Origins Project: Truth from Legend
Hello, my name is Scott Pruett and I’m an anchor with NewsChina. With our podcast, we aim to provide insight into the current trends of modern China allowing you to clearly see what’s happening today through a historical lens.
In the first installment of what will be a two-part feature, we’re going to talk about a nationwide archaeological project that challenges previous notions of Chinese civilization through fresh approaches and technologies to better understand all of those ancient ruins left behind.
On a scorching August afternoon, Gao Jiangtao drove his old SUV into Taosi Village in Linfen city of Xiangfen county in Shanxi Province. He honked a greeting to a shepherd on the road.
A researcher with the Institute of Archeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, commonly referred to as CASS, Gao Jiangtao has been involved in the Taosi excavations for 15 years. His long hours in the field have left him as tanned as the local farmers.
The village is home to the ruins of an ancient city dating back 4,000 to 4,300 years. Experts suggest they are the remains of the capital of a prehistoric kingdom ruled by Emperor Yao, one of China’s mytho-historical Five Emperors. The site is located on the Loess Plateau between the province’s highest peak, Ta’er Mountain, and a tributary of the Fenhe River. Corn and herb farms dot the area.
The site was perfectly suited for a capital according to Guanzi, a political text compiled between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE: It says, “A State capital should not be at the foot of a big mountain, but on open land above a river. It should not be too high in elevation, as it will be prone to drought. It should not be too close to the river to avoid floods.” Ancient texts like this place Emperor Yao’s capital in today’s Linfen.
Along with the Taosi site, ruins of cities dating back 4,000 to 5,000 years have been unearthed around China. Experts believe them to have hosted the dawn of Chinese civilization.
These findings result from the “Origins Project,” a decades-long, multi-disciplinary research endeavor that aims to trace the development of Chinese civilization. Led by the Institute of Archeology at CASS and the School of Archeology and Museology at Peking University, the project involves some 400 scholars from across China and nearly 70 scientific research institutes, universities and local archaeological institutions. The project gives Chinese researchers opportunities to explore alternative approaches not only to decode China’s prehistory, but also to redefine the concept of civilization itself.
Conventional Controversy
From an early age, Chinese people are taught they are the descendants of the Yellow Emperor and Emperor Yan, legendary figures who led two tribes in the Yellow River Basin over 5,000 years ago. Stories about them abound in ancient Chinese texts. The Yellow Emperor is credited with making weapons from jade to conquer rival tribes, while his wife, Leizu, introduced silkworm rearing, which developed into silk production. After the death of the Yellow Emperor, the primitive tribes of the Yellow River Basin were ruled in succession by the legendary figures Yao, Shun and Yu. Following their reigns came China’s three earliest recorded dynasties, the Xia, lasting from 2070 to 1600 BCE, Shang, lasting from 1600 to 1046, and Zhou, lasting from 1050 to 221 BCE. However, the stories of the Yellow Emperor and his successors were mostly based on local folklore and records written long after those periods, rather than archaeological evidence.
The definition of civilization is contended among archaeologists and historians. Western scholars cite three indispensable elements for a civilization: metallurgy, written characters and urbanization with a sophisticated division of labor and social stratification. But ancient cultures long recognized as civilizations do not always follow this rule. For example, the Mayans did not have metallurgy. The Incas did not have a written language, instead using knots to record information. And while the Indus Valley Civilization had hundreds of symbols, it had not codified its language.
According to these metrics, the earliest Chinese civilization did not appear until around 3,300 years ago with the Shang Dynasty. This is backed by the discovery of the oracle bone inscriptions retrieved in the 1920s from the Yinxu Ruins in Central China’s Henan Province, which scholars recognize as the capital city of the late Shang, lasting from 1300 to 1046 BCE.
The discovery earned the Yinxu Ruins a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation in 2006, as the organization said the oracle bones “bear invaluable testimony to the development of one of the world’s oldest writing systems, ancient beliefs and social systems”.
However, there is no sufficient information about the periods before, during and after the late Shang. In response, the Chinese government launched the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project in 1996 to gain a more accurate chronology and geographical framework of these three dynasties.
After its completion in 2000, many scholars involved in the project, including Wang Wei, chairman of the Chinese Archaeological Society, called for continued research into Chinese civilization that went beyond a linear timeline of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties.
