Talk:Five thousand years of Chinese civilization

Hi, just a few suggested additions to this otherwise well-written article.

It might be worth expanding on certain sections:

1. The Xia-Shang-Zhou chronology is a political project, and even Chinese scholars have critiqued some of its assumptions, such as there being a single 'thread' of continuity between these three polities. The Erlitou site overlaps with the Shang for about a century or two, so how can there be a smooth 'dynastic transition'?
2. It might be worth questioning whether Xia, Shang and Zhou should be calle 'dynasties' at all, given that this is an anachronistic claim started by Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, millennia later than the supposed start of the mythical Xia. Historian James Millward has an excellent piece at Cambridge here.
3. It is also worth questioning the assumption that we can even date civilisations to a specific point, since cultures are organic and take time to develop. When, for instance, did ancient Israelite ethnic identity emerge? Was it during the United Monarchy period around the 10th - 9th centuries BCE, or was it several centuries before?
4. Did the Shang even consider themselves Chinese - considering that the term 中国 emerged during the early Zhou, and only saw common usage during the Warring States period?
5. You mentioned that "some archaeologists and scholars view that China's civilization perhaps might well be more than 5,000 years old." - I've found that most of these scholars tend to be from mainland China, and rarely in the international scholarly community. The issue with such claims, that these neolithic cultures in the territories of now-modern China, show little evidence of having a shared culture with each other, let alone to form a single Huaxia ethnic unity. It might be worth addressing these.

I'm happy to contribute if this is of interest. Let me know. Veryhappyhugs (talk) 20:41, 9 November 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

I think this encyclopedic article is about the (well-known) assertion of "Five thousand years of Chinese civilization", including its usage as well as criticism of it. The assertion itself pre-dated both the PRC and the ROC. As for the Xia-Shang-Zhou chronology, it tried to determine the start and end years of Xia/Shang/Zhou, although it is simply considered one of the opinions and was at least partly politically motivated. But whether it can be considered a single 'thread' of continuity between Xia/Shang/Zhou has nothing to do with the project (or indeed any modern project), as they were traditionally considered so during the Chinese history, although there may exist (modern) scholars who have different views about this. If there are different views (directly related to the topic), I think they can be added to the "Criticism" section. I fully agree that the Xia was mythical, which is already mentioned in the "Criticism" section. Wikipedia tries to represent different views, but I don't think James Millward represents the majority view, and it looks like his article is more related to the dynastic model rather than to the assertion directly. Of course views from scholars from mainland China ("might well be more than 5,000 years old" etc) may be represented too, although personally I don't agree with their views. Thus, while I considered it would likely be a good thing to represent all such notable views, I am personally okay if they are removed. It should be noted that no one owns the article though. As for the term "dynasty", it can be considered an English term or as a translation of the Chinese term 朝 (王朝 or 朝代). I think they were indeed 王朝, although not truly 朝代 of China. The term "dynasty" can mean all of these so I guess it may be a bit confusing here. In any case one can argue that the dynastic framework of e.g. Egypt was in fact much more problematic (e.g. whether its various dynasties were really "dynasties" of Ancient Egypt). As for whether Shang considered themselves "Chinese", I think it is a valid but difficult question, and if there are scholarly studies of this they may be presented in corresponding article(s), although one cannot WP:SYNTH them. --Wengier (talk) 21:21, 9 November 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

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