In our previous discussion, it was mentioned that Homo erectus was the first subspecies of Homo to reach China. Because the remains were found near Peking popularly they are called the Peking Man. This subspecies inhabited China in the earliest of times, possibly between 800,000 to 400,000 BC. Migrating from the south, Peking man, while small boned, was a great hunter and is suspected of cannibalism. While similar, Peking man is different than homo erectus of Europe/Africa.
They were replaced by archaic hominids, possibly the immediate predecessor to modern Man. These archaic hominids although larger than Homo erectus, did not surpass them in hunting skills, but seemed to have established a more refined social structure and technology. They lived in China from 450,000 to 100,000 BC. (The Human Dawn, p 23) Again these archaic hominids differed from Africa to Europe to Java to China.
The point made is that China is so isolated geographically from the rest of the world that even their human subspecies has evolved in a unique way. China separated by huge mountains from the rest of the world has always done things its own way. This unique evolution is also manifested culturally and racially.
All of the subspecies of hominid were replaced by the evolutionarily superior modern human, homo sapiens sapiens. Presumably they evolved in Africa and then spread north down the Nile Valley into western Asia. This was about 100,000 years ago. From these early points they migrated northwest into Europe and eastward deeper into Asia.
Let us abandon our European human and follow the story of the modern human of Asia at this point.
We must remember that the climate of the earth does not stay constant for 100,000 years. In our short tenure upon the earth, our climate has been relatively consistent. Thus sometimes we think of ourselves living upon a static planet. Indeed until a little over 100 years ago, this was a basic human assumption. (See What is a Mountain? for more in depth coverage of this topic.)
Instead our planet is dynamic both geologically and climatically. The geologic time scale is slow enough that geologic activity has not really had an effect upon our evolution. Geologically the earth has been a relative constant since the modern human evolved. An earthquake here and there, perhaps an occasional volcano changing local geography, but no continental drift to displace the human species on different land forms.
While our species has been relatively unaffected by geological changes, we have been enormously affected by climatic changes in our short duration upon this planet. The main climatic change that has had an enormous effect upon our evolution has been the so-called Ice Ages. The Ice Ages change habitable geography and adaptation strategies, as we shall see. There have been two Ice Ages since we emerged in Africa 100,000 years ago.
About 125,000 years ago the northern ice sheets began to expand. About 100,000 years ago subspecies of Homo presumably evolved from Homo erectus. One subspecies, Homo sapiens, the Neanderthal man, adapted to the increasingly frigid northern climates of Europe and Central Asia. The other homo sapiens sapiens, modern man, evolved in Africa.
60,000 years ago the ice sheets began to retreat. Modern man migrated north from Africa and supplanting the competing subspecies, homo sapiens, about 40,000 years ago. Not only did this new subspecies replace the other, but also expanded the inhabited territory in this relatively warm interglacial time. (Ice Ages pp. 22-3 1983, Time-Life Books)
Then about 35,000 years ago the ice sheets began to expand again. By this time modern man had spread to Siberia. The encroaching ice sheets isolated pockets of humanity. To adapt to the extreme climate the humans changed genetically into an individual race. This was not a new species, just a new race.
The isolation of humans in the severe north produced the Mongoloid racial type, which is best suited to survive extreme cold, with stocky build, small extremities, relatively little body or facial hair, flat faces, and fat padded eyes. (Origins, p 73)
ÒThe primary Mongoloid stock is found principally in North Asia, which includes the Eskimo, the Buryat Mongols the Tunguses of Manchuria, and a number of Siberian tribes.Ó (p. 73 The Origins of Oriental Civilization, Fairservis)
There are also a variety of subdivisions of the Mongoloid occurring due to interbreeding which include the northern Chinese, the American Indians, some Polynesian and Indonesians.
Although Siberia was icy cold it didnÕt have enough water to glaciate and form ice sheets. The Arctic Ocean froze, preventing the release of water. The Scandinavian Ice Sheets sucked up all the water from the Atlantic. The Himalayas blocked any water from the Indian Ocean. The water from the Pacific Ocean was blown eastward into the enormous North American Ice Sheet. Hence the Siberian plains while cold and windswept were not covered by ice and were therefore habitable by the evolving Mongoloid racial type.
Thus the humans migrated over the hills and steppes of Central Asia, north of Lake Baikal, during the warmer interglacial from the Middle East. Then when the ice age expanded their northern route was cut off. Their southeastern route was also cut off by glaciated parts of the Kunlun Mountains. They were trapped in the frigid north. They expanded to fill the habitable areas north, south, and northeast. This would have included Mongolia, Siberia, Manchuria, and Beringia. Their eastward expansion would have been blocked by the glaciation of the Aleutian Islands, which effectively contained the humans in its semi-circular glacial bay.
