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Chapter 224: The Beginning of Civilization


Some people in later generations have always questioned the origin of Chinese civilization with impure motives.

It is believed that ancient Chinese civilization did not originate from China, but was migrated here by the descendants of the other three ancient civilizations.

It is not original creation, but inheritance.

As far as the Chinese are concerned, the origin of ancient Chinese civilization can be clearly traced to the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.

Then the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties continued their succession for thousands of years until later generations.

The Shangshu, regarded as China's earliest history book, can trace China's historical records back to the Yao and Shun periods.

Although there are debates about the true and false contents of Shangshu circulated in later generations, even the forged Shangshu chapters were created during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.

At this time, there were still many materials that had been lost in later generations, which were used as references for forging Shangshu.

Therefore, although some articles are false, we cannot conclude that the historical facts are false.

However, later archaeologists did not believe in simple written records.

What archeology pays most attention to is evidence.

In later generations, many foreign and even domestic archaeologists and anthropologists are questioning whether the history of China's Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties actually existed.

Among various schools of thought in Europe and the United States, many scholars believe that China had “no history before the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.”

Therefore, the beginning of the history of Chinese civilization is set in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.

Directly reduce the time for the inheritance of Chinese civilization to half.

Under this fallacy, many scholars with ulterior motives propose that Chinese civilization originated in the West.

If this theory is established, China's thousands of years of civilization and the Chinese people's persistence in their traditional culture will become a joke.

However, what is true cannot be false, and what is false cannot be true.

Not to mention that China's written language and traditional habits are completely different from Western civilization.

However, later generations, including the cultural relics that have been unearthed since the Republic of China, can knock down the two fallacies that Chinese civilization began in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and that Chinese civilization began in the West. .

After testing the unearthed cultural relics with instruments, it can be determined that the oracle bone inscriptions and bronzes of the Shang Dynasty, as well as various relics of the Zhou Dynasty, are authentic.

Sima Qian is in the Historical Records.

The record of the Shang Dynasty genealogy is true.

The only regret is that there has never been a clear explanation or conclusive physical evidence for the large-scale and definite ruins of the Xia Dynasty.

Even the written records became blurred during the Xia Dynasty.

It's not that there are no legends and records, but that these records are always entangled with primitive myths and witchcraft, making it difficult to exist as reliable historical records.

Under such circumstances, later Chinese people could not verify whether the existence of the Xia Dynasty was certain, so they could only resort to the next best thing and look for the land of China.

Relics of civilization before the Shang Dynasty.

As long as these civilization relics exist, we can gradually find clues to the existence of the Xia Dynasty.

One day, we will be able to find the relics of the first dynasty, which is famous for Chinese civilization in the history books.

The ancient Chinese also had a very good habit of sacrificial burial.

Many exquisite artifacts were buried underground with their owners after their deaths.

Therefore, although there are not many cultural relics unearthed in later generations, they never stop.

Yangshao Culture and Hongshan Culture were unearthed one after another, greatly advancing the start of Chinese civilization.

Although.

According to the standards of Western archaeology, the beginning of a civilization requires four criteria: writing, cities, bronzes, temples and altars.

However, the details of Western civilization are completely different from Eastern civilization.

Forcibly applying it to Eastern civilization is unreasonable in itself.

Chinese civilization did not directly enter the Bronze Age after the end of the Neolithic Age.

Instead, he turned a corner.

The Neolithic Age was extended into a long-lasting Jade Age.

The meaning of jade has always been extremely broad in China.

Except for Hetian jade, it is generally hard in texture.

Anything with beautiful color can be called jade.

In China's Jade Age, except for the large-scale appearance of bronzes, writing, cities, temples and altars have all appeared.

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In this era, the application of jade can, to a certain extent, replace bronze.

It should be regarded as the beginning of civilization.

The oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty can be regarded as a mature set of characters.

Judging from the laws of writing development, there must have been a long process of accumulation and unification of writing before the oracle bone inscriptions.

Although the evidence in this process is not yet certain to exist, it is just that it has not been found.

Oracle cannot be created out of thin air.

This set of undiscovered characters can be speculated to be from the Jade Age.

To put it bluntly, a city is nothing more than a large village with differentiated functions.

