Refutation "Is China really the so-called four ancient civilizations?"

I don't know when an article entitled "Exposing China as one of the so-called four ancient civilizations" was circulated on the Internet. This article is full of thousands of words, and "seemingly" is an extremely objective and rational dialectical logic; From "archaeological definition, exquisite language, pedigree analysis ...", it is extremely sinister to slander and deny the history of China's 5,000-year civilization. Ordinary people without certain academic knowledge often have no resistance to this and believe it.

As soon as this article came out, some sinister villains in China got a treasure, so they took this opportunity to forward it in large quantities and publicize it. As everyone knows, this article "seems" fair, reasonable and objective, but in fact it has no dialectical logic, double standards everywhere and is full of loopholes. So it didn't take long for many patriotic netizens to brainstorm and refute this article. The landlord can't avoid customs here. He collected the opinions of many netizens, synthesized what he learned, wrote this article, participated in the debate on "anti-national nihilism", and once again testified for our China history to show future generations.

The landlord here uses the way of "one introduction and one return" to describe it.

Original text:

For a long time, China officials have always claimed that China is one of the so-called "four ancient civilizations", and that we are an ancient country with a civilization history of 5,000 years, which is an important part of educating the people. These ridiculous arguments are still widely circulated and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In fact, anyone with a little knowledge of world history knows that this is just a joke.

First of all, let's take a look at this so-called "four ancient civilizations". There is no such slogan formulation for kindergartens in the international and academic circles. Only the "birthplaces of several major civilizations" are similar. Even so, China is not among the "Big Four".

If we follow the definition of "four oldest civilized countries", then China may not even rank in the top ten, not to mention four. Its civilization began in the Shang Dynasty around 1500 BC, but it took more than 3,000 years, while other great works had existed from 2000 to 1000 before that, and the civilization of the two river basins in the Middle East began around 3,500 BC. The Nile Valley civilization in Egypt also began around 3500 BC, the Aegean civilization in Greece around 2500 BC, and indus valley civilization around 2500 BC. This is only in terms of large areas, and there are more secondary civilizations such as Hittite civilization, Assyrian civilization, Phoenician civilization, Persian civilization, Jewish civilization and so on. (These ancient civilizations are the predecessors of many countries in West Asia today, and these ancient Semites and Persians are also Jews today. According to the previous definition of "four ancient countries", China can only rank among these civilizations and countries. Where can it rank?

Careful readers may find that the top four civilizations should be Middle East civilization, Egyptian civilization, Greek civilization and Indian civilization from the starting time of the civilizations listed above. There is no place for China. Why did the Greek position disappear in China's official propaganda, but it became China after 1000 years?

This is not an unintentional mistake. In fact, under the background of anti-western politics manipulated by the government for a long time, systematically belittling western civilization is only an integral part of various propaganda activities. Because Greek civilization is the source of western civilization, China officials, for ideological reasons, don't want to see any information showing the superiority of western civilization, and want to belittle any aspect of western civilization as much as possible, plus the extreme hatred and jealousy of the "nationalists" in power to western civilization, so they have made such a trick.

Back off:

First of all, I want to spit out the author's shallow theoretical knowledge that makes people vomit blood. ...

"Chinese civilization is one of the four major civilizations, and Chinese culture is the longest-lived civilization. This is a very common sentence in English history books." The idea of 5,000 years can be traced back to the 54th century, which has been confirmed by new discoveries in modern archaeology. In the past, some scholars only paid attention to the 3500-year history of China, because the 3500-year history was brilliant and the evidence was conclusive, not to say that the history of Chinese civilization was only 3500 years.

Finally, this passage is about "the anti-western political background manipulated by China". I just want to say, please take out your pocket. Have you ever seen four dollars? Well, if you see it, please go downstairs and turn right to the newsstand there, buy a Youth Digest run by the China Youth League and read articles about the west.

Original text:

The reader may ask: Isn't the official in China promoting "5,000-year civilization"? Why is it actually only 3500 years?

Then we need to understand some basic common sense and concepts in archaeology and history, and some "historians" in China have long misled and fooled people by confusing these basic common sense and concepts. This is about the difference between the two concepts of "culture" and "civilization" and several basic characteristics that constitute "civilization".

There are strict differences between the two concepts of "culture" and "civilization" in archaeological history (although we often confuse them in daily life). Simply put, "culture" is a concept belonging to the Stone Age, especially the primitive tribal remains of the Stone Age, especially the Neolithic Age, including the Stone Age and the Stone Age, while "civilization" belongs to the concept of the Bronze Age, especially the national stage after human beings entered the Bronze Age.

In fact, from the etymology of the two English words "culture" and "civilization", we can clearly see the difference between them. The original meaning of the word "culture-"is "farming", which clearly shows that the original meaning of the concept of "culture" belongs to the category of primitive tribal times associated with "farming"; The original meaning of civ-, the root of the word "civilization", is "citizen", which clearly shows that the original meaning of the concept of "civilization" belongs to the category of the Bronze Age, and it is linked with "city" and industry and commerce by the appearance of "citizen". (The word city comes from the variant "cit-" of the root "civ-". )

The main characteristics of "civilization", such as writing, metal smelting, city-state, religious etiquette, etc. (defined by Jasper) are closely related to the emergence of industry and commerce. Judging whether and when a civilization started is based on the above criteria and archaeological findings, not on myths and legends, folk stories, unofficial history's miscellaneous books, or so-called "historical records" like historical records two thousand years later than the archaeological age. This is the common sense of archaeology and history.