Since we have a geographical orientation to this paper, let us put Lake Baikal into a geographical perspective. Lake Baikal holds 20% of the fresh water of the world, as much as all of the Great Lakes of North America combined. In terms of surface area it is only the fifth largest lake on the planet. However it is a mile deep, almost 5 times deeper than any of the Great Lakes, which is why it holds so much water.
According to some scientists, Lake Baikal is part of a widening rift that will eventually split Asia in two. While it is splitting Asia in two, it is also the dividing line between two types of human culture, the nomadic to the west and the hunter to the east. Humans trapped east of Lake Baikal turned into the Mongolian race. They developed sophisticated hunting and fishing technologies, while humans on the western side developed a pastoral nomadic life style to deal with the arid steppes and grasslands.
The enormous amount of water in Lake Baikal moderates the temperatures in the surrounding countryside like an ocean. The temperatures around the lake are almost 20 degrees lower or higher than the extreme temperatures of adjacent areas. It ranges from 64 degrees at its hottest in the summer to -60 degrees below in the winter at its coldest. While cold, surrounding areas can get down to almost -80 degrees below zero. Hence it is likely that the humans separated by the Ice Age would locate next to the Lake Baikal.
Furthermore Lake Baikal is a thriving eco-system. While the Great Lakes were formed during the last Ice Age, some 10,000 years ago, Lake Baikal is the oldest lake in the world at some 25 million years old. Because of its age, many unique species have evolved there. Of the 1700 unique species of plants and animals that inhabit the lake, over 1000 of the species are unique to Lake Baikal. (Rivers and Lakes, Time-Life Planet Earth 1985, p 158) Thus this thriving eco-system, which had survived and evolved for 25 million years, would also be able to support human life, even under the most extreme conditions.
WeÕve mentioned the aridity of Central Asia. Lake Baikal would have been like an arctic oasis to these primitive humans – moderating the extreme cold, providing fresh water and plenty of game.
336 rivers and streams drain into Lake Baikal, which drains 13% more surface area than all the Great Lakes combined. Half of the water comes from the Selenga River out of northern Mongolia. The only outlet for Lake Baikal is the Angara River, which flows north into the 2,364-mile long Yenisei, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. Seemingly all rivers in Central Asia flow towards Lake Baikal.
While Lake Baikal, provided the western boundary for the evolving Mongoloids, their eastern boundary was growing. As the Ice Age increased in intensity, the water levels dropped. 18,000 years ago the Ice Sheets reached their greatest expansion. At their peak, so much water had been absorbed into the Ice sheets of the poles that water levels had dropped some 400 feet around the world. This meant that the coastal plains were some 250 miles wider. The Bering Strait between Asia and North America called the Beringia land mass at the time was 1000 miles wide. In addition Òthe archipelago of islands that stretches south east from the Malay Peninsula became an unbroken land form linking Sumatra, Java and the Philippines with the Asian mainland.Ó As a sidelight Ireland, England and France were also connected.
Thus the migrations and settlements of these evolving Mongoloids were at areas that were warmer, hence lower in altitude. The areas of choice were probably the 250 miles of coastland that is underwater now. Thus it is very likely that there was a relatively thriving culture on the landmass of Beringia, which had spread from Asia.
As the Ice Sheets began to retreat, they released massive amounts of water into the oceans. This caused the ocean levels to rise. As the geological tide rose, these truly ancient cultures retreated to higher land. In such a way they were separated by natural landmasses to evolve in their own ways on their own continents. These cultures suffered the drastic effects of global warming which turned habitable land into underwater land. The tide rose forever upon these cultures.
The Beringian culture was forced to spread south onto both continents. Some of the Beringians retreated back into Siberia, while others proceeded south along the wider coastal plains of North America now that the glaciers were receding.
The expansion and contraction of the Glacial Ice Sheets acts like a migrational pump, turning different areas habitable and uninhabitable in alternate cycles. The glacier action first connects and then disconnects areas, giving rise to continual waves of migration.