Wang told The Context in August that scholars approached the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2001 to continue the multidisciplinary research of the Chronology Project to explore the origin, formation and development of Chinese civilization. The ministry approved, creating the “Trace the Origins of Chinese Civilization Project”, or the Origins Project. Beginning in 2004, the ongoing project focuses on the developmental trajectory of ancient societies in both North and South China. Wang now co-leads the Origins Project’s chief expert group.
Research and findings over the years have called the conventional criteria of civilization into question and proposed new ones. Previous criteria came during excavations in Egypt and the Tigris-Euphrates river basin, known as Mesopotamia or the fertile crescent. Now in modern Iraq and Kuwait, it is where Western archeology practice first developed.
Wang told The Context, “To measure ancient China with metrics from Mesopotamia and Egypt was improper. So, Chinese archaeologists tried to redefine a more universal standard for civilization.”
Jessica Rawson, a professor of Chinese art and archeology at the University of Oxford, told our reporter in early September, “I don’t think there was controversy about the age of China’s civilization and there is none today. Something historians seem to ignore is that China’s civilization is independent of the ancient civilizations of Western Asia and Egypt. Agriculture, cities, states and crafts such as silk weaving were created independently, and therefore, very different from the similar phenomena in Western Asia and Egypt.”
At a press conference in 2018, Zhao Hui, a professor with the School of Archeology and Museology at Peking University and co-leader of the Origins Project’s chief expert group, laid out the project’s stance on what makes up a civilization: It features highly developed agriculture and handicrafts, a pyramidal social structure with highly defined classes, cities with labor division and social stratification and even regional States with sovereign power.
These indicators largely coincide with the urbanization that Western scholars propose, but do not include a written system or metallurgy. Zhao said, “They show both the commonality and uniqueness in the development of human civilization.”
‘Stars in the Sky’
Archeology developed rapidly in China in the 1980s when a series of Neolithic sites were discovered during the country’s construction boom. Among them are landmark sites dating back about 5,000 years that reveal evidence of imperial power and social classes 1,000 years earlier than the Xia and Shang dynasties.
Professor Zhao Hui told our reporter that the 1980s discoveries prompted academia to shift focus to the study of ancient societies. Previously, archaeological research was specific to a certain relic or site, from pottery and jade to tombs and city ruins.
Professor Zhao said, “It doesn’t mean that we didn’t pay attention to ancient societies, but were unprepared to conduct research due to lack of a timeline. How could historical research be conducted effectively when the emergence of basic culture was yet to be clarified, relative and absolute dating were unclear, and the chronology was still vague?”
But discoveries across China brought conventional theories on Chinese civilization into question, such as the Niuheliang Ruins, lasting from 3,500 to 3000 BCE in Liaoning Province in the northeast, the Liangzhu Ruins, about 3,500 BCE or earlier in Zhejiang Province, the Lingjiatan Ruins, about 3,000 BCE in Anhui Province and the Dadiwan Ruins, lasting from 5,800 to 2,800 BCE in Gansu Province. None are in the Central Plains, which served as a major political center for over 3,000 years and was long regarded as the cradle of Chinese civilization.
These ideas were first explored in the late 1990s with the release of A New Exploration into the Origin of Chinese Civilization, based on the oral narratives of archeologist Su Bingqi. He proposed a multi-regional model of cultural development, identifying six major cultural areas, each with separate origins and developmental paths. Calling the areas “stars in the sky,”（满天星斗说） he highlighted the diversity of cultural origins inside ancient China. Building on Su’s work, notable archeologist Yan Wenming proposed the idea of “overall unity,”（大一统） saying the advantageous location of the Central Plains facilitated better exchange with surrounding cultures.
Chinese archaeologists gradually broadened their view, arguing that while these cultural areas were independent, they shared long histories of interaction. Multiple integration theory has since become the core approach to Chinese civilization studies.
In late May, Wang Wei told the popular English-language newspaper China Daily, “Research during the Origins Project has greatly contributed to our understanding of Chinese civilization’s characteristics. Its development has been continuous, and various roots of our civilization were linked to and frequently exchanged with one another. They gradually formed a shared community.”
Jessica Rawson, the professor from the University of Oxford, shared similar views with The Context: “There is no single origin for China’s civilization. China is an enormous country, and many factors such as landfall, climate and demography contributed to it.”
Well, that’s the end of part one of our podcast covering the Origins Project. We hope you’ll tune in next week for the conclusion. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Ni Wei, translator Wang Yan, and copy editor JT. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.