10.China's Archaeology and Mythology in Pre-history

The Chinese civilization is one of the earliest in the world, dating back 1,700,000 years ago in modern day Yunnan Province, known as Yuanmou Man (元谋人).In the 1920s an archeologist found in the southwestern suburbs of Beijing near Zhoukoudian (周口店)a large amount of fossilized skulls and teeth, which were as far back as 400,000 to 500,000 years in the past.Archaeologists named them Peking Man (北京人).

The climate in ancient times was much warmer than that of today, therefore much of the plants and animals can only be found in the south today, as well as on the northern plains, where Peking Man would have lived in way of a hunter-gathered type.After“Peking Man”was found, it was easy to study the physical links between Peking Man and Chinese people of modern days. Unluckily, the skulls were lost during World War Ⅱ (1939-1945). Today all that remains to be seen is the cave where Peking Man once lived in the area of Zhoukoudian.

From the time of Peking Man to the late Neolithic Age, a period of time from 4,000,000 5,000,000 to 4,000 5,000 years in the past, we are uncertain about the changes that took place in China.In fact, for the period from 4,000 to 2,000 years ago only a small amount is known.Only the 4,000-to-5,000-year-old broken pottery pieces and other archeological remains from the Yangshao (仰韶)and Longshan (龙山)cultures along the Yellow River plain can we know that it was here that the ancient ancestors of the Chinese once settled and lived.

Nowadays, you may have heard some of the myths from that period, such as Pangu (盘古)creating the heavens and the earth, Nüwa (女娲)patching up the sky, the Yellow Emperor (黄帝)—the common ancestor of the Chinese people and Yan Emperon (炎帝), the inventor of Chinese medical knowledge.Like ancient Greek myths they are the works of people's imaginations from later times.Nevertheless, all of them are not without value, for they may be based on a very first understanding of truth and have come to be made more beautiful and meaningful over time.Characters such as the Yellow Emperor, a hero from ancient times who represents Chinese ancestry, have grown to become important symbols of Chinese culture.

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Exercise One

Directions:Decide whether the following statements are true or false.

1.Yuanmou Man lived in Beijing 1,700,000 years ago.

2.It was warmer in ancient China so that the Chinese ancestors lived only in the south.

3.Although we understand little about the time before Neolithic Age, we know a lot of the period from 4,000 to 2,000 years ago.

4.The Yangshao and Longshan cultures were found along the Yellow River plain.

5.The myths about ancient China were created by people from later times.

Exercise Two

Directions:Answer the following questions.

1.When did the Chinese civilization start?

2.Who was Peking Man?

3.What kind of living condition did Peking Man have?

4.Where did the ancient Chinese ancestry live?

5.What myths do we have about the ancient Chinese culture?