Talk:Shang dynasty/Archive 2

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Craniometrics

In the latest diffs, Easy772 misrepresents the material completely and apparently deliberately. The Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia focuses on remains from Ban Chiang and has the Shang as one of its plot points; on page 83, it does not say what he claims it does about Shang similarities to Ban Chiang skulls. You are contorting a book that uses the word "Shang" one time in order to further your notion that AA = Shang. This is not acceptable editor behavior. Ogress _smash! 09:08, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it does. read it again. --Easy772 (talk) 09:35, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The edit says "other scholars", but both citations are articles by Michael Pietrusewky, discussing the same data on Ban Chiang in northern Thailand, with Anyang as one of several outside points of comparison. Any statements about Anyang are thus incidental to the main thrust of his work. His dendogram (figure 3.6 in the book, figure 8 in the paper) does group Anyang with Taiwan and Hainan, but his sampling in China is thin, as it is not his main focus. It does not support the claims about Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Jomon, all of which are placed further away than the other Chinese samples. An additional problem is that the Anyang skulls he examined were of sacrificial victims, which were often war captives. This all demonstrates that in a contentious area like the origins of peoples, our interpretations and deductions from research papers cannot be relied on. We need reliable secondary sources focussed directly on the matter. Kanguole 09:54, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It's different interpretations on the same set of crania. I can easily find secondary sources. Easy772 (talk) 10:01, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

When you cite something in a book that is a collection of separately authored chapters, it's important to give the title and author(s) of the chapter you're citing rather than attributing the views to the editor of the book. (You made the same mistake with Jing-Schmidt and DeLancey above.) In this case the chapter and the paper had the same author, who in both articles was drawing the same conclusions from the same data. Your presentation of some say this but other scholars say that was entirely spurious.

Finding secondary sources would be a good idea, but they'd need to be focussed on the subject you want to use them for. Kanguole 14:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The author from the second citation clearly believes the Shang were better represented by Taiwanese Han and Cantonese speaking Han than by modern Southeast Asians (Though it should be important to note that all East Asians are closer to Southeast Asians than they are to Central and Northeast Asians in terms of physical anthropology.. You can see this by examining Howell's data set which is open to the public). Personally I think this is much more likely than the Shang being "Khmer-like" or "Thai" etc. as I mentioned before. It's possible they examined the measurements and photographs of the same cranial series or compared them to the measurements of different modern populations. e.g. The tree on page 129 in the second citation clearly matches the text I posted and wasn't included in the first citation (unless I missed it, I was up pretty late reading). I was trying to be objective by showing different sides/interpretations.

Regarding the sources not supporting the claims about Laos, Jomon and Vietnam. They most certainly do. First we have to realize that there are two analysis being explained in the first citation. The first one is where I obtained that quote:

"These results indicate a possible connection between Bronze Age Anyang (northern China), and Jomon Japanese with Ban Chiang, early Indo China and the Non Nok Tha series." Page 72

For the second analysis:

"Closer inspection for the smallest distances for Ban Chiang and Khak Phanom Di indicate similarities between these groups, modern Southeast Asians and the bronze age Chinese series from Anyang." Page 83

The second citation seems to place more emphasis on the similarity with Southern Chinese which is why I included it for objectivity. The dendrogram on page 129 and analysis of it does not appear in the first paper, unless it's on one of the pages not included on the preview. I will access a hard copy.

http://seasiabib.museum.upenn.edu:8001/pdf_articles/BIPPA/1997_16_Pietrusewky.pdf

Regarding the Anyang remains being not representative of average Shang population, I think it's definitely plausible and have heard it before (not from scholars but on comments on Dienekes, Eurogenes and forums etc.) There is also recent genetic evidence of a population from the North of China migrating south and claiming noble status ~1000 BC (Link to paper on Eurogenes), who is to say this didn't start earlier? No one is entirely certain about the demographic shifts in China that arose along with the change in cultures/dynasties at this time period. Personal speculations on the nature of this should be avoided though, we should stick to the author's analysis of the dendrogram and measurements rather than do our own. Anyways, If you are aware of any scholarly consensus or criticisms that they were not representative of average Shang people, please post the citation here and I would gladly include it in my paragraph.

@Ogress: If you think I am the one being biased in this matter, again, I am willing to submit a request for informal mediation to determine "due weight" and if we can't agree there, then proceed to formal mediation etc. Hopefully we can just hammer the details out here and save time. Easy772 (talk) 15:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

This is a classic case of not having the background to make full use of the source. Yes, there were Southeast Asian types discovered in Anyang "large graves," specifically the sacrificial pits. But they were not the only types discovered in these pits, and further they do not stand for the general population of the Shang people themselves because they are *sacrificial victims*, which were frequently taken from war captives. It is indeed as Kanguole said - you have to be careful when using primary sources when you are not an expert on the subject. There have been a plethora of anthropological studies on the Shang population in China and I can assure you that they do not support the clause that the Shang people = Shang sacrificial victims = Southeast Asian types. For example, the "small and medium" graves studied in this paper: http://meeting.physanth.org/program/2013/session13/zeng-2013-preliminary-research-on-hereditary-features-of-yinxu-population.html are widely believed to have been from the actual Shang citizenry due to their "free" status and their residency within the Shang capital, and the contrast with your example is stark. You'd do well to not hastily add sources as they lead to these sorts of disputes. Lathdrinor (talk) 18:31, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

@Lathdrinor: I think it's quite the opposite. I think you are synthesizing work from other disciplines to assume that the people in these pits were definitely slaves taken from other areas as war captives rather than local sacrificial victims. I summarize the findings of this *actual research* which *explicitly* support similarity with Anyang other populations. If you have a scholarly citation that says the remains weren't good representatives of 'typical Shang' you should post it, otherwise your just guessing based on personal interpretation. Regarding the 'Yinxu paper' You know you have to look at Y-DNA, mtDNA and atDNA to get a good idea of a population, this focuses solely on mtDNA. Also the paper itself is cautious with it's findings, whereas the author is quite confident in his findings in the paper I cited. The 'Yinxu paper' also fails to compare remains of the Yinxu with remains from cultures which archaeological record show to be at least partly ancestral to the Shang. However, since I don't think this sort of "armchair scholarship" should be applied to whether or not it's included in the Shang page, it's best just to note the authors caution, which I did.