The presently submerged landmass of Beringia fits this pattern. Now it is uninhabitable. From 25,000 to 13,000 BC it was above the waves and habitable, at least as a land bridge. It was also above the ocean between 50,000 to 40,000 BC. Because of charcoal from a hearth in Brazil that seems to be 40,000 years old, many specialists are shifting to the idea that humans migrated to the Americas in this earlier period. (Human Dawn, Time-Life p 77)
Whichever migratory pattern is more accurate with the end of the last major Ice Age we find archaeological traces of a hunting and gathering society from about 20,000 BC. These traces are found in China, Mongolia, Manchuria, and the Americas. It is assumed that this is the culture that inhabited and migrated over the Bering Straits when it was still a land bridge called Beringia. (The Arts of China by Hugh Munsterberg, Charles E. Tuttle Company 1972 p20) Furthermore dental evidence connects the Beringian culture of Asia and the Americas.
ÒDental evidence from skeletal remains confirms the view that native Americans all originated in northeast Asia, in the Siberian triangle formed by Beringia, northern China, and Lake Baikal.Ó (Time Frame: The Human Dawn, p. 77)
We mention these facts primarily to indicate the interaction of the peoples of this area of the Earth even unto the most ancient times. We will return to the Siberian connection to North China, when we examine the Shang culture.
Whichever scenario is true doesnÕt matter for the purposes of this paper. It is a fact that all of the native Americans of both continents are from the Mongoloid stock coming from the triangle of Lake Baikal, Beringia and North China. (Human Dawn, Time-Life p 77) Furthermore the Mongoloid race did not evolve in China, but in northern Asia.
The original Chinese were derived racially from another culture centered below the Malay Peninsula, which spread north and south also. The extreme linguistic differences between the north above China and China to the south could have its roots in these glacial times. A separation, which produced racial differentiation, would also be likely to also produce linguistic differentiation as well.
The glaciation that separated the Mongolian plain from the Yellow River Valley of China thawed relatively early compared to the frigid but dry north. Furthermore the tide was coming in on the expanded coastal plains of China. Hence population pressures due to shrinking land combined with a new post glacial geography pushed and allowed these nomadic Mongoloids to migrate south into the Yellow River Valley. By the second millennium all the Northern Chinese were a blend of Mongoloid and native Chinese stock.
The image we get is of a southern Indo-Chinese culture populating and spreading into the China plains. Then separately the Mongoloid race evolved in Siberia. With the end of the last Ice Age, these hardy northern peoples moved south supplanting and marrying into the indigenous people. Moving across the Pass of the Mongolian desert and south along coastal Manchuria, the sparse though aggressive settlers left their native language behind to adopt the uniquely Chinese persona.
ÒIn all probability, the aboriginal groups in southwest and south China were the original inhabitants of the continent and were driven out or replaced by and amalgamated with the Chinese, much like the American Indians with reference to the American and the Ainus with reference to the Japanese.Ó (EB; China, p 540d)
Surviving the Ice Age toughened the Siberian culture to the north, while the southern culture had an easier time of it. Hence it is likely that the northern culture would easily dominate the southern culture.
Thus China itself at this early time was a cultural fracture zone between the Siberian/Mongolian culture to the north and the Southeast Asian cultures to the south. Thus while the original cultures were predominantly southern, the dominating culture would be the Mongoloids from the north. This is a common Chinese theme – the sparsely populated but aggressive nomadic northern peoples dominating the sedentary cultures to the south.
Remember that China has been inhabited continuously by different subspecies of Homo for close to a million years. This continuity of habitation combined with the aforementioned natural geographical isolation has led to certain cultural, genetic and linguistic characteristics that are uniquely Chinese. Because of this feature most of the early external influences had more to do with cultural diffusion and less to do with military invasion. In prehistoric times China was relatively immune to invasion, as it was inhabited by many tribes or villages isolated by the crisscross mountains mentioned above. This was especially true in prehistoric times, when transportation and weaponry were not that sophisticated.
Thus this merger of the northern Mongoloid and southern indigenous peoples, combined with ChinaÕs aforementioned geographical isolation has created a unique though indefinable Chinese race. After thousands of years of intermarriage they are neither pure Mongoloid or pure indigenous. They are a blend. While a blend the north retains a Mongoloid flavor while the south retains the indigenous flavor. This has also had cultural manifestations, which we shall explore.
The relative speed of racial differentiation is seen in the Americas. In Mexico, the Spaniards intermarried with the native Indians creating the Mexican, neither European nor Indian. Similarly, but more subtly, the citizens of the United States with European stock have intermarried creating the Anglo-American. While the Mexican has both Indian and Spanish blood, the Anglo-American has no Indian blood, never marrying the natives, only wanting their land. This raciation only took about 400 years, while the Chinese of north and south have been intermarrying since the last Ice Age retreated, maybe 10,000 years ago.