In the early days of civilization, as long as a leader appeared and this leader hoped for a building that had both military and identity functions, then the city would appear. .

Therefore, the existence of cities is always related to the development of people's social relations.

It does not exist in isolation.

Just because the urban remains of the Chinese people in that era have not been discovered does not mean they do not exist.

The existence of China's leaders and emperors can already be verified genetically.

China's earliest emperor, judging from the paternal genetic pedigree constructed by the Y chromosome, should have appeared in the middle to late Neolithic Age.

In this era, three men had an unusually large number of sons, and these sons had an unusually large number of grandchildren, who then multiplied into tens of thousands of people within two or three generations.

This kind of pedigree is especially obvious in the blood of the Han nationality.

In later generations, nearly half of the men in China were direct descendants of these three men.

According to calculations based on the laws of genetics, the times when these three men appeared were 6,800 years ago, 6,500 years ago, and 5,400 years ago.

These three eras correspond to the heyday of Gaomiao Culture, Yangshao Culture and Hongshan Culture in archaeological culture.

The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors mentioned in the origin of Chinese culture are closely related to these three men.

From this, we can basically identify the existence of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in Chinese culture and the origin of Chinese civilization.

It’s just that the physical evidence from that year is hard to find.

Human remains from the Paleolithic Age before the Neolithic Age are even more difficult to find.

The Peking Man remains in Zhoukoudian are one of the rare ones.

Although it is basically a conclusion that human ancestors originated in Africa.

However, which one is stronger in the origin of human civilization is still a key point of debate among archaeologists and anthropology scholars.

Civilization cannot be born out of thin air.

The human remains from the Paleolithic Age before the Neolithic Age are very important.

In later generations, it almost became the pride of a civilization.

It is also an important basis for studying the origin and development of mankind.

The remains of Peking Man are the pride of Chinese civilization.

In 1929, Pei Wenzhong, the first discoverer of the skull of Chinese ape man, the founder of Chinese Paleolithic archeology and one of the founders of Chinese Quaternary mammalogy, discovered the first complete skull in Zhoukoudian, Beijing.

Pekingese skull.

This large-scale excavation began in 1927.

It ended with an academic miracle that shocked the world.

After Pei Wenzhong discovered the Peking Man skull, he spent a whole night excavating the complete Peking Man skull and sending it to Beijing.

Subsequently, archaeologist Jia Lanpo discovered three skull fossils of "Peking Man" in Yuanman Cave.

According to the subsequent discovery of some stone tools and fire sites used by ape man on Longgu Mountain, archaeologists also discovered 100,000 stone tool materials, as well as smoke smoke sites from fire, burned stones, and burned bones, etc., proving that the Peking Man was about 69 years old For thousands of years, he belongs to the species Homo erectus.

They lived a cave life based on hunting and were able to use and make rough stone tools. and has learned to use fire for warmth and to eat cooked food.

Peking Man created a distinctive Paleolithic culture and had a profound impact on the development of Paleolithic culture in North China.

Later, in 1930, on the top of Longgu Mountain, archaeologists discovered the remains of the Singding Cave Man who lived about 20,000 years ago.

Since then, the Peking Man Site has become famous overseas.

Even in later generations, no ancient human site has so many ancient humans, ancient cultures, ancient animal fossils and other materials as the Zhoukoudian Peking Man site.

What’s precious about it is that although Peking Man is not the earliest human being, as a representative of the intermediate link from apes to humans, it is called “the most meaningful and moving discovery in the entire history of ancient humans.”

Man's question about his own origins.

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It has existed since the beginning of thinking.

It was not until the rise of modern archeology and the emergence of Darwin's theory of biological evolution that there was a rational answer.

However.

During the extensive archaeological process, humans have only discovered the remains of the earliest ape-men and the remains of humans who have basically completed evolution.

Evolutionary evidence for the intermediate links is still lacking.

Therefore, after searching to no avail, a large number of scholars began to suspect that humans did not evolve from apes at all.

Most likely created by aliens

And the skull of Peking Man.

It’s the most important middle link.

With the complete skull of Peking Man, the independence of human evolution can be determined.

This will allow humans to get rid of the confusion of whether they were created by aliens.

It can be seen from this.

The importance and preciousness of the skull of Peking Man.

However, the skull of Peking Man was unearthed at the wrong time.