Another assumption you're making is that the Shang were homogeneous when they were obviously a "cosmopolitan" culture and very diverse, the "elite" probably changed frequently during dynastic and cultural shifts. Most of the research I've seems to be pointing to a similarity with modern Hong Kong and Han Taiwanese first and foremost by the way, not Southeast Asian precisely, but certainly not representative the same population inhabiting the region today.

I would also like a citation that the remains discussed were found in 'large graves' vs 'small graves' and also the "plethora" of studies which explicitly support your views. Easy772 (talk) 19:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

YOU CONTINUE TO BOLD YOUR QUOTES, WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT Ogress _smash! 20:42, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

No, let's not debate how these research papers should be interpreted. My point was that it is unsafe to try to interpret primary sources in a contentious area like population history, and that's been amply demonstrated. You said you were going to find secondary sources – that is the way forward. Not tertiary sources, mind, and they need to have more than a passing treatment of the topic. Kanguole 21:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It's only "unsafe" because of your interpretation of the Anyang remains not representing common members of Shang. I think the research is quite clear even using a primary source. However since a secondary source is required, I think the book' Bioarchaeology' qualifies as secondary as in "generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources." "They rely on primary sources for their material, making analytic or evaluative claims about them." It's a book not a research paper after all.

Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Easy772 (talk • contribs) 00:08, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Easy772 denied that he was pushing a racial ethno-agenda when I noted the similarities between the content being added and certain trolls on interent forums claiming the Shang were southeast asians who got invaded and conquered by "Tibeto-Burman" Zhou. Now he is adding stuff about how Shang people are racially southeast asian right after he was adding the part about their language being AA.Rajmaan (talk) 22:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Please re-read, most of the evidence clearly points to Shang remains from the sacrificial pits being closest to Han Cantonese and Han Taiwanese. Yet again more ad hominem and also a straw man tactic now. Look it's even reiterated here:

"Ancient and modern Chinese and Thai skeletal populations were used for this biological distance analysis. The ancient Chinese population is from northern China at Anyang dating to the Shang Dynasty (1600BC-1046BC) while its modern counterpart is located in Hong Kong dating from 1977-1983. Individuals from both populations are thought to have belonged to the Han ethnic group and are possibly biologically related."

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap/10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:osu1306430849

2 primary sources show sacrificial pit Anyang remains to be closest to Southern Chinese. 1 secondary source says modern Southeast Asians, though it should be noted that Southern Chinese have significant amounts of Southeast Asian admixture, obviously.

--Easy772 (talk) 00:08, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

@Easy772: "We find photographs of five types of crania excavated from sacrificial pits at Anyang. The bodies were buried in the ramps around the grave during the sacrificial process.7 Here it is important to note that the crania from the sacrificial pits are thought to be the remains of those who were captured in war and subsequently executed when ritually needed.8 " http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp132_anyang.pdf

The issue with any study using the remains in the sacrificial pits is the difficulty of establishing the actual identity of the sacrificial victims. Whether they were local/foreign is indeterminable from simply looking at the bones, though sources such as Li Ji 1977 establish them as war captives. The study you quoted failed to make this distinction and in any case isn't about the anthropological identity of the Shang, to begin with. Simply quoting a primary source without giving context and balance is a form of spin and therefore violates WP:NPOV. Provided you desperately want to talk about physical anthropology, you ought to find a balanced set of sources, and not just ones supporting your POV. The link I gave you spoke of Pamir-Ferghana type skeletons, for example, in the sacrificial pits, being 'most represented.' How do you plan to balance that with your own study? What are your credentials for doing so?

Primary sources are problematic precisely because Wikipedia editors lack the necessary expertise to actually interpret them. I see no cause to believe otherwise here. Lathdrinor (talk) 01:25, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

@Lathdrinor: Thanks for the paper. I am completely fine with including the information from your paper regardless of how the Pamir-Ferghana type skeletons relate to modern populations. Regarding "my plan", I would probably lay all the relevant information out as close to verbatim as possible without affecting the flow of the paragraph. I don't feel comfortable discussing my personal information with people on an open forum like this. If you want to inquire about my background/credentials etc. feel free contact me in another fashion.

In the future, If I'm coming off "one-sided", don't hesitate to educate me on the other side of the story. Easy772 (talk) 03:35, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

So the core issues seem to be 1) not giving due weight to other scholars identification of the Southern Chinese/Southeast Asian sacrificial pit remains as war captives. 2) Identification of the other types present in the sacrificial pits. 3) Cautionary note that the remains of the elite have not been compared. Provided I add these, does any one have a problem with the material I'm adding?

Is it my responsibility to be aware of every scholar's position/interpretation, by the way? I think it's more proper to post the opposing/balancing views in the paragraph rather than obliterate my citations from the face of Wikipedia. Thanks Easy772 (talk) 17:43, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

No, the core issues are using primary sources and sources focussed on something else. Kanguole 18:10, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Does it have to be the "focus" of the source if it's discussed extensively? Is there a policy for that? "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation" I see this now, (and apologize, again, I am new to wiki and it's policies).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

I have a a secondary source stating "Howells has gone to great lengths using discriminant function analysis and other methods to demonstrate that the people buried in these sacrificial pits represent ordinary North Chinese living during the Shang dynasty and do not represent individuals of composite or mixed origin as originally believed by Yang (1966)." So, apparently there are indeed more sides to this than you and Lathdrinor let on and I am not the one that can be accused of being "one-sided" or "not knowing every scholars opinion" etc.

https://books.google.com/books?id=RTsXTy5aBgQC&pg (Page 225)

Does anyone have a problem with the material in Lathdrinors link being posted? I find most of that extremely interesting as well? 1) Significant West Eurasian element to most of the remains in the pits, also Oceanian, Mongoloid (from either low class or war captives from regions ot the south) etc.

