In the early 1980s, more complete characters were found on the pottery unearthed from the Xia cultural site in Dengfeng, Henan. This is the earliest written language with exact time confirmed by scholars in China so far.
It is reported that according to the written materials unearthed from archaeological excavations, China had formal written materials at least in the Xia Dynasty. For example, archaeologists once found the word "Wen" in writing brush and calligraphy on a flat pottery jar unearthed from the Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi. These symbols belong to the basic configuration in the early writing system, but unfortunately such unearthed writing materials are still rare.
About 6000 years ago, there were more than 50 kinds of carved symbols on the outer wall of pottery in Yangshao cultural sites such as Banpo site. They are well-planned, regular and have the characteristics of simplified Chinese characters, which may be the bud of Chinese characters.
In the pottery of the late Dawenkou cultural site and Liangzhu cultural site about four or five thousand years ago, relatively regular graphic descriptions were found, which were early graphic characters.
Extended data:
The History of Chinese Characters in China;
Legend has it that Cang Xie created Chinese characters. Cang Xie inspired, classified, collected, arranged and utilized the footprints of birds and animals recorded in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, which played an important role in the creation of Chinese characters and was known as the "sage of word creation".
Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the earliest known mature Chinese character, appeared in Shang Dynasty, and Zhong Dingwen appeared later. Although the number of words increased, it did not change much.
Due to the vast territory of the Zhou Dynasty and the long-term separatist regime, Chinese characters obviously showed abnormal characters among vassal States at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, especially during the Warring States Period. In order to consolidate the rule after the unification of Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang ordered Prime Ministers Lisi, CZ Zhao Gao and Taishi Hu Wujing to sort out the characters, and based on the big seal script of Qin State, made the small seal script as the national standard font.
Later, according to the popular fonts at that time, a simpler font official script was compiled, which was widely circulated throughout the country as a common word. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, regular script appeared and the evolution of Chinese characters was perfect. Not only that, the first calligraphy monograph "cursive script" appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
It used to be said that Chinese characters began in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, but in fact, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is already a mature writing. Before this, Chinese characters should have a development process from generation to maturity, so some people advocate pushing it to the end of summer; Others think that we have our own opinions before promoting Zhixia.
Guo Moruo pointed out in Dialectical Development of Ancient Chinese Characters: "When did Chinese characters originate? I think this can be seen from the age of Xi' an banpo village site. " "Banpo site is about 6000 years old." "Banpo site is a typical Yangshao culture in Neolithic age", "Banpo painted pottery often has some simple descriptions with similar words, which are quite different from the patterns on the utensils. "
"Although the meaning of the description is not clear, it is undoubtedly a symbol with a literal nature." "It can definitely be said that it is the origin of China characters, or the Jie legacy of China's original characters." Accordingly, Chinese civilization should be counted as nearly 6000 years.
When did China's writing begin? When did the oldest writing appear? What do they mean? No agreement has been reached so far, and a lot of materials are needed to explain it.
References:
Baidu Encyclopedia-Chinese Characters