In 1937, the July 7th Incident broke out and Japan invaded China.

At this time, the fossilized skull of Peking Man had been kept in a place where the Japanese did not dare to touch it.

It was used by the American Association of Hospitals for academic research by the German paleoanthropologist Wei Dunrui.

On December 26, 1940, the Japanese army occupied Peiping, and the Americans and the Japanese were about to break up.

Many Chinese have realized that the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, and it would be unsafe for Beijingers' skulls to remain in Peking.

Therefore, at this time, Yin Zanxun, deputy director of the Central Geological Survey in Chongqing, wrote to a technical researcher at the Central Geological Survey and Pei Wenzhong, deputy director of the Cenozoic Research Office in Peiping at that time, describing the dangerous situation and concerns about the preservation of the Peking Man cranium fossil, He also proposed to ask American friends to transport it to an American academic institution for temporary storage.

However, handing over a national treasure to others and leaving the country really touches the bottom line of the Chinese people.

In November 1941, with Chiang Kai-shek's nod, the United States agreed that the Peking Man skull would be taken out of China by the Americans under the arrangement of the consulate and temporarily stored in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

However, by this time it was too late to move.

As planned, the Pekingese skull was escorted by the U.S.

Marine Corps, arrived at Qinhuangdao Port on a special train from Peking to Qinhuangdao, boarded the President Hudson, and was scheduled to arrive in Qinhuangdao on December 8.

However, when the train arrived at Qinhuang on the morning of December 8, the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor had already begun.

Immediately, the Japanese stationed in the Shanhaiguan area of ​​​​Qinhuangdao launched a surprise attack on the escorting US troops.

The train and military personnel of the U.S.

Marine Corps responsible for the escort, including personnel from the U.S.

Holmes Barracks in Qinhuangdao, instantly became prisoners of the Japanese army.

The materials and luggage, including the "Peking people", of course became the spoils of war for the Japanese army.

Since then, there has been no trace.

Various legends are flying all over the sky.

Some people say that the Peking Man skull has been destroyed in the war.

Some people say that the fossil of the Peking Man skull is buried in Ritan Park.

Some people say that the fossil is installed on the sunken ship "Awa Maru".

Some people say that the fossil is in the "Harrison".

On board the USS President, some said the fossils were on the USS Lisbon Maru, some said the fossils were at the U.S. barracks in Tianjin, some said the fossils were at the former U.S.

Consulate in Peking, and some said the skull fossils of Peking Man had already been secretly escorted away by the U.S. military.

Anyway, there is no specific way to say whether it is looking ahead or behind.

It is certainly impossible to say that the Japanese do not know the preciousness of the skull fossils of Peking Man.

Not to mention, the Japanese also conduct research on the origin of humankind and have detailed plans to plunder Chinese cultural relics.

Even if there is really no prior information, when a Beijinger's skull is found wrapped in six or seven layers, it will be reported for detailed investigation.

Moreover, after the Japanese occupied Peiping, they searched extensively for the skulls of Pekingese.

Even the excavation site in Zhoukoudian was looted, and even the excavation tools were not spared.

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Therefore, the most likely destination for the skulls of Peking Man is not Japan’s upper-level officials, but Japan’s lower-level officers and soldiers.

These Japanese soldiers looked ordinary, but many were highly educated.

Before World War II, Japan was the Asian country that did the best in educating all people.

It is no surprise to these people that they know the preciousness of Pekingese skulls.

During the plunder of China, although most of the loot was handed over, it is inevitable for people to have selfish motives and hide some privately.

It is really normal.

Even among the Japanese army with strict military discipline, this was a matter of turning a blind eye.

It is normal for these lower-level officers and soldiers not to report what they have gained.

Therefore, in later generations, most experts concluded that the most likely place where the skull fossils of Peking Man were found was among Japanese people.

After the war, a large number of Japanese soldiers were repatriated, but their personal belongings were not confiscated.

It's very easy to bring something with you.

At first, Yu Sheng thought this statement was pure nonsense.

When I heard that the Pekingese skull was likely to appear in my hands, I couldn't sit still anymore and took a plane to Australia.

This kind of treasure, which involves the origin and evolution history of human civilization and Chinese civilization, is definitely not as valuable as a few bottles and jars

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