2) Cautionary note about assuming these remains are the Shang "elite" which have not been compared as of yet.

3) Speculation about the multicultural nature of the Shang. http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp132_anyang.pdf --Easy772 (talk) 19:38, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Stop conducting WP:Original Research and WP:Synthesis and actually read wikipedia policy before making suggestions. Sino-Platonic papers are explicitly published by Victor Mair for the purpose of trying to establish all sorts of inane connections as possible between ancient China and Central Asians (Indo-Europeans). Mair has an obsession for trying to prove Chinese civilization originates from Indo-Europeans. It isn't a neutral source either as Mair lets any Joe Shmoe come up with a new theory and publish something in it.Rajmaan (talk) 21:00, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

@Rajmaan: Lathrindor was the one who gave me the citation, you should direct your comment to him/her then. The paper itself seems clear that the Indo-Europeans were probably captives or slaves, at best low-class. There's no possible way to interpret it as an Indo-European 'cultural elite' or anything of the sort. I wasn't aware of the bias in Sino-Platonic papers, and I respect your opinion and don't doubt the validity of your claim of the bias of these papers, but do you have a source where a scholar critiques the papers as such or it's publisher Victor Mair?

Some new quotations from the secondary source:

1) The "late lithic samples" from Laos and Vietnam and the prehistoric samples from Thailand and the prehistoric samples from Thailand generally grouped together and were separate from the Bronze Age sample in Anyang. In a second broader analysis using 30 comparative series, Ban Chiang and "late lithic" Laos were members of a Southeast Asian cluster made up of modern and pre-historic series and separate from southern (Hong Kong) and northern (Anyang) Chinese samples

2) The closest series to Ban Chiang was the late bronze age Chinese from Anyang, followed by a lesser degree to similarities with Jomon crania.

Easy772 (talk) 01:53, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

If some judgement is to be presented in an article, it needs to come from a reliable secondary source. It is not enough to assemble evidence from reliable sources and make a deduction from that – in WP terms, that would be synthesis. Kanguole 12:40, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I too would like to see some published sources of this alleged "bias". Professor Mair is an internationally recognized authority on Chinese languages and cultures, and his Sino-Platonic Papers is cited in 750 WP articles. There is no reason to respect either historical revisionism or archaeological denialism. Keahapana (talk) 20:19, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Anyang and Hainan

I was wondering why Howells was comparing Shang sacrificial victims with Hainan of all places in this article:

Howells, William (1983). "Origins of the Chinese People: Interpretations of recent evidence". In Keightley, David N. (ed.). The Origins of Chinese Civilization. University of California Press. pp. 297–319. ISBN 978-0-520-04229-2.

It seems it was an accident of history. When he was doing this work in the early 70s, there was no access to the mainland. Whan he did have access to was two sets of material in Taibei:

a collection of skulls of Shang sacrificial victims brought to Taiwan by the fleeing Nationalists, and housed at the Academia Sinica in Taibei. (pp304–5)
"recent Chinese skulls collected on Hainan Island by the energetic Takeo Kaneseki" held at National Taiwan University (p305) (Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945.)

So he used what he could access and made his inferences from those. But of course much more and less remote material have become available since. Kanguole 00:05, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. What's surprising is that to this day, that still remains the best match to the Shang crania according to all the work Pietrusewky has done in recent years. Easy772 (talk) 04:22, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I was interrupted and had to cut my thought short. In my mind it wasn't surprising that the Shang remains would be physically closer to Southern Chinese. I'm no expert on Chinese history, but how many times have Chinese relocated south due to conflict with foreign northern dynasties? Even as early as 400 AD there is historical evidence of this. I think it's more incredulous to think that, given this well documented history, Northern Chinese would be the same today as they were in the bronze age. Easy772 (talk) 05:14, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

And yet, Howells concludes the opposite (p313):

At the moment, the safest hypothesis seems to be that the population of China in this northern region has been constant in physique, or at least in cranial form, and also surprisingly homogeneous, since the Neolithic.

Although Pietrusewky, working in the 90s, had more Chinese specimens, he had none from north China. That's reasonable for his work, seeking to identify the relatives of Ban Chiang in northern Thailand. I would suggest that the southern grouping you're seeing is another artifact. Kanguole 09:02, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I noticed that, which is why I brought it up. Bowles(1977) was "more correct" in his observations of the cranial diversity possibly reflecting genetic diversity in modern Chinese. Howell's whole argument of continuity relies on Hainanese being representative of modern Han, which they are, but not necessarily an indicator of the continuity he posits. Later works both in genetics and bioarchaeology confirm this diversity in Han Chinese. Easy772 (talk) 18:05, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Oops. I did not see your second statement regarding Pietrusewsky's work. That is a valid point and I'm open to the idea that comparisons to modern Northern Chinese might alter the conclusions. e.g Some analysis he's done show Korean the second closest to Hainan. The Korean population itself has been speculated to have gone through a demographic transformation resulting from bronze-age rice agriculturalists expanding from China, which could account for the phenotypic similarity. Both Hainanese and Korean crania have been noted by Pietrusewsky to be similar to many Southeast Asian series (I can't really speculate on this for Korea, but for Hainan the assimilation of 'Yue' groups seems likely), but this similarity is not noted for the Northeast China (Manchuria) series he used. I wouldn't be surprised if certain areas in Northern China physically differed from Northeast China though (especially in the Northwest). Also, I know you dislike the 'machine translated' papers I post and I agree that they probably don't have a place on Wikipedia, but it has been noted that bronze-age Chinese do have southern affinities, while still being related to North Chinese. I think this fits Hainan pretty well. Easy772 (talk) 20:36, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

