PRE-HISTORY

To expound the myth of Koreans and the Altaic-speaking people, most recent DNA analysis needs to be incorporated. Doctorate Li Hui from Fudan University of China had analyzed the DNA of Asians to derive a conclusion that the ancestors of Mongoloid Asians possessed a distinctive Mark M89 by the time they arrived in Southeast Asia. About 30,000 years ago, from the launching pad of Southeast Asia, the early Mongoloids went through a genetic mutation to Marker M122.   Li Hui, at http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=memory&MsgID=56818, claimed that the early migrants to the Chinese continent took three routes via two entries of Yunnan and Guangxi-Guangdong provinces. In the timeframe of about 10,000 years and developing a genetic mutation to marker M134, this branch of people who went direct north would penetrate the snowy Hengduan Mountains of Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau to arrive at the area next to the Yellow River bends. Owning to cold weather, big nose, heavy lips and long face developed among this group of people. Splitting out of this northbound migrants would be those who went to the east with a new genetic marker M117, i.e., ancestors of modern Han Chinese. However, our ancestors forgot that they penetrated northward the Hengduan Mountains from the Indo-China "CORRIDOR" in today's Vietnam. "Walking down Mt Kunlun", i.e., the "collective memory of ethnic Han Chinese" that was echoed in Guo Xiaochuan's philharmonic-agitated epic, was the starting point of the eastward migration which our Chinese ancestors remembered. Li Hui grouped the 3000-year-old Chu and Qi people in the same category as Han Chinese, albeit meeting the ancient classics records as to Qi statelet's lineage from the Qiangic-Tibetan Fiery Lord. The rest would develop into ancestors of today's Tibetans. This seems to corroborate with Scholar Luo Xianglin's claim that early Sino-Tibetan peoples originated from Mt Minshan and upperstream River Min-jiang areas of Sichuan-Gansu provincial borderline and then split into two groups, with one going north to reach Wei-shui River and upperstream Han-shui River of Shenxi Prov and then east to Shanxi Prov by crossing the Yellow River.   The second branch of early Mongoloids, about 10,000 years ago, entered China's southeastern coastline with genetic marker M119. Li Hui, claiming the same ancestry as the Dai-zu and Shui-zu minorities of Southwestern China, firmly believed that his ancestors had dwelled in Hangzhou Bay and Yangtze Delta for 7-8 thousand years. The people with M119 marker would be the historical "Hundred Yue Peoples". Li Hui then pointed out that the ancient Wu people, with M7 genetic marker, came to the lower Yangtze area about 3000 years ago. While Li Hui claimed that the M7 Wu people had split away from the northbound M134 Sino-Tibetan people, historical classics pointed out that Wu Statelet was established by two uncles of Zhou Dynasty King Wenwang, i.e., migrants from the Yellow River area.   The last interesting theory adopted by Li Hui would be still one more possible Mongoloid branch of people who, at about 20,000 years, continued to travel non-stop along the Chinese coastline to reach the Liao-he River area of Manchuria where they developed into Altaic-speaking peoples, i.e., ancestors of Huns, Turks and Mongols. This claim did corroborate with this webmaster's historical analysis of Huns, Turks and Mongols which yielded the conclusion that i) there was no through traffic from west to east in the Gobi or the Steppe in early times and that ii) the Mongoloid had a pattern of raiding to the west, not the other way around by the Indo-Europeans. Today's Koreans, in the opinion of Li Hui, would be the mixtures of the early migrants to Manchuria and the later Dong-yi [Eastern Yi] migrants from Eastern China. This certainly dealt a blow to the Korean nationalists' claim of "Siberian origin". (See Assertions By Wang Zhonghan for clues as to the relationship between Qiangic Proto-Tibetan and Altaic Proto-Hun activities: "the northern barbarians and western barbarians were similar [i.e., Qiangs] at Spring-Autumn time period, but by the time of late Warring States, Chinese began to see the northern barbarians as different from the western barbarians".)

