Древний Китай. Т. 1: Предыстория, Шан-Инь, Западное Чжоу (до VIII в. до н. э.).

Vasilyev L.

Ancient China : in 3 Vol. : Vol. 1. Prehistory, Shang History and Western Chou History (up to the 8th Cent. B.C.)

Москва, 1995, 389 p.

This book is the first volume of a three-volume publication about the history and culture of Ancient China. The main purpose of this work is to give a more or less comprehensive characteristic of the ancient Chinese society and its history, the process of sociogenesis and politogenesis, formation of the basis of ideology and culture and establishing traditions. Special attention is given to the genetic links and outside influence that took place during this complex process. The presentation starts with the prehistory of China and finishes with the composition of the empire. The first volume starts with the presentation of prehistory problems. Chinese archaeology has achieved considerable successes. They are represented in detail. Interpretation of data obtained by archaeologists and anthropologists is another thing. The contents of the first volume are not fully identical to the notions which the majority of specialists tend to adhere to. In particular, there are serious grounds to think that a sinantrop was a dead-end branch of the gominid line, although its descendants could have played an important role in the process of miscegenation with migrants from the West. The latter moved along the steppe line and reached America via Bering Isthmus, which is a well-known fact. The finds of the first sapient people on the territory of northern China testify the lack of racial distinction or any resemblance to Mongoloid characteristics in each of them. As far as Neolith is concerned, there are no traces of Neolithic revolution on the territory of China. The question is not that proto-Chinese did not contribute anything to the development of Neolithic cultures on their territory. On the contrary, they did a lot and ultimately created their own Neolithic foundations for further development. Bronze Age culture started to develop in Ancient China from the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. on the basis of Yangshao–Lungshan Neolithic Age, first as an early stage (Erlitou–Erligang) and later as a late one (Anyang). Newest archaeological findings leave no doubt that the origin of the Shang civilization was connected with at least some external influence. At the same time there is a doubtless Chinese component in this process, suffice it to say about silk, which had been already known in the Shang China. From the inscriptions on the bones experts learned a lot about the Shang society and proto-state, which was located in the middle part of the Huang-Ho basin.