Abstract
It was in the Yellow River Valley that the Chinese civilization came into being. Here, especially in the Zhongyuan or Central Plain region—that is the area around the middle course of the Yellow River (Figure 1)—the first dynasties mentioned in early historical sources had their area of geographical distribution. Recent archaeological studies carried out in this region were able to identify a local sequence evolving directly from the Henan Longshan Culture (2600–2000 B.C.), into the Erlitou Culture, the latter being supposed to include the remains of the semi-legendary Xia (approximately 21st to 17th centuries B.C.), China’s first recorded dynasty and perhaps also its earliest state formation.
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Wiesheu, W. (1997). China’s First Cities. In: Manzanilla, L. (eds) Emergence and Change in Early Urban Societies. Fundamental Issues in Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1848-2_4
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