China's earliest substantiated year would be the fourteen year "interregnum" (republican administrative period) of Western Zhou Dynasty, beginning from year 841 BC.   There is a reason for the ambiguity of early Chinese dates. China's cultural heritage suffered a severe setback as a result of Qin Emperor Shihuangdi's book burning in the 3rd century BC. 150 years after book burning, scholars were still having difficulties re-compiling the lost classics. It was recorded that some surviving books hidden by the 8th grandson of Confucius (Kong Zixiang) inside of the walls in Confucius' house were discovered during Han Emperor Wudi's reign in 1st century BC, and it enabled scholars to make comparisons between the authentic rotten books and those books which were re-compiled via oral recitation from memories of old scholars. Because of the damages, important history books were forever destroyed.
 
China's civilization is dated later than the Sumer Civilization of 3500 BC, Ancient Egypt of 3100 BC, Minoan of 2000 BC, and Indian of 2500 BC.  The excavations, however, had produced refined potteries going back as much as 5000 BC. Back in 1987, at Xishuipo of Puyang, Henan Prov, archaeologists excavated a 4500 BC Yangshao Culture tomb that contained a dragon [crocodile] and a tiger that were made of white mussel shells together with a 1.84 meter tall man who stepped on the triangular astrological Dipper. Six bone flutes dating from 7000-5700 B.C at site of Jiahu in central Henan Province certainly pointed to the existence of an advanced human civilization. In the same area, tortoise shells with the pictograms were found buried with human remains in 24 graves unearthed at Jiahu. The notable thing about the Chinese Civilization is that it is not disrupted ever since, even under barbarian ruling in between. Both Mongols and Manchus, who had ruled an integral China, had adopted the Chinese language for its governance, for example.
 

• 5000 BC?: Hemudu Culture established a presence along the lower Yangtze River delta. There is evidence of rice cultivation, fishing, and wood frame houses etc. Hemudu Culture was validated to have excavated articles bearing the bird-sun totem, a heritage observed in later Yangshao Culture and Longsang Culture;
   
  
• 4000 - 3000 BC: Yangshao Culture in the Yellow River area. There is evidence of round structures built from mud-brick with a thatched roof and a central peak and agriculture to clear the land to plant crops of millet, wheat, barley, and some rice. Excavations from Quanhu-chun Village, Liuzi-zhen Town, Hua-xian County, Shenxi Prov had produced colored pottery depicting a bird totem with the sun in the wing.
   
  Tian Changwu stated that around 4000 BC, Yangshao Culture began to exhibit the sign of clan communes which would progress to 'patria potestas' clan from 'matria potestas' clan by 3500 BC approx.
   
  Tian Changwu also stated that Dawenkou Culture, near the Wen-shui River of Shandong Prov, had entered the phase of clan commune and then split into non-promiscuity marriage relationship and 'patria potestas' clan earlier than Yangshao Culture.
   
  Corresponding stages of cultures in other parts of China would include: Songze Culture and Qingliangang Culture in Lower Yangtze River, Qujialing Culture in middle Yangtze River, and Majiayao Culture in Upper Yellow River.
   
  
• 2500-1900 BC: Longshan Culture across the North China Plain and the hills of the Shandong Peninsula. The early Chinese cultivated millet and rice, raised pigs, sheep, goats, cattle and water buffalo, possessed permanent villages surrounded by mud walls, and utlized wells for irrigating fields. (The Chinese character for home was a cap on top of pig.)
   
  Longshan Culture possessed i) potteries and china, ii) bronze articles, iii) lacquered wood utensils (which was also in popular usage in ancient American continents), iv) hardened mud and plaster, and v) jade, bone and musical articles. Longshan Culture excavations had produced potteries with similar bird totems as Yangshao Culture. Dragon totem was also found in the same area: Scholar Gao Wei pointed out that the colored Pottery from Taosi Excavations of Longshan Culture in Xiangfen of Shanxi Prov had shown a winding dragon [on basis of snake-prototype per Liu Zhixiong & Yang Jingrong].

