C., if not earlier. The first known sites are found spread out in Honan south of the Yellow River from its great bend eastward, but
19、the only bronzes they contain are small weapons. A second stage is typified by a site near Cheng-chou in the same area, which was a formidable capital city, surrounded by a pounded earth wall more than twenty feet high and a mile square. Outside the walls were two bronze foundries which produced ela
20、borate ritual vessels.,The third bronze stage is best represented by a site near An-yang in the part of Honan north of the Yellow River.It was discovered by Chinese scholars who in 1899 because intrigued by what appeared to be ancient writing scratched onto the “dragon bones” that Peking apothecary
21、shops were grinding up for medicine.They traced these bones to their source near An-yang and on further study discovered that they bore the earliest known form of Chinese writing and corroborated much of the early historical tradition.,The inscriptions contained the names of virtually all of the tra
22、ditional rulers of an ancient dynasty known as the Shang and a wealth of detail about the latter half of the dynasty, when the capital was said to have been at An-yang (roughly from about 1400 to 1050 B.C).Clearly the archaeological record and historical traditions flowed together at this point. Sch
23、olars, who at the time looked complete skepticism on the Shang Dynasty, had to reverse course and accept its existence as verified history.,2.2 Early Chinese Traditions,The oldest remaining Chinese books, dating from the first half of the first millennium before Christ, do not tell us mush about pre
24、vious ages. In the next few centuries, however, the Chinese wrote a great deal about the beginnings of their civilization and its early history. In fact, as one approaches the time of Christ, the Chinese writers have more and more to tell about earlier and earlier period. Their works, of course, tel
25、l us more about the beliefs and customs of the period in which they were written than of the history of earlier ages. Still, they contain much material on earlier mythology and traditions and undoubtedly some solid bits of history.,From these works and the archaeological record emerges a shadowy pic
26、ture of a once matriarchal but increasingly patriarchal society, divided into tribal or clan-like units. From the clan name, the hsing or family name had already developed in ancient times. Then, as now, it always preceded a mans personal name, instead of following it as in the European tradition. T
27、here was a strong emphasis on exogamy, that is, marriage outside ones clan, which has persisted throughout Chinese history, so that even today Chinese feel that persons of the same surname, even though not actually related, should not marry.,Religious ideas centered on the clan and its deities, ofte
28、n identified as ancestors. Ancestor worship has remained ever since a characteristic of Chinese civilization. As was natural in an agricultural society, there was also strong emphasis on heaven as a controlling factor in agriculture, on the fertility of the soil, on grain gods, and on cosmological a
29、nd calendrical lore. Authority was strongly religious, and the ruler was in a sense the chief priest and also calendar maker.,The Chinese early developed a strong feeling of history and the idea of political unity. Unaware of the great cultures to the west, they considered China the unique land of c
30、ivilization, surrounded on all sides by the four barbarians. They therefore called it Chung-kuo, literally the “Central Country” but commonly translated the “Middle Kingdom”. Chung-kuo is still the Chinese name for their land. The term tien-hsia, meaning “all under heaven”, meant the world but came
31、to be used for the Chinese Empire. Information and speculation about earlier ages was organized into a strict historical sequence of events attributed to rulers of a politically and culturally unified China that constituted the whole of civilization.,2.2.1 The Culture Heroes,There are several versio
32、ns of this early pseudo-history. The usual sequence is of three early rulers (huang) or possibly fraternal groups of rulers, followed by five emperors (ti), followed by three dynasties, which take us well into historical times. The three rulers and five emperors are often called “culture heroes,” be
33、cause to them and to lesser figures like them are attributed the early achievements of civilization, such as the discovery of fire, the origination of fishing, hunting, and agriculture, the devising of the calendar, the development of medicine, and the invention of writing. The wife of the first of
34、the five emperors is credited with the development of sericulture, for silk production is typically the work of women.,The last two of the five emperors, Yao and Shun, are best known for having passed on their rule, not to sons, but to worthy ministers. Yao selected Shun, and Shun a man named Yu. Th
