Pottery Offers Clues To Origin Of Chinese Characters

Xinhuanet - China View ^ | 3-22-2006 | China View

[blam]

"Not quite sure why early Shang refugees would go all the way to the Bering Strait. It would make much more sense to island hop in the Aleutians."

Yup. The Great Circle route.

[muawiyah]

Betcha' someone was thinking of "Straits of McWallace"

[Cronos]

In Xu's view, the first complex culture in Mesoamerica may have come into existence with the help of a group of Chinese who fled across the seas as refugees at the end of the Shang dynasty. The Olmec civilization arose around 1200 BC, which coincides with the time when King Wu of Zhou attacked and defeated King Zhou, the last Shang ruler, bringing his dynasty to a close.

They really want to prove that they started everything, don't they? Well, actually they didn't. They were responsible for quite a few things, I'll give them, but their bluff in others, makes one doubt everything (an example, martial arts actually developed in Southern India and were taken by Buddhist missionaries from King Asoka into China)

[gleeaikin]

Some years ago I went to the Epcot Center in Orlando, FL to an exhibit on Mexico. There was a pottery cup with a painted figure that looked very much like Japanese/Chinese art. I was surprised. I have spent time in Mexico and had not seen anything that looked like that while I was there. When I took "History and Appreciation of Art" in college I definitely saw figures like that when we covered the Orient.

[Ciexyz]

Sad thing to see Tibet included in the China map.

[blam]

This statue was found in Olmec ruins, La Venta I think.

[blam]

Here's the latset on Chinese characters:

'Earliest Chinese Characters' Unearthed

[Cronos]

Very curious. Wasn't it about 12,000 years ago that Asia orientals walked over what is now the Bering Strait to become North America's Eskimos and American Indians?

well, no. The waves of immigration to the Americas were quite distinct -- the first you have the south Americans like the tribes in the Amazon and the Andes -- they are distinct physiologically and culturally from the north American tribes. Also the Sioux, Cree etc. culturally are nothing like the Mayas. The Aztecs themselves were invaders from the US :)

As for Eskimos, the evidence seems to suggest that they moved much later -- around the time of Christ, from their lands around the northern part of Siberia and LAppland, east and west across the polar ice-cap into Greenland and INuit territory.

[Cronos]

That's the reason I look at any theory made on ancient China by modern Chinese -- they're too close to the Action. A true historian should be removed from his/her point of study -- I'd prefer a Chinese archaeologist studying the wonders of Abbasid Baghdad, for example.

[Cronos]

Sioux sign language IS Shang Dynasty characters.

though north americans are supposedly related to Mongol and Turkic groups. Perhaps the Shang were really Mongols, not Han chinese....

[Cronos]

maybe, but which culture's art were you looking at -- from which place and time, and which level of Chinese art did it resemble? Shang, Tang or later?

[Cronos]

That's because the modern day Chinese govt considers any area conquered by the Manchus to be part of China. Strange that the Manchus were invaders who conquered Han China....

[muawiyah]

"Han" refers to a dominant culture in China. "Mongol" refers to a genotype, and only later on a nation.

You look at the teeth. If they have Chinese "shovel" shaped teeth, then they are "all same thing".

[blam]

"You look at the teeth. If they have Chinese "shovel" shaped teeth, then they are "all same thing"."

I believe it was Christy Turner who gave the designations Sindodont (North Asian 'shovel') and Sundadont (SE Asians) to teeth. (Modern)American Indians predominately have Sindodont teeth while Kennewick Man had predominately Sundadont teeth.

[muawiyah]

And, the Japanese have both kinds, 60% the former, and 40% the latter.

2^ of Caucasion Americans have Chinese teeth.

[gleeaikin]

The ceramic cup I saw at the Epcot center was not identified by Disney in any meaningful way. I saw it 25 years ago, but if I remember correctly the line painting under the glaze resembled painting of figures on silk screens of somewhere between 1500 and 1800 ad, that is why I was so surprised that such "modern" oriental figures would appear on something presumably so much older.

[gleeaikin]

Thanks for the link, but what I really would like is to see some of these characters, and then see if any of them appear in Gloria Farley's book "In Plain Sight" about various alphabets found inscribed on rocks throughout the US.

[SunkenCiv]

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