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                                          Yangshao Culture (4000-3000 BC)
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                     Banpo Type --> Dongzhuangcun Type --> Miaodigou Type --...--> Xiwangcun Type

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        Miaodigou Culture II (3000-2500 BC)                 Longshan Culture Taosi Type (2500-1900 BC)
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           Early Stage --> Middle Stage --> Late Stage                          Early Stage --> Middle Stage --> Late Stage

                                                                                           Taosi (2400-1800 BC)                     Dongxiafeng Type (2200-1700 BC)     

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                                                         Erlitou Culture
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                    Dongxiafeng Type Of Erlitou Culture (2200-1700 BC)         Yanshi Type of Erlitou Culture (1900-1500 BC)

         Sui-ren-shi
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            |
        You-chao-shi 
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            |
     Pao-xi-shi (Fu-xi-shi)
            |
           ...
    (a dozen of bird-totem clans)
           ...
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       Shen-nong-shi (Yandi)
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            |
       You-xiong-shi (Huangdi, aka Xuanyuan-shi or Xuan-yuan-shi)

Two proto groups of peoples, Hua People (also denoted Huaxia or Xia where the character 'hua' was said to have derived from the Huashan Mountain near Xi'an city, a name that was more likely to have been appropriated from across the Yellow River) vs Yi People (also denoted Dongyi or Eastern Yi in later times), would come into play in this prehistoric time period. Scholar Liu Qiyu pointed out that 'hua' and 'xia', pronounced the same way as [hwer] in today's Yangtze Delta dialects, would mean for the original land of the Xia people under Lord Huangdi and later Lord Yu, a place validated to be southern Shanxi Prov, with three ancient bends of the Yellow River forming a U-shape loop. (In ancient times, Western Bend would be today's Eastern Bend.) Liu Qiyu located ancient Hua-shui River in southern Shanxi Prov and claimed that Huashan Mountain of Shenxi Prov was a name that was later appropriated.

 
The classification of early Chinese into two groups would be an over-simplication. Since issues still exist as to the sub-components that had comprised the two major groups of people, it would be a good generalization for the time being. The issues would be: i) how to explain the relationship of Chiyou vs Huangdi vs Yandi tribal groups; ii) how to explain the fact that dragon-totem Huangdi tribal group shared the same bird-totem as all those a) former cultures and b) latter Dong-yi people; iii) how to explain the fact that Chiyou's Jiu-li (Nine Li2) tribal group could have shared the ox-totem as Yandi tribal group; iv) how to dispute the claim that Huangdi tribal group might have origin in Altaic-speaking people (? wild claim) on the steppe; v) how to refute Scholar Wang Guowei's claim that dragon-totem Xia people dispersed to the north and the west as two respective branches of Huns and Yuezhi after Shang Dynasty overthrew the Xia rule in Henan Prov; and vi) how to explain southern barbarians' adoption of dogs as a possible totem.
 
There had been speculations by someone called Qin Yanzhou in regards to Yandi, Huangdi and Chiyou. Qin Yanzhou claimed that the ox-totem Yandi tribal group had evolved from proto-Xi-Rong people in northwestern China and that the bird-totem (? simoultaneously dragon-totem) Huangdi tribal group had evolved from proto-Bei-Di people in northern China. Qin Yanzhou also claimed that after the mix-up of Yandi/Huangdi tribal groups, they adopted 'dragon' as the totem (??? very speculative). Qin Yanzhou's wild speculations also claimed a direct relationship of those proto peoples to the excavated homo erectus in different areas of China, a physiological fallacy in light of the common knowledge that human beings came from homo sapien sapien instead. Qin Yanzhou had another flaw as far as reconciling the timing and history of San-Miao relocation to Gansu Prov during Lord Shun's reign is concerned.
 
Common-sense historians agreed that Proto-Xi-Rong people who remained in northwestern China would be later Qiang[1] and Di[1] (i.e., ancestors of Tibetan people) while proto-Bei-Di people who remained in northern China would be later steppe people like the Huns and Turks. Proto-Bei-Di people had been linked to later Altai-speaking people like Huns and Turks, while proto-Xi-Rong people would be Qiangic ancestors of Tibetans. The important thing to bear in mind is that at the very early stage of human development, the human migration was diverging to the perimeters, not converging. Hence, the proto barbarians at the perimeter could have only evolved from one origin at the center.
 
Scholar Luo Xianglin's Assertions
Scholar Luo Xianglin, in "History of Chinese Nationalities" (Chinese Culture Publishing Enterprise Co, Taipei, Taiwan, May 1953 edition), stated that ancient China possessed five tribal groups: Xia, Qiang, Di[1], Yi, and Man[2]. Per Luo Xianglin, Xia people first originated in Mt Minshan and upperstream River Min-jiang areas of Sichuan-Gansu provincial borderline. Xia people then split into two groups, with one going north to reach Wei-shui River and upperstream Han-shui River of Shenxi Prov and then east to Shanxi Prov by crossing the Yellow River.
 
