The cradle of Chinese civilization was long considered to be the region around the middle Yellow River. But recent archaeological discoveries from far-flung corners of China are forcing scientists to reconsider the origins of ancient Chinese civilization.
Some are now even questioning the existence of a legendary Chinese dynasty, the Xia (about 2100 BC - 1600 BC), according to a collection of news reports in today's issue of the journal Science. The origin of Chinese civilization has long been a complicated and confusing issue in China's academic circles.
Though boasting 5,000 years of civilization, the widely acknowledged beginning of the civilization with historical records could be dated to the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC - 1100 BC), thanks to the discovery of oracle bones.
With the inscriptions on the oracle bones, the earliest characters in China, archaeologists outlined what the society was like in the Shang Dynasty.
But there are still 1,000 years unaccounted for in China's 5,000-year civilization, making it essential for the archaeologists to find out what the pre-Shang society was like.
As a construction boom continues to alter the physical face of the country - inadvertently uncovering vital clues to China's past, illuminating ancient trade routes and long-lost cultures - a new and more complex history of the Chinese people is emerging.
Recent archaeological discoveries show that there were many advanced cultures in the valleys of several major rivers in China about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
Among all, the excavation in 2007 of a 4,300-year-old city at the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is challenging what the Chinese people once thought about their country and themselves.
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