Chinese civilization has 5,000 years of uninterrupted history
hard proof of the first 2,000 years is missing.
Ample evidence does exist of early cultures in the Yellow River Valley, where legend holds that the Chinese language and imperial system took form under a mythical Yellow Emperor 5,000 years ago. But no firmly documented chronology of rulers, reigns and conquests -- of the sort that exists for ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia -- actually goes back beyond 841 B.C.
scholars in disciplines including archaeology, astronomical history, early manuscripts and the parsing of inscriptions on bronze vessels and divination bones had made many new discoveries and synthesized the sketchy evidence.
''A history without chronology is no history at all,'' Mr. Song wrote in a newspaper article this fall. ''It can only be called rumor or myth.''