The second group, per Luo Xianglin, went south to populate southern Chinese provinces as the 'Yue' people. Luo Xianglin's linking Yue people to Xia people was based on the common lexicon 'yue' which meant for excavated ancient "stone axe".
 
Luo Xianglin stated that five tribal groups of Xia, Qiang, Di[1], Yi, and Man[2] shared the same origin.
 
Discussions In Anthology "Hua Xia Civilization"
Scholar Gao Wei pointed out that the colored Pottery from Taosi Excavations of Longshan Culture in Xiangfen of Shanxi Prov, dated 2400-2500 BC approx, had shown a winding dragon. Should we use the dragon totem as a guide, then this place of excavation (i.e., southern Shanxi Prov) would be the original site of the early Xia people. (Chinese classics had mentioned two dragon-related clans, i.e., the Huan-long-shi clan during Lord Shun's reign and the Yu-long-shi clan during Xia Dynasty. Here, 'huan' meant for raising or husbandry, 'yu4' meant for driving or controlling, while 'long' meant for dragon.) As explained earlier, Longshan Culture excavations, like the preceding Yangshao Culture, had produced potteries with mostly bird totems, including a bird totem with the sun in the wing.
 
Longshan Culture, having interactions with bird-totem Dong-yi people to the southeast, could pose an academic challenge as to the nature of ethnicity. Consensus would be to treat the Longshan Culture as equivalent to Xia Dynasty and to equate Longshan people to the dragon-totem tribe under former Huangdi the Yellow Lord and latter Lord Yu. Should we deem the dragon-totem component as an outsider, then we could still claim the nativity of bird-totem component as the first-stage and accept the emergence of dragon-totem as the second-stage of the culture in this area. The safest bet would be to treat both bird-totem Yi people and dragon-totem Xia people as merely two parallel developing tribal group that shared the same origin. Xia people, per Liu Qiyu, later moved from Shanxi to Henan Prov to establish the dynasty of Xia, and Liu Qiyu validated the demise of Xia in Henan Prov by citing the ancient statement that 'Xia Dynasty ended when the Yi-shui and Luo-shui rivers ran dry'. Xia people certainly brought with them the important dragon totem, a mark that was later observed among the Huns of Mongolia and the Tungus of Manchuria for the thousands of years to come. This important totem also denote their continuous blood or tribal relationship.
 
Ancient records claimed that early legendary lords of Yao [Yao-di], Shun [Shun-di] and Yu [Yu-di] had prospered in different locations of central China at different stages: first Lord Yao (Tao-tang-shi) in southern Shanxi Prov, then Lord Shun (You-yu-shi) in Henan-Shandong provinces, and lastly Lord Yu (Xia-hou-shi) in western Henan Prov. Hence, Tian Changwu compromised different views by stating that Xia people might have two tribes, with 1) father Gun developing in southern Shanxi Prov where they were previously subordinate to Lord Yao and 2) the son Lord Yu developing in western Henan Prov by means of an alliance with descendants of Lord Zhuanxu's tribe. Lord Yu, per Tian Changwu, adopted 'xuan yu' (i.e., black fish) as the totem while his father Gun continued with the dragon totem and Lord Yu's tribe would later absorb his father's native Xia people in southern Shanxi Prov. (The character 'Gun' was a combination of two words: black and fish. Senior scholar Wei Chu-Hsien pointed out that ancient Gun legends in "Shan Hai Jing" implied a possible migration of Gun people to American continents since Gun's body turned into 'huang xiong' [American Brown Bear] in the water.)
 
Burial Difference In Dragon-totem & Bird-totem Peoples
What could be confidently validated would be the burial difference in dragon-totem and bird-totem peoples. Studies of tomb burials from Yangshao and Longshan excavations, per Liu Qiyu, had disclosed two drastically different cultures, with the eastern China containing male-female joint burials while the western China merely single male burials. Liu Qiyu pointed out that the Xia people to the west had adopted the ancient 'concubine inheritance system', i.e., the successors of nobles or lords would take over the concubines and wives of their fathers and brothers instead of forcing those women to be buried alive with their late husbands. Hence, one more linkage, i.e., 'concubine inheritance system', exists to point to the Huns and Turks as the descendants of the Xia people.
 