Back off:

The original author shamelessly used a hidden double standard here, that is, the demarcation time between "Chinese civilization" and "foreign civilization"

At the beginning, the author of the original text said very well that the definition of "civilization" needs "writing, metal smelting, city-state, religious etiquette ...", but I'm here to tell you that all Erlitou cultural sites in China, which are as far away as 4,000 years ago, meet the above characteristics (such as writing on stone tablets, metal casting remains, city walls, central axis palaces, large-scale sacrificial platforms ...).

According to Jaspers' standard, the history of Egyptian civilization, the earliest civilization in the world, should be set at 3900, which is shorter than that of Europe. ...

Some of Wen Mingzhen's are very old; But "big" is not enough. The "Four Ancient Civilizations" emphasize both greatness and antiquity. It is impossible to be great but not ancient, and it is impossible to be ancient but not big. This is the basis for westerners to put forward the four ancient civilizations at first. So Phoenician civilization, Assyrian civilization and Persian civilization ... don't deserve this title at all.

Landlord: Then, I want to explain to you the "Jaspers Definition" mentioned by the original author. First of all, I want to correct a mistake, that is, the name of this definition is actually called "Jaspers Definition". The original author used a fast code word to attack the need, but I didn't expect to get the last name wrong ... Of course, this belongs to inattention and has nothing to do with IQ. ...

Anyway, this so-called "Jaspers definition" is actually a controversial theory in the international archaeological community, and few people regard it as the basis of archaeological era. For example, the world-famous Mayan civilization has never had bronze casting technology. This civilization is a highly developed stone civilization. According to Jaspers' definition, it should belong to the "cultural stage", and Egyptian civilization can only have a "civilization history" of 3900 years (because it has not had a "writing" that meets this archaeological definition for a long time). The "civilized culture" in archaeology itself is a topic with different opinions, and there has never been a unified view in the world. However, in order to belittle the history of China, the original author has reached the point of shattered glass, which is really sad.

Original text:

Someone may ask me this question: Then, why should we judge our own history by foreigners' standards, and can't we judge it by our own standards? Absolutely. However, the concepts of "civilization" and "culture" originally came from the West. Not only that, the whole method system of archaeology and history was introduced from the west. If we want to use our own standards, we can't use western concepts to preach "we have a history of civilization of 5,000 years", but we should use our own words to say "we have a myth of 5,000 years".

But according to this standard, we have a history of "5,000 years", while other countries and regions, especially around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, are not only "5,000 years", but at least more than 10,000 years. So we still can't take advantage of anything.

China's "historians" have long confused the standards of "culture" and "civilization", misleading and fooling people. For example, primitive tribal cultures belonging to the Neolithic Age (such as Yangshao culture, Longshan culture and Liangzhu culture). ) stolen, pretending to be the so-called "civilization" era, so that the history of China suddenly advanced by one or two thousand years, or even two or three thousand years. When introducing other civilizations in other countries, we use another standard, strictly from the official starting point of other countries' civilizations (writing, metal smelting, the emergence of city-states), which virtually shortens the distance between China and those countries with the oldest civilizations, and even gives people an illusion. It seems that China is earlier than these countries and regions which actually have much earlier civilization than China. In fact, if we measure ourselves by China's standards, many countries. That's the trick. Trick.

Back off:

I didn't expect the original author to be so brazen that he even moved to "Jaspers Definition" to fool readers. It's really ridiculous.

In addition, the original author said that China's "concepts of civilization and culture and the whole archaeological and historical system were introduced from the West". Hehe, it really hurts me. Our country does have the concept of "civilization and culture", but this is not a western concept, but our own concept in China. The concept of "civilization and culture" in China archaeology is actually similar, and there is not much difference. The emergence of Chinese civilization (culture) in the true sense is based on the emergence of the country. Where did the original author come to the conclusion that "all of them were imported from the West"?

Second, the argument that China archaeology illegally extended China culture. In fact, the archaeological community in China did not extend the time of Chinese civilization in violation of regulations. We used China's own method (the formation of the country). And if "civilization and culture" are really confused, China's civilization is not only 5,000 years old, but 10,000 years old (according to archaeological analysis, China is one of the three cradles of world agriculture, about 10,000 years ago).

Original text:

Let's take a detailed look at the history of China and the world from the beginning.

Let's start with the history of China civilization. Let's get this basic fact straight: the earliest civilization in China, Shang civilization, started around 1500 BC, 3,500 years ago, and is located in Anyang, Henan Province today. Archaeological basis: the earliest writing in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and China; Mature bronze smelting and unearthed smelting bronzes; State forms have emerged.

To be clear: this is not my invention. Just find a textbook of world history or international academic circles, which says that Chinese civilization began in Shang Dynasty.

Of course, China's own history textbooks can be traced back to the so-called "Xia Dynasty" in 2000 BC. However, the international academic community does not recognize this nihilistic "Xia Dynasty" because there is no archaeological basis: no writing, no discovery of smelting bronzes, no basis for showing the existence of national forms, no urban relics, and so on.

The charlatans in China, like "historians" and "archaeologists", searched all over China, and found no evidence to prove the existence of the so-called "Xia Dynasty". However, they had the cheek to put this fictional "Xia Dynasty" into textbooks and publicity materials to sell it to the world, and they also crustily packed some Neolithic cultural relics found in Erlitou and other places and pretended to be the so-called "Xia Dynasty".

Back off:

In fact, I don't need to reply to this article. The content in the last article can be refuted to pieces.