Chinese civilization has lasted for five thousand years. Why can't the archaeological community find the ruins of the Xia Dynasty?

In fact, there are sites of the Xia Dynasty, but there is no way to verify them, because we have not found any documents of the Xia Dynasty so far. Although most archaeologists in China believe that Erlitou site is the capital of Xia Dynasty, there are still many opposing voices, even questioning the existence of Xia Dynasty.

Because there are many records about the Xia Dynasty in China's traditional literature, but the book was written late, and there is no recognized direct evidence of the existence of the Xia Dynasty, such as the words of the same period of the Xia Dynasty as self-evidence, so people in the field of modern history have always questioned the authenticity of the existence of the Xia Dynasty.

Moreover, internationally recognized "civilization" has several main characteristics: writing, metal smelting, city-state, religious etiquette, and so on. None of them have been confirmed by field archaeology, especially the unearthed cultural relics existing in the Xia Dynasty and the characters used by the Xia Dynasty itself have not been found.

With the continuous excavation of Erlitou site, scholars have noticed that the distribution of Erlitou cultural sites in western Henan and southern Shanxi is roughly consistent with the places where Xia people live in historical documents. Secondly, the early site of Erlitou culture is about 2395 years ago 1625 years, which is equivalent to the Gregorian calendar year of Xia Dynasty.

Therefore, Erlitou culture is designated as Xia culture. According to the research of China scholars, there are Palace No.1 and Palace No.2 in Erlitou site, which are large in scale; At the same time, there is also a rich "slave owner grave" buried with him. Most scholars in China also believe that this place was the capital city in ancient times, but whether Erlitou site is a commercial capital or a summer is controversial.

The opposition mainly comes from abroad. In terms of literature, when foreign scholars interpret the contents of Shang Shu, Bamboo Slips Chronology and Zhong about Xia Dynasty, they point out that the former was written in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the Xia Dynasty was invented by the rulers to seek legitimacy for the destruction of the Zhou Dynasty. The latter is a history book of Wei State, which was written in the middle of the Warring States Period, at least 1000 years away from the Xia Dynasty, and its credibility is not high.

One of the most critical reasons is that no documents of Xia Dynasty have been found so far. Dozens of written symbols have been found on pottery unearthed from Erlitou site, which are considered to be related to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins. However, these simple words cannot prove that Erlitou site belongs to Xia Dynasty. Xu Zhongshu, a famous scholar, even objected to treating these symbols as words, pointing out that in the Xia Dynasty, knots and woodcuts were more used.