35、e three together are known as the three model emperors. Yu is also famed as the hero who drained off the flood waters of the North China Plain and divided the empire into nine provinces. A Chinese reflection of the worldwide flood legend can be detected in this story.,2.2.2 The Early Dynasties,With
36、Yu also commences a somewhat more credible aspect of the tradition. He started a dynasty called the Hsia, which has been assigned the dates 22051766 B.C. (or 19941523 B.C. according to another source). The Hsia rulers are credited with reigns of reasonable length, in contrast to the Methuselah-like
37、spans of the culture heroes.,The last Hsia emperor was so depraved that people revolted under the leadership of a man who founded a new dynasty, named Shang. The Shang, which is traditionally given the dates of 1766-1122 B.C, or 15231027 B.C. has been proven by archaeology to be fully historical, fo
38、r the An-yang finds indubitably correspond to the second half of the dynasty half of the dynasty and the Cheng-chou finds presumably to its earlier centuries. This raises the question of what actual facts may lie behind the tradition of the Hsia dynasty. Might it not correspond to the earliest bronz
39、e age, or perhaps the Black Pottery culture which preceded it?,The last of the Shang emperors was said to be a debauched tyrannical ruleran allegation which the bone inscriptions from An-yang tend to substantiate. One of those who suffered most at his hands was a subject known to history as King Wen
40、 (Wen Wang) of the principality of Chou. His son and successor, King Wu (Wu Wang) eventually revolted, according to the tradition in either 1122 or 1027 B.C., and founded the third dynasty, which he called Chou after the name of his principality. His brother ,the Duke of Chou (Chou Kung), became the
41、 consolidator of the dynasty, as the wise and saintly councilor of King Wus young son and heir.,While the story of the founding of the Chou bears the marks of later idealization, much of the record of the early centuries of the Chou is acceptable as history, because our earliest surviving books do d
42、ate from this period. After 841 B.C. the traditional dating seems quite reliable, and in the next century we begin to encounter our first fully verifiable eventseclipses of the sun that did occur just when the Chinese records date them.,2.3 The Chinese Writing System,The outstanding feature of the l
43、ate Shang finds at An-yang is the writing they contain; not only is it unmistakably the Chinese language but it is also an early form of the Chinese writing system that still dominates East Asian civilization. Some symbol are recognizable even to the untutored eye as identical with characters appear
44、ing in newspapers today. It is much as if the Arabic-speaking in habitants of Egypt or Iraq were able to recognize in hieroglyphics or cuneiform the same language they now use and could point out occasional words that any schoolboy could read.,The Chinese have always felt a complete cultural and rac
45、ial identity with the ancient inhabitants of their land, and here is striking proof that they are right in doing so.They have good reason to feel a greater sense of direct continuity from the Shang than westerners feel from the early Egyptians and Mesopotamians, or even the ancient Greeks and Romans
46、.,One of the characteristics of the Sinitic languages, to which Chinese belongs, is that a relatively high percentage of their words are monosyllables. This is truer of ancient Chinese than of modern. Another feature of Chinese and most other Sinitic languages is the absence of inflections. The Chin
47、ese word shan, for instance, can mean “mountains” as well as “mountain”. In the case of verbs the difference from the languages of the West is even more marked. There are no variations like “go,” “went,” “gone,” or even “look,” “looks,” “looked.” Another feature of most Sinitic languages is their to
48、nal character.,Monosyllabic words which otherwise sound alike are distinguished from one another by the tone in which they are spoken, something like the differing inflections we use in conversation: “Whats your name?” “Name?” “Yes, name.”In modern Mandarin there are four tones. Ma pronounced in the
49、 first of these, for example, is an informal word for “mother,” but in the second tone it means “hemp,” in the third “horse,” and in the fourth “to curse.”,2.3.1 Chinese Character,The monosyllabic and uninflected nature of the Chinese language helps account for the retention by the Chinese of a writ
50、ing system which, like that of ancient Egypt, originated from pictographs but, unlike hieroglyphics, always remained true to the basic principle that each monosyllabic word should have its unique symbol, or character. Inflections would long ago have forced the Chinese to a more flexible phonetic system of writing.,
