CONTENIDO DEL DOCUMENTO

One of the early forms of Western cultural imperialism toward China was the belief of some pundits and archaeologists that Chinese civiliza- tion had no prehistory of its own, that it arose suddenly from the diffu- sion of West Asian cultural traits like wheat, pottery, writing, or the horse-drawn chariot as a “civilization by osmosis,” bit by bit coming across Central Asia from the West. Such assumptions out of ignorance have long since been overturned. The early stress on diffusion of cultural traits has given way to a realization that there were probably substantial contacts among primitive men over the eons.

In China, the study of prehistory through excavation is one of the newest developments. Part of China’s modernization today lies in the steady advance of archaeology since the 1920s. Modernization efforts under both the Nationalist and the Communist governments, as the lat- est phase of China’s modern revolution, have been matched by scientific discovery of China’s prehistory. The story continues to unfold. Its impor- tance lies in the cultural continuity that it discloses. Distinctive features of Chinese life today, such as autocratic government, come down di- rectly from prehistoric times.

China has two north-south chains of mountains: one along the coast, running discontinuously from the northeast (formerly called Manchuria) through Shandong province and the southeast coast to Hong Kong and Hainan Island. The other chain is inland on the eastern edge of the Central Asian plateau, running from Shanxi province south through Sichuan to the southwest China upland. East of it in the north stretches the North China plain. Among the limestone hills on the edge

of the plain twenty-seven miles southwest of Beijing near today’s village of Zhoukoudian there are a number of caves. One particularly large cavern was originally the size of a football field (500 by 150 feet and in one area 120 feet from floor to ceiling). Beginning about 400,000 bp (before the present) this cave, which had a small entrance on the north- east, was inhabited by primitive people continuously for about 200,000 years until the interior was completely filled up with layers of their de- bris.

What a find for archaeologists! In 1921 a single tooth from the site was identified as belonging to a primitive species of human. The first skull was found in 1929. Careful excavation from 1921 to 1937 and since 1959 has exhumed about 100,000 stone tools, over 100 teeth, 14 skulls, and many other bones representing more than 40 individuals of

Homo erectus, the same species of early humans as the ones found in

Java (1891), Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

They were little people. Peking Man stood about 5 feet, 2 inches tall, Peking Woman about 4 feet 9. They had very thick skull bones and receding chins, but their cranial capacity of 850–1300 cc may be com- pared with Java Man’s 775–900 cc and the 1350 cc of early Homo

sapiens. They were hunter-fisher-gatherers and used fire to illuminate

their cave and to cook their meat, 70 percent of which consisted of deer, although bones of the leopard, bear, saber-toothed tiger, hyena, ele- phant, rhinoceros, camel, water buffalo, boar, and horse were also found. There were no burials or complete skeletons in the cave, but some skulls were bashed in, which suggests that Peking Man was a small-time cannibal or at least a head-hunter who savored brains. All in all, says K. C. Chang (1986), the Peking Man fossils were “paleoanthropology’s greatest catch.”

Other discoveries followed. After 1949 the widespread construction of roads, railways, dams, and foundations unearthed hundreds of new archaeological sites. Another skull of Homo erectus was found in 1964 in Shaanxi province, though it seemed more primitive than Peking Man. Chipped stone tools and human fossils from between 400,000 and 200,000 years bp (during the Lower or Early Paleolithic period; see Table 2) at a dozen or more sites show Homo erectus to have been widely dispersed in China, mainly in the provinces of the western moun- tain chain. A cranium was found in 1980–81 in Anhui province, and a partial skeleton was found in 1984 in Liaoning. Other finds are con- tinuing.

Homo sapiens, dating between roughly 200,000 and 50,000 years bp

(the Middle Paleolithic period). By roughly 50,000 to 12,000 years bp (the Upper or Late Paleolithic period), Homo sapiens sapiens (the later model) was widely dispersed in half a dozen or more local cultures throughout China. They were usually situated at points where moun- tains descended into plains and hunting could be combined with fishing and gathering. Judging by the stone tools left behind, these cultural re- gions had common features but also distinctive local characteristics even at this early time. Sites included the middle Yellow River valley, the Or- dos region, the loess plateau of Shaanxi province, and the western edge of the North China plain—for example, the Upper Cave at Zhoukou- dian seems to have served at this late time as a burial place. Seven skulls were found there, all battered. Archaeologists like K. C. Chang have concluded that Old Stone Age man in China was not a mere chipper of rocks; basic ideas of kinship, authority, religion, and art that can still be found in China today were already developing in these early cultures.