First, the study of the origin of civilization is not only a theoretical problem of archaeology, but also a practical problem of archaeology.

Rebuilding the past is the task of historians, but in today's view, rebuilding the history of ancient society is not just a matter for historians. At least it needs to be combined with archaeology, anthropology, natural science and other disciplines. It is true that the people of China have always been proud of their long history and splendid ancient civilization, and attracted worldwide attention for their rich history books, vast classics and developed historiography. In traditional historiography, the history of China has been very clear since the beginning of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. China's first biographical historical masterpiece, Historical Records, also started with Biography of