EARLY CHINESE CULTURES— BBERHARD 529 



In the above historical sketch we have omitted any reference to a 

 Hsia Dynasty or a Hsia Culture. This we have done deliberately. 

 For everything that we have in the way of references to that dynasty 

 is in part so vague and questionable, in part so general and so devoid 

 of ethnological significance (since we cannot work with purely pohtical 

 statements), that it does not allow us to draw a picture of a Hsia Cul- 

 ture. Excavations carried on at sites alleged to have been occupied by 

 the ancient Hsias (in southwestern Shansi) have so far brought to 

 light only remains of the Neolithic Period. Hence we do not know 

 whether there was in reality a Hsia Culture at all. If there was, 

 however, its center, according to our working hypothesis, must have 

 been at the focal point where the Northern, the Western, and the 

 Southern Cultures came together. It would thus have differed from 

 the Lung Shan and the Shang Cultures in the absence of any element 

 derived from the Southwestern Culture. All this is, however, so far 

 purely speculative, and has no real basis in ascertained fact. We 

 shall have to await new discoveries before we can form any conclusions 

 in regard to a Hsia Culture. For the present, any attempt to discuss 

 it would be premature. 



PART 3 



In the view presented here, then, the civilization which we call 

 "Chinese" has not been developed from any single source but has been 

 the product of a mixture and union of several quite distinct early local 

 cultures. That of the Shangs, which we may safely term proto- 

 Chinese, took form in the region where the Northern, the Southern, 

 and the Coastal Cultures all met. It was finally overlaid by the in- 

 trusive Chou Culture, which in its turn originated at the point where 

 the Western, Northern, and Southwestern Cultures impinged on one 

 another. In this way there came into being the Chinese civilization 

 properly so-called, with all those distinguishing characteristics which 

 it bears even to this day. 



Our study suggests many questions into which we have not gone at 

 all. For instance, we have made no effort to decide to which one of 

 the early cultures we must ascribe the various forms of stone hatchets 

 found on Chinese Neolithic sites. Neither have we so much as men- 

 tioned the extent to which the art of the Yiieh Culture may have in- 

 fluenced the decorative style found on the Shang Dynasty bronzes. 

 Nor have we raised the question as to which of these early cultures is to 

 be attributed the practice of mother-right on the one hand and of 

 father-right on the other. All such points we shall have to omit. In 

 my opinion, however, our study has already brought out enough to 

 show that these cultures were themselves in no sense unitary struc- 

 tures. Not until we have additional evidence can we, in my beUef, 

 ascribe to one of them the custom of mother-right and deny it to an- 

 other. It seems to me that such details will very probably become 



