51G 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



1. We may, I think, distinguish the following local cultures. In the 

 first place comes a Northern Culture.® This extended, within the 

 region which we now call China (its extension outside that area we 

 shall not consider here, since for that purpose the Chinese sources are 

 insufficient), over the present province of Hopei, northern and east- 

 ern Shansi, and northern Shantung as far as a line passing somewhere 

 near the sacred mountain of T'ai Shan. 



C^ Cenier of ths Sha/^ (y/n) 

 ^""^ civi/izmion about /300 B.C. 



Center of f/ie Chou cin- 

 //zafion aSout /300S.C. 



Western Cul/ore 

 (Turkic) 



Northern Culture 

 (Ton^us/cJ 



Southwestern Cut/are 

 (Tibetan) 



Southern Culture 

 (T'ai) 



Coastal Cu/ture 

 (Yueh) 



FiODEK 1.— Approximate limits of the basic Chinese cultures about 2000 D. O. 



That this culture may well have been proto-Tungusic, ethnically 

 speaking, several indications unite to suggest. Among these is its 

 possession of a form of shamanism, practiced by magicians or medi- 

 cinemen who duiing the latter part of the first millennium B. C. 

 played an especially noteworthy part. Significant also in this con- 

 nection is that veneration of the bear which sometimes appears. So 

 too is the occmTence on the Shaug (Yin) Djmasty oracle-bones of a 



• The terms used here to designate these various early cultures are applied on purely arbitrary grounds; 

 personally, I should prefer to distinguish them by the names of their bearers. 



