[timmytim]

It's hard to separate what actually came from China, and what didn't come from China. Not that it isn't obvious (I mean really, you invented the spoon -- also claimed by Korea but whatever -- information overload so they have done themselves a disservice.

[pbhjpbhj]

We'll this is prior to the existence of China, they mean the area now known as China.

Not sure what was going on there 4k-15k years ago?

[contingencies]

Not sure what was going on there 4k-15k years ago?

Scholarship in ancient Chinese history here. While 'China' as a concept didn't exist, certain forerunners to key cultural traits defining Chinese civilization were in place by 3000BC. This includes agriculture with pigs, chickens and common intensive staple crops, village structures, pottery, warmaking, Sino-Tibetan language,[0] and critically the indisputable development of written Chinese characters.

However, in addition to these there were also distinct, large, parallel, significant cultures with impressive technical achievements, those such as the Shu[1] Kingdom (finally invaded and destroyed by the Qin in 316BC, and only rediscovered in the 1980s) which was known for its masterful large-scale bronze casting, said to be unequaled in human history.

Prior to 2k years ago, it gets messy fast, and notions of "China" are vague, relative and almost untenable. Chiefly because, lacking any large unifying kingdom to provide political, economic, military and cultural unity, it's very difficult to make blanket statements about an area the size of the modern region of China. There were certainly separate cultural spheres from the northeast (circa Korea), the north, the northwest (Xinjiang), Tibet[2], Sichuan, Yunnan/Guizhou/Guangxi, Hainan, the southeast and Taiwan, from which humans launched themselves in to the Pacific to conquer the final part of the planet.[3] We can make sparse suggestions based on suppositions about overall migrations of people and technology, but not much more.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshao_culture

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_(state)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Tibet

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_peoples#Prehistor...

[pbhjpbhj]

2 questions:

When the dominant state broke down and new states emerged - as in 3 kingdoms, or 16 kingdoms periods - would you always consider a later state to be a successor in title of the state that existed prior to the break up? Is it the language?

>"critically the indisputable development of written Chinese characters." //

What makes the characters Chinese. Italian, for example, uses the Latin character set (though that comes from Greek, which comes from, ...; which may make it a poor analogue). Why aren't they Qin, or Han, or whatever? Is it just imprecise naming.

[contingencies]

Agreed. Succession is relative and a grey area, and nomenclature is arbitrary.

[pbhjpbhj]

I was hoping for inciteful answers .. but accord will do ;o)

Funnily enough https://qz.com/522079/the-long-incredibly-tortuous-and-fasci... popped up in my reading today and dovetailed serendipitously with this discussion, the images of symbol development were particularly interesting to me.

[HumanDrivenDev]

You haven't talked to Chinese people have you? They will tirelessly parrot out that China has 5000 years of history (it doesn't), because the Middle Kingdom has to be the worlds oldest civilisation - least a billion glass hearts should shatter.