Reconciliations For Peoples of Different Totems
Qin Yanzhou speculated that proto-Dong-Yi shared similar ancestry as proto-Bei-Di, while proto-Nan-Man shared similar ancestry as proto-Xi-Rong. Qin Yanzhou claimed that proto-Dong-Yi had come to eastern China from the steppe earlier than Huangdi's proto-Bei-Di people's relocation to northern China from the steppe (??? highly speculative !!! Read Shi Zi's statement in regards to deep eyesocket barbarians to the north of Huangdi for clarification). Qin Yanzhou's claim in regards to proto-Nan-Man's relationship to proto-Xi-Rong is close to related studies in regards to relationship between Nü-wa (Nü-wa-shi) around mid-Yangtze area and Fu-xi (Fu-xi-shi) in northern China, but both approaches had violated the historical claim that Nü-wa and Fu-xi had adopted the bird-totem the same way as Eastern Yi people.
 
As a result of conversions and diversions of the said five tribal groups, any allusion to a pure totem distinction would be futile. Should any tribal group possess a totem from another tribal group, it would doubtless be the result of conversion. http://www.xslx.com/htm/shgc/zgls/2004-02-17-16092.htm, in discussion of the ancient overlords Huangdi, Yandi & Chiyou and their wars, had attempted to sort out the tribal groups to no effect. (The merit of this discussion, in my viewpoint, would be the tracing of the origin of a common erroreous claim in regards to "nomadic" or "mobile" nature of Huangdi the Yellow Overlord, hence refuting derivative claim that Huangdi people had link to Altaic steppe people. Author Wang Xiansheng, in pointing out that Shang Dynasty's ancestor, i.e., King Wang-hai, was killed in the You-yi-guo territory while herding sheep and buffalo, with no mention of "horse raising" or "horseback warrior" whatsoever, concluded that Huangdi, who was hundred years earlier than Shang King Wang-hai, would not have anything to do with "horse raising" or "horseback warrior" of the steppe people.)
 
By citing the sentence of "relocating various groups of people and zoning the territories of the nation" inside "Section On Xia Lord Yu" in Sima Qian's "Historian's Records", Scholar Luo Xianglin attributed the i) flooding at the end of Stone Age and ii) Xia people's "quelling floods" activities to the initial migrations and dispositions of five ancient tribal groups. That is how the ancient designations like "zhong [central] xia", "hua [flowery] xia", "zhu [various] xia" and "qu [different?] xia" came about. In Luo Xianglin's viewpoint, four other tribal groups of Qiang, Di[1], Yi, and Man[2] went through a process of conversion and diversion with Xia people. In the west, Qiangic people spread across Tibet-Qinghai-Sichuan-Gansu-Shenxi provinces to become Xi-Rong & Xi-Qiang; in the east, Yi [meaning the people with bows semantically] spread across Jiangsu-Anhui-Shandong-Henan-Hebei-Manchuria to become Dong-Yi; in the south, Man[2] spread across Hubei-Hunan-Jiangxi-Guizhou-Guangxi-Fujian-Zhejiang to become Nan-Man; and in the north, Di[1] spread across Xinjiang-Ningxia-Mongolia-Shanxi-Hebei provinces to become Bei-Di. Here, Xi-Rong or Western Rong meant for later Rong people (Sino-Tibetan speaking Qiangic people) in northwestern China, Bei-Di or Northern Di meant for later northern Di[2] people, Dong-Yi or Eastern Yi people meant for later Yi people in the east, and Nan-Man or Southern Man2 meant for the southern barbarians.
 
Note that Scholar Wang Zhonghan cited "Guan-zi" in stating that it would be around the middle of Warring States time period that Qi Principality editors adopted the terms of four barbarians as might have existed at the time of Guan-zi [Guan Zhong] of Spring & Autumn time period. Any four directional designations earlier than the Warring States time period of Eastern Zhou Dynasty would be merely for sake of differentiating among proto barbarians.