In the world of Chinese archaeology(考古学), a sign of a dig's importance is the sight of Zhou Mingsheng at work. A field technician who has worked at archaeological sites all around China. Master Zhou is credited with the gentlest touch in his profession. Born into a farming family, he is a "national-level craftsman" with a talent for using simple tools to get relics(遗物) that would crumble in other hands, says his current boss, Wang Xu, director of an archaeological site at Shuanghuaishu, a Neolithic(新石器时代的) settlement near the Yellow River in the central province of Henan.
It is not beauty that attracts visitors to Shuanghuaishu. At 5, 300 years old, the settlement is the work of a culture too simple to have left behind many buried treasures. The single most precious find, to date, is a finger-length sculpture of a silkworm. Nor is the setting lovely: an area surrounded by deafening insects, between a highway and two power stations. Rather, the site's importance is historical. For since the birth of Chinese archaeology in the 1920s, it has been inseparable from claims that China has the oldest unbroken civilisation on Earth.
Leading archaeologists say that the site has the right combination of location, age and distinctive cultural elements to be the capital of an early Chinese kingdom. That would make it a bridge between China's written history and the era of the Yellow Emperor, who is said to rule over these central plains almost 5, 000 years ago, though many foreign scholars doubt his existence. Chinese media call the site proof of China's 5, 000 years of history.
Foreigners complain about a lack of written records, Mr. Wang notes. Perhaps they are missing symbols that will one day be understood, for instance in patterned pottery. Outsiders "can't keep using Western standards to apply to Chinese ruins," he argues.