All of this is a further demonstration of the problems with attempting to interpret primary sources in this area, and thus the need to rely on relevant secondary sources. Kanguole 23:40, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we add any of my speculations to the section, I was merely responding to your speculations that 1) modern North Chinese might be closer to Anyang than Hainanese, which I'm willing to entertain however unlikely, but we have no evidence of this. 2) Howell's statement that North Chinese are unchanged since the Neolithic is correct, this was more of a caution since this has been refuted since then.

Anyways, I'm certainly not misinterpreting the similarity between Taiwanese, Hainanese and bronze-age north Chinese. This is explicitly and plainly stated. Pietrusewsky's entry The Physical Anthropology of the Pacific, East Asia, and Southeast Asia: A Multivariate Craniometric Analysis in Sagart's book is considered secondary according to WP:ANALYSIS, it specifically says "Secondary sources are not necessarily independent or third-party sources" which when clicked on, states that a scholar reviewing his own work is considered secondary. His work deals with all people of the Pacific, Southeast Asia and East Asia and he is no novice to working with the Anyang remains. As I said before this conclusion is based on decades of research, which did include research directly dealing with Anyang and how they related to modern Chinese (If you look here) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Easy772 (talk • contribs) 04:18, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Pietrusewsky's study in that book explicitly excludes Anyang and other ancient sites. There is only a passing mention when he recounts his earlier work in the introduction. Kanguole 10:18, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

This is where we disagree. What you call a "passing mention", I call a explicit and plainly stated conclusion. There is no room for misinterpreting his remark. You make it seem as if he were to go into detail the conclusion would be altered, but this is not the case. If you look at his recent work: Biological Connections across the Sea of Japan: A Multivariate Comparison of Ancient and More Modern Crania from Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, you'll note that the closest relationship is still Hainanese. He also concludes: "Possible connections between the premetal inhabitants of Southeast Asia, such as Ban Chiang, Bronze Age Chinese (Anyang), Hainan Island, and modern Ryukyu Island series, are further implied by these results." Easy772 (talk) 18:12, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

And has Pietrusewsky stated a specific conclusion about Anyang in of any these acticles? If so, please quote it. (None of the quotes given so far come close.) Kanguole 15:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

"The separation between southern (e.g., Hainan and Taiwan) and northern Chinese samples in the present results supports earlier work in physical anthropology (e.g., Wu et al., 2007; Zhang, 1999) and molecular genetic studies (e.g., Kivisild et al., 2002; Shi et al., 2005) that has demonstrated systematic differences between northern and southern Chinese. Hainan Island, Taiwan, Anyang, and Korea form a group that is intermediate between one that includes the remaining Chinese and all of the Japanese cranial series, an association that suggests that this region is the likely source of Eastern Asians on both sides of the Sea of Japan. The inclusion of the Shang Dynasty Anyang cranial series in this intermediate clustering adds an element of antiquity to this association."A multivariate analysis of measurements recorded in early and more modern crania from East Asia and Southeast Asia- 2009.

I would also like to say that I think this is unfair. I've found multiple quotes from reliable sources directly and explicitly stating that Anyang and Hainan lack differentiation, group together or are connected. But, because you deem it a "mention" rather than a "statement" it should be completely omitted. e.g I find a quote saying "Dogs and wolves are biologically close to coyotes" and you say "The statement is only a brief mention and it's not about dogs or wolves but coyotes". Do you see how ridiculous that is? Howells (1983) is "directly related" to Anyang remains, do you object to me posting my section based on that source? He notes "a lack of differentiation" in Hainanese and Anyang and also bases his argument for continuity on it. Easy772 (talk) 18:25, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

The passage you quote is broad and has little usable information about the Shang. In addition, it's plucked out of the middle of the paper. His actual conclusion is "The Shang Dynasty cranial series from Anyang, Korea, and the modern cranial series from Manchuria are among the series most closely associated with the source population that ultimately was responsible for the modern Han Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, people who live on either side of the Sea of Japan." Which is also quite diffuse, but doesn't support what you want to say.

Rather than talking about dogs, let's take a quote you offered previously as an example: "The closest series to Ban Chiang was the late bronze age Chinese from Anyang". That is not the same as saying that Ban Chiang is the closest series to Anyang, nor does it say anything about how close Ban Chiang and Anyang are.

After looking at Howells (1987), I think it's dated, because the data used is so limited, and so much more has become available since. But again you're picking something out of the middle of the paper, and again his conclusion (that Chinese in that area have been physically much the same from Neolithic to the present) doesn't fit with what you want to say. Kanguole 23:51, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

This discussion is getting super long so I'm adding in an arbitrary break: continue discussing after it. Ogress _smash! 01:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

con·clude: arrive at a judgment or opinion by reasoning

So we're only allowed to use conclusion sections? Both Howells and Pietrusewsky state clearly and explicitly the similarity between Anyang and Hainanese so indeed they do conclude this, they just don't do so in the conclusion section. I think this is where you are confused, "Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves" (WP:NOR) does not mean I am limited to the conclusion section if a statement is written elsewhere that "arrives at a judgement". Both authors clearly arrive at a judgement that Anyang and Hainan are similar and they always go hand-in-hand when being compared in Pietrusewsky's work if you didn't notice. These two groups have been the closest in every research paper he's done actually, while the other groups have shifted positions depending on methods, samples or what have you.

Again you seem to be implying that I am misleading people, or perhaps misinterpreting something, by "picking from the middle", but I am correct about these quotations. You can take a look a look at the dendrogram and distance analysis and see for yourself. So if I were to say "Scholars note that there is little differentiation between Anyang bronze-age remains and Hainanese" this is a fact, the only problem we're having now is finding a source you deem relevant enough for inclusion. The sources generally dealing with "analyzing East and Southeast Asian skeletons both past and present" are relevant enough. What you're arguing is like like saying an analysis on a East Asian and Southeast Asian genetics paper is not a good enough citation for, say, Thailand because it's not directly about Thailand. Again, ridiculous.

Because some of the information is outdated in Howells (1983) all of it should be omitted? Some of what he says has been proven wrong, I've already posted some quotes showing this, but that doesn't mean his conclusions that:

Anyang are physically within the range of modern Chinese
The Anyang remains are not foreign
Anyang, Taiwanese and Hainanese lack differentiation

are outdated. The only things that are really outdated are his assumption that there would be little-to-no phenotypic differentiation in East Asians based on their geographic position.

By the way, not of importance but perhaps of interest, the conclusion that East Asians came out of a "northern hearth" does fit my priors quite well, I have no problem posting this. Easy772 (talk) 02:38, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Pietrusewsky's and Howells's "Anyang sample" is quite explicitly listed as "Shang Dynasty sacrificial victims" and cannot be used to argue about the rest of the Shang population. Provided you want to include a section on craniometrics, this has to be specified, and not generalized to the Shang population as a whole. As I stated before, there has been quite a bit of research on Shang "small and medium tombs" in China, and the results do not match Howell's and Pietrusewsky's conclusions for the "sacrificial victims." Yet, because there is virtually no joint research between Chinese and Western scholars, we cannot make any statements about whether their methodologies, standards, etc. are consistent. Therefore, it's best not to WP:SYNTH the available data at all, and to simply describe Howells's and Pietrusewsky's research as they pertain to "sacrificial victims" and to leave it at that. Lathdrinor (talk) 17:25, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I never planned to exclude that fact from my paragraph, it's actually in the first sentence. I agree we should not post a synthesis of research, but can you link me to some of these Chinese research papers? I've only seen roughly translated material e.g. like this, which is an example of bronze age Chinese remains described as "primarily East Asian with some Southeast Asian" being compared to Yinxu (And yes, I'm aware that Wayagou remains being similar to Yinxu doesn't necessarily imply the opposite is true). A lot of the new evidence seems to note a cosmopolitan aspect to bronze-age China and I won't deny that there may have been class substructures or what have you. I also won't deny the idea of a "bronze-age north Chinese hearth" mentioned before. e.g Even if you look at the Yinxu mtDNA/crania paper, the Hongshan culture of Northeast China is quite distant from Yinxu, but suddenly during the bronze age it's successor, Lower Xiajiadian, falls within the same cluster. What's also interesting is this seems to match the increase in distribution of Y-DNA O3 during the bronze age that we've been seeing in the ancient DNA papers. Easy772 (talk) 19:31, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

For Anyang tombs, a recent article is: http://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/Article/CDMD-10183-2010107718.htm The article's main idea is indicated in the abstract: "人种特征的研究表明,殷墟中小墓居民中的多数个体的基本种系特征表现出“古中原类型”居民的特点,少数则表现出“古东北类型”居民的特点。" ie "The majority of Yinxu small and medium tombs' inhabitants exhibit the 'ancient Central Plains type', while a minority exhibit the 'ancient Northeast type.'" Of course, this doesn't say anything about modern populations. As I said, Chinese scholars don't use the same metrics and categories as Western scholars and therefore the results are not immediately comparable, but that's precisely why we should avoid WP:SYNTH. Pietrusewsky and Howells may see the same data and come to different conclusions. There's no way to tell. Lathdrinor (talk) 19:16, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I have seen that rough translation before, I've actually paraphrased that abstract somewhere on Wikipedia. But, you said that there was some kind of definite disagreement between the Chinese research and Howells or Pietrusewsky's but this doesn't really qualify. The remains of ancient central plains Chinese (Neolithic in this case, at least very close to Henan ) have been compared to modern populations and they are not the same then as today. Even if there were a definite disagreement or difference in interpretation, Wiki policy suggests balancing the opposing views rather than omitting both views. Balancing two scholars opposing views is not synthesis. Synthesis would be putting two or more facts together to mislead the reader or imply a false conclusion. e.g Blue jeans were invented in the 18th century and since their invention the world population has increased exponentially. The speculation that there might be disagreement between scholars definitely shouldn't be a reason to exclude what we know according to sources we can actually verify. Easy772 (talk) 02:36, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

The paper I linked is actually very old, I realized. The methods must have significantly improved since then, as we see in Howells(1983). There was a paper (from 1985) that someone brought my attention to a while back that actually compares neolithic Chinese remains with those of modern populations. They concluded that North Chinese neolithic populations were generally similar to East Asians with some measurements also similar to Southeast Asians, while South Chinese neolithic populations were closer to Southeast Asians. Apparently the old research papers seem to place to much emphasis on traits like brow ridges and prognathism in determining a populations "racial characteristics". Easy772 (talk) 09:02, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

The "ancient Central Plains type" as used by this scholar in 2010 is not necessarily the same as the "Neolithic Central Plains Chinese" used by a different scholar at a different time. There is no exact definition of "ancient Central Plains type" shared between scholars, especially not between scholars of different times. This is the problem that leads to WP:SYNTH - asserting that the scholar you quoted and the scholar I quoted have the same definitions and therefore the "ancient Central Plains type" in the 2010 paper has already been compared with modern populations, when there is no evidence of such. It is what Kanguole warned to avoid, and there I fully agree with him because none of the editors here are experts in physical anthropology.

To the degree that I am aware of what "ancient Central Plains type" stands for, it is basically what they found in "Xia" and "early Shang" era graves in Henan, Shanxi, and a few other locations. I have seen craniometric clusters from Chinese anthropology websites that show these remains cluster with northern China populations, rather than southern China populations, but these have not been validated by actual articles. Consequently, I am very wary of trying to say what they are unless a host of additional sources are brought forth. I am certainly not supportive of trying to equate a 1960 article to a 2010 article in terms of definitions. Lathdrinor (talk) 17:18, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Right, I've seen such displays on Ranhaer and places like that, but often times they turned out to be misinterpretations of various sorts. I never meant to assert that they were the same samples by the way, and certainly wasn't suggesting we include Yen (1960) as a citation. I was just noting that neolithic remains from the general area have been compared to modern populations and speculating that neolithic Shaanxi remains shouldn't be too different from neolithic Henan remains (again not suggesting we include any personal speculation). Anyways, Even if those clusters on the Chinese websites were verifiable and in definite disagreement, like I said, the proper procedure is to balance opposing views in a neutral tone, not to omit both views until one is determined more accurate. And then the question becomes: "Are these websites a reliable source?" Do you have a link to these Chinese anthropology websites? Are they websites run by scholars or enthusiasts/hobbyists? Are these "homemade runs" using raw data or are they PCAs taken from the research papers? I can probably have them translated, eventually, and even if they're run by hobbyists, as long as their conclusion matches the conclusion from the scholarly source, I see no problem in using them. Until then, we should stick to the verifiable material we do have and balance any opposing material as it becomes verifiable.

Also, we supposedly aren't allowed to use primary sources by themselves, even the abstract/conclusion sections! So technically we can't use those Chinese sources unless we have a meta-analysis of sorts on those papers. I am completely willing to be "lenient" with this rule and consider abstracts, intros, conclusions etc. "secondary" in this section though for the sake of balance if you guys are. Easy772 (talk) 18:37, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I am actually willing to omit Howells speculation that the Anyang pit remains were "average north Chinese" because a lot of this speculation seems to be based on his assumed uniformity of China as a population. In other words, he thought Anyang pit remains were typical bronze-age north Chinese because he thought Hainanese would be physically very similar to modern north Chinese.(Howells-1983- p.315) This has been refuted by modern evidence. Easy772 (talk) 21:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, given the lack of actual secondary sources beyond Pietrusewsky and Howells, and given that those scholars are talking about the Anyang pits only, I'm against adding a section about Shang anthropology at all. Insert a line in the section about human sacrifices instead. Lathdrinor (talk) 19:01, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'll just add a couple sentences and won't touch any kind of speculation as to whether they were citizens vs. war captives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Easy772 (talk • contribs) 20:52, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Given the state of the sources, there seems to be very little of any use that can be said. Kanguole 20:59, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

"Useful" is kind of subjective, I'd certainly find both citations useful and interesting. Easy772 (talk) 05:00, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Date

Hello Kanguole. How Cambridge University Press' (which is the most rs publisher) source can be a less appropriate than source of Chinese project? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahanshah5 (talk • contribs) 06:38, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that a wide range of dates have been proposed, as explained in the article. For example, David Keightley in the Cambridge History of Ancient China, also published by Cambridge University Press, gives a date of c. 1570 BC. In that situation, it seemed best to use the date of the XSZ project, which is widely cited, but perhaps just giving the more approximate 16th century would more faithfully reflect the range of opinion. Kanguole 13:56, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm agree with you but I wonder that could we add my source in any section below the main section as <here is opinion that the dynasty was established in 1554 BC> ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahanshah5 (talk • contribs) 05:38, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Meaning of name

According to using Google's translater to translate characters one at a time, "Shang Dynasty" (Chinese: 商朝) means "business dynasty" and "Yin Dynasty" (殷代) means "flourishing period", Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for trying, but that's not helpful at all. Modern use of the characters ≠ original senses. In fact, the Shang refugees in the Luo Valley became proverbial for their business acumen and may have been the source for that sense of the character; it doesn't mean that's what their dynasty was named after. Similarly, Yin (now Yinxu) was the name of their last capital; its name may have derived from some sense of "flourishing" but it wouldn't mean the dynasty itself was.

On the other hand, if you can find some scholarly articles or books discussing the names' etymologies, that would be more than welcome. — LlywelynII 11:38, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Images, historical account

The article is now overloaded with images, making it difficult to read. Their number needs to be reduced to the most useful illustrations of the text.

Also, there needs to be a clearer distinction between what is stated in the traditional accounts and what has been verified archaeologically. Kanguole 11:17, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits by Miyawaki kyoto

It seems like all the images uploaded by Miyawaki kyoto are obvious copyright violations, which I have removed from the article. However, the fact that Miyawaki kyoto is willing to pass off so many images as his own work throws considerable doubt onto his huge number of recent edits to this article (the only article he has edited on Wikipedia since 2016). How can we be sure that his text edits do not show the same disregard for copyright as his image uploads? We need to carefully check for copyright violation, and revert the article to the state it was before he started editing. Actually, I would support reverting regardless because in many cases his text is not an improvement, and the quality of his English is not great (e.g. here which he says are translations from Chinese, and therefore a copyright violation). BabelStone (talk) 15:06, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I would also support reverting. My main issue is the conflation of the traditional accounts with archaeological evidence. Consider for example the "Religious reform" section, where Sima Qian's account of Wu Yi's irreverant behaviour is mixed with divination and human sacrifice (both known archaeologically but not mentioned by Sima Qian) to yield a story about religious reform. This is a translation of zh:商朝#武乙射天, which has been in the zh article for a long time, but looks like unjustifiable synthesis. It's safest to remove it all. Kanguole 16:23, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the best way to preserve the quality of this article would be to revert the numerous edits by Miyawaki kyoto, and suggest that he discuss on talk before making any more contentious edits. BabelStone (talk) 17:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

It's ridiculous to say "delete it all" such arbitrarily. When you delete something, you have to be careful; you have to respect other's work. The images I uploaded were wrongly marked as "my own work", so it's OK to edit them, or even just delete them. But the other works I did, most of them were update works. Having seen this article so outdated, even citing books from last century, so I cited the latest Chinese archaeology book focusing on Shang dynasty, "商代史 Shang dynasty history", written by the scientists from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The book was written based on latest found in archaeological and historical research. If you want to delete my edits, please check the book first, and point out unambiguously where my edits are wrong cited. Last thing, the traditional accounts, so called the Records of the Grand Historian, written by Sima Qian, was an official history book, well accepted by other related articles, such as other dynasties in China. Translation work from foreign language article in Wikipedia is supported by the community. Just check the following link: [[1]]. Miyawaki kyoto (talk) 21:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

It is understandable that your edits are doubted. Those images are still marked as your own work on Commons, and they are still in the zhwiki article, along with text you copied from online sources.

The edit summary from this edit says "Adding translations from Chinese history books of Shang dynasty". Is that what the text is? If so, it is a derivative work of those books, and cannot be used on Wikipedia.

I have raised specific concerns about the Wu Yi section that you translated from the zhwiki article. I have also raised a more general concern about the conflation of traditional accounts with archaeological evidence. A further concern is adding events to the infobox that are not evidenced in archaeological finds or contemporary records. Kanguole 12:52, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to say that the history can only be described based on the archaeological finds. This is kind of all or none thinking. History's meaning in Wikipedia is:

History is the past as it is described in written documents, and the study thereof.

This article should not only include archaeological finds, but also traditional history records. Oracle bones was not enough to cover all aspects of Shang period. There are many buried oracle bones yet to discover. We can't say that discovered oracle bones at the moment are all of them. We can't even read many characters scripted on oracle bones. What's more, the Chinese history books which referring to the Records of the Grand Historian, were written by Sima Qian in 2000 years ago. There is no copyright violation at all. Sima Qian was already dead for more than 2000 years.Miyawaki kyoto (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The material you've added to the lead is a translation of this addition by you to the zhwiki article. The first two sentences of that addition appear on the National Museum of China website. Other sentences can be found elsewhere on the web. Your assertions of "own work" are unreliable.

On the content, I agree that both archaeological finds and traditional history should be included in the article. However, they need to be carefully distinguished, because they provide completely different kinds of information. The issue with Sima Qian's account and the Bamboo Annals is not copyright, but that they were written down more than a thousand years after the events we're talking about here, based on a mix of sources of different ages, which are difficult to disentangle. Kanguole 10:17, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Relatives of Shang dynasty in Assam

https://revivingforgottenhistories.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/the-kasomari-monoliths-re-exploring-kachari-grandeur/ https://books.google.co.in/books?id=9wxWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA84 2409:4065:D9C:BFE3:C17:CE15:A8B3:7F4B (talk) 13:58, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source that connects the two? Kanguole 14:12, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kanguole: Ancestor of Bhaskaravarman came from China. Kamarupa kingdom had connection with China. Tian means Heaven. In sanskrit Shargiah, we also called ourselves heavenly. Just doing research , These monoliths are similar to Tian symbol of Shang dynasty. 2409:4065:D9C:BFE3:C17:CE15:A8B3:7F4B (talk) 14:35, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I've nothing to add. Kanguole 14:40, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kanguole: No need to add this, I just want to know from Chinese people if these monoliths are Tian or not . Anyway , Thank you for conversation 2409:4065:D9C:BFE3:C17:CE15:A8B3:7F4B (talk) 14:51, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Capitals

Even if it needs to be caveated ("traditionally...", "according to...", "Chinese archaeologists believe...", &c.), the article should include the 5ish traditional capitals (Xibo, Ao, &c.) and their supposed sites (Yanshi in the Luo Valley, Zhengzhou, Qufu, &c.) somewhere. Archive says User:Gurdjieff already found and sourced some in a version of the page c. 2009, User:Zar2gar1 improved and formatted them c. 2010, but later well-meaning editors improperly blanked the info instead of citing or formatting it appropriately.

Needs to be restored. Yinxu was not remotely the center of the dynasty for its entire existence. — LlywelynII 11:32, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

I guess it would belong in the Traditional accounts section. Sima Qian and the Bamboo Annals differ a bit on the list of capitals. Kanguole 14:58, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Just adding a thought on this, the Shiji account is sometimes being cited for things that it does not provide, like the time of death for Zuji, who, according to the Shiji, outlived Wu Ding. Thus that Zu Ji can't refer to the same person other traditions understand as Wu Ding's predeceased son, aka Xiao Ji. Given how little the Shiji actually knows about the Shang in any definite terms, it might be useful to entirely remove the Shiji from the discussion of chronology and put it in a historiography section instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:47:4601:540:1474:F3FF:5EBC:CD67 (talk) 22:35, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Radiocarbon dates

I have reverted a recent change of the dates based on Liu et al (2020), on the basis that it gave undue weight to a single source. Moreover the source itself does not claim that these are the exact dates. Their method was to define a range for each period as the union of the 68% confidence intervals for individual bones from that period, yielding this table of reign dates (their Table 2):

Kings	cal dates (BC)
Wu Ding	1254–1197
Zu Geng and Zu Jia	1206–1177
Lin Xin and Kang Deng	1187–1135
Wu Yi and Wen Ding	1157–1110
Di Yi and Di Xin	1121–1041

The date ranges overlap, and the authors say they have an uncertainty of about 10 years and up to 20 years in extreme cases. They do not claim to contradict the XSZ project dates, but rather say the XYZ dates are within these uncertainty ranges. Kanguole 13:45, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

We are sidelining the latest peer-reviewed radiocarbon dating in favor of XSZ? This is a transparently nationalist project that includes dates for mythical events like the accession of the Xia. Trying to date events based on Chinese astronomical records is a fool's errand. For many years, the supposed solar eclipse of 776 BC was one of the best-known dates of Chinese history. Later, it was shown that there was in fact no eclipse that year and that the ancient records were in error. The Shang used three or four different calendars, each of which used a different date as the first of the month. The record of the supposed lunar eclipse of 1065 BC that XSZ is relying on goes like this: “at the ceremony paying homage to the full moon ... the king announced, ‘The many[...] eclipse(s) is/are untimely; you shall begin planning succession’.” This is not a record of an eclipse on a particular day, or even a particular year. See “Astro-Historiographic chronologies of early China are unfounded.” by Douglas Keenan. Fairnesscounts (talk) 20:17, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

"the latest peer-reviewed radiocarbon dating" is a single source, whereas the XSZ project is essentially the consensus of modern Chinese academia. There has always been a split between the West and China on these matters, and we can certainly not favor a single Western paper over the entirety of Chinese scholarship. Your personal evaluation of the so-called "transparently nationalist project" is pointlessly rude and largely WP:OR. Aza24 (talk) 03:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

These authors were part of the XSZ project, and continue in the same tradition. They have the same uncritical acceptance of a 59-year reign from the Wuyi chapter of the Shangshu, even though the same text is known to be wrong on reign lengths for the last Shang kings, which would have been very recent history if it was really written in 1030 BC. They also present their results as compatible with the project. In any case, many of the dates adopted by the XSZ project had already been proposed by authors outside of China.

But the key issue is, as noted above, that they do not claim these are precise dates for various events, but have an uncertainty of 10–20 years. The reason for this is clear from the detail of the paper. For example, the source of the 1041 BC date is the 68% confidence interval 1118–1041 BC for one of the three objects from period V that they dated. That's an uncertainty range of 77 years. Identifying the end date of a confidence interval for a single object with the end date of the Shang is quite arbitrary. Kanguole 10:10, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

As I read the report, the conclusions are not based on any individual radiocarbon reading. The report explains that by using data from consecutive phases, they could apply the Bayesian method, narrow the date range, and increase reliability. Liu is claiming a "fall-in ratio" of 80 to 90 percent. The FIR represents the author's confidence that the divinations in a given phase all occurred within the given date range. In short, the 1041 BC date represents an upper bound for phase V divinations. This would mean that whoever wrote the abstract misunderstood the study since error bars are obviously not equivalent to regnal dates.

Cambridge gives the Zhou accession date as 1045-1046 BC. This is within the error margin that Liu gives for phase V (1121–1041 BC).Fairnesscounts (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I interpreted "superposition of the 68% date ranges of all the samples in that phase" as meaning the union of the 68% date ranges of all samples for a phase. That explains the ranges they give, except for the end of period III and the start of period V, which are off by 2 and 1 years respectively, but I don't think an adjustment method is described. So 1254 BC comes from the start of the earliest range, and 1041 BC comes from the end of the latest one.

It's not surprising that the Cambridge History and the XSZ project came up with much the same date for the Zhou conquest, since both dates are based on the same analysis of the same astronomical events, though the XSZ project also used archaeological evidence and C14 dating. Kanguole 22:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Here's a timeline of the 68% ranges of various objects in their Table 3:

CASS HN M99(3):1

Heji 2140

Heji 21565

Heji 22116

Heji 19779

Heji 22086

Heji 22184

Heji 6846

Heji 6774

Heji 10410

Heji 9816

Heji 3186

Heji 3089

Heji 4122

Heji 31997

Heji 3013

Heji 34120

Heji 21739

Heji 6883

CASS HN M99(3):2

Xiaotun 910

Heji 22594

M5 (Fu Hao)

Heji 13329

Heji 21784

Heji 2869

Heji 23340

Heji 25015

Heji 26766

Heji 23536

Heji 24610

Heji 27616

Xiaotun 1011

Xiaotun 2209

CASS K271A

Xiaotun 2996

Xiaotun 2370

Xiaotun 2315

Heji 27633

Xiaotun 173

Xiaotun 2557

Xiaotun 2294

Heji 35249

Xiaotun 2263

Xiaotun 647

Xiaotun 2281

Xiaotun 3564

Heji 36512

Heji 35641

M1713 (Western Zone)

│

−1260

│

−1240

│

−1220

│

−1200

│

−1180

│

−1160

│

−1140

│

−1120

│

−1100

│

−1080

│

−1060

│

−1040

│

−1020

Diviner groups: Wu, Shi, Zi, Bin, Chu, Unnamed, He, Huang.

It is wierd that the ranges are clumped within each of the five periods, especially II–V. I can't think of a good explanation for that. Kanguole 13:39, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I see that they discarded the results for over a third of the samples, many because of an "unacceptable low agreement index", i.e. being out of the sequence implied by the periods, even though they went down to 50% in some cases. Earlier they say that "On average, 1 in 20 agreement index values to drop below 60% might be expected, but if the index values are substantially lower or a large proportion fall below 60%, something internally inconsistent between the model and the data could have occurred". Kanguole 16:10, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

For completeness, here are their 68% ranges for the Li-group bones:

Heji 34240

CASS T8(3):148

Heji 32764

Xiaotun 994

Xiaotun 601

Xiaotun 1115

Xiaotun 2707

Xiaotun 1090

Xiaotun 1128

Heji 32780

Xiaotun 636

Xiaotun 1116

Xiaotun 503

Xiaotun 2366

│

−1320

│

−1300

│

−1280

│