A noted archaeologist is challenging conventional wisdom on one of the world’s oldest cultures, arguing that Chinese civilisation has a recorded history stretching back 8,000 years – three millennia beyond the widely accepted benchmark.
An article published late last year on the official portal Chinese Social Sciences Net made the bold new claim that the emergence of astronomy should be seen as the starting point of Chinese civilisation.
The author was Feng Shi, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a research fellow at its Institute of Archaeology.
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He said archaeological evidence showed that ancient Chinese societies 8,000 years ago had already begun mastering astronomical observation and precise timekeeping techniques for agricultural use.
Unlike some scholars, particularly those aligned with the Marxist tradition who hold that the emergence of the state was the most important sign of civilisation, Feng said discussions of civilisational and state origins were not the same thing.
His claim sparked debate over how “civilisation” should be defined, with some critics warning that the criteria were being arbitrarily adjusted to stretch back China’s civilisational timeline for political reasons.
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