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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
To understand the beginnings of civilization in the Far East, we must view them in the light of the laws that govern cultural progress everywhere. Especially must we consider the region’s geographical position and relationship to other lands. As a glance at a map, or better still a terrestrial globe, will show, it occupies a marginal portion of the Eurasiatic continent taken as a whole. That this fact carries with it certain implications, the study of culture-building in general abundantly shows.
1 On the effect of marginal positions on the growth of cultures, see e.g., Roland B. Dixon, The Building of Cultures, New York and London, 1928 ; ref. on pp. 272 et seq. and passim.
2 Sea-going ships with sails are not mentioned in the Chinese records until the 3rd century A.D.
3 The late Dr Berthold Laufer discussed certain elements of this phenomenon in an important paper, ‘Some Fundamental Ideas of Chinese Culture’, Journ. Race Development, 1914-15, v, 160-74. [See also ANTIQUITY, 1932, VI, 118-20 and sketch-map].
4 Wheeled vehicles seem to have been developed in western Asia not later than the 4th millennium before our Era; but they took two thousand years or more to reach Egypt—an instance of an exceedingly slow diffusion-rate.
5 To this fact, certain indigenous civilizations of Central and South America form only apparent exceptions.
6 As regards China especially in this respect, see Dr Wolfram Eberhard, ‘Early Chinese Cultures and their Development: a new Working-Hypothesis’, Smithsonian Annual Report for 1937, pp. 513-30.
7 Numerous indications, drawn from all parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, have led me to believe millet to have been the first cereal brought under cultivation by man.
8 Verbal communication from Mr T. Y. Ch‘iu, of the Peking Historical Museum, confirmed by my own observations in the field.
9 This was first made known to the world in 1922 by Dr J. G. Andersson, then of the Geological Survey of China.
10 The exact composition of these has, so far as I am aware, never been made public, welcome though such information would be.
11 Metal may, however, have begun to appear in northwestern China, at the eastern end of the steppe-corridor; see footnote 10.
12 See, however, what has already been said in regard to the horse in prehistoric Eastern Asia.
13 On this dating, now generally accepted, see my paper, ‘The Chronology of Ancient China’, JAOS 52 (1932), 232-47; ref. to p. 246.
14 For this information I am indebted to a personal letter, of 4 January 1934, from Dr T. H. Shen, of Nanking University.
15 According to later Chinese legend, there was one earlier still—the Hsia Dynasty; but for the existence of the latter we have as yet no archaeological evidence.
Dr H. G. Creel has ably discussed the question of the ‘Hsia Dynasty’ on pages 97-131 of his Studies in Early Chinese Culture, Baltimore, 1937. See also my paper cited in footnote 13; ref. to p. 243. Dr Creel’s conclusions and my own, though reached quite independently, are in essential harmony.
16 On this dating see my paper mentioned in footnote 13 ; ref. to p. 242.
17 The two ‘Shangs’ in this sentence have quite different meanings, and are written in Chinese with distinct characters.
18 Bronze dagger-axes had been used in the Occident also before the invention of bronze swords in that quarter of the globe.
19 On the distribution of the socketed celt, see C. G. Seligman, ‘Bird-Chariots and Socketed Celts in Europe and China’, Journ. Royal Anthrop. Inst., 1920, in, 153-8 ; ref. to p. 154.
20 On the probable date of the Chou conquest, see my paper cited in footnote 13; ref. on p. 237.
21 T’ien and Shang Ti (the chief god, as we have seen, of the previous dynasty) were eventually equated with each other, much as Zeus and Jupiter, originally quite distinct, came to be identified.
22 The Shangs, before their overthrow by the Chous, had used a ‘week’ or day-period of ten days.
23 On the survival of Neolithic types of pottery among the Chinese peasantry of early historical times, cf. footnote 8.
24 On this point see, e.g., Olov Janse, ‘Notes sur quelques epées anciennes trouvées en Chine’, Bull. Stockholm Mus. Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 2, 1930, pp. 67-134; ref. on p. 93.
At the time when they conquered northern China, the Chous, like the somewhat earlier Vedic Aryans when they first occupied northwestern India, seem to have had bronze daggers but not swords. In many other ways also, the cultures of the two peoples present interesting parallels.
25 The domestication of any wild species is an exceedingly slow process, while the horse does not appear in China until quite late. Further, certain details of conformation, particularly of the skull, suggest kinship with the Western domestic breeds and not with the Mongolian wild horse (E. przevalskii). That the latter has crossed with it to a slight extent seems certain, however.
26 The Chinese water-buffalo shows far less modification under domestication than do the Indian breeds. It would seem therefore to have received a large infusion of the blood of the wild form which we know once occurred in China.
27 On the latter point, see my paper, ‘Origin and Early Diffusion of the Traction-Plough’, Antiquity, 1936, x, 261-81; ref. to p. 278. The article has been reprinted in the Smithsonian Annual Report for 1937, pp. 531-47; ref. on p. 545.
28 That some climatic change has occurred seems certain. On the fluctuations in level of the Caspian Sea, cf. Ellsworth Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, New York and Boston, 1907, passim. At the opposite end of Asia, northern Chinese Neolithic sites have yielded remains of warmth and moisture-loving animals (notably the water-deer, Hydropotes inermis) which could not survive there today.
29 More than one ancient Chinese text, referring to wars with the northern barbarians even as late as the sixth century B.C., says ‘They fight on foot, but we in chariots’
30 From the name of this state almost certainly came our own for the whole of China. Those who dispute this, usually on the ground that the latter name occurs (in India) earlier than the founding of the Ch’in empire, forget that the state of Ch’in had already annexed the eastern ends of both the overland routes which link China with the West.
31 The Chinese Empire lasted, in substantially the form devised for it by its creator, for over two thousand years—221 B.C-A.D. 1911.