A new work, The Rise of Agricultural Civilization in China: The Disparity between Archeological Discovery and the Documentary Record and Its Explanation, by Zhou Jixu, puts forth an iconoclastic view of the prehistory of the Yellow River area.
Here’s the abstract:
[quote]This research project puts forward an entirely new viewpoint on the prehistory of the Yellow River area and the evidence for it: the civilization of the Yellow River is not a result of an independent evolution, but of the impact of a foreign upon a native culture. The earliest Chinese agriculture, as revealed by Chinese archeology, rose earlier than 4000 BC in the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. But according to ancient documents, the earliest agriculture occurred in the period of Hou Ji 后稷 (about 2100 BC) in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. Why is there such a large disparity in time? The explanation is this: the story of agriculture and Hou Ji represented the beginning of agriculture only among the people of the nation of Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor), who were originally nomadic. Hou Ji and his people learned to cultivate grains from the earlier native people, who lived in the area of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River 5,000 years ago, yet so far they have been neglected by conventional history. The Yellow Emperor’s nation held the middle reaches of the Yellow River because of their strong force, but they consolidated, expanded, and continued their rule in China by accepting the indigenous agricultural culture. The occupying nation was a branch of the Proto-Indo-European. The historical records, such as Shang Shu, Shi Jing, Zuo Zhuan (Annals of Feudal States), and Shi Ji, etc., were all only descriptions of the rise and fall of the Yellow Emperor’s nation. The earlier native civilizations of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River of 5,000 years ago were excluded from the traditional historical record and therefore have been covered up for 3,000 years. This paper tries to reveal the historical facts with the evidence of archeology, ancient documents, and historical linguistics.[/quote] (emphasis added)
This is issue no. 175 of Sino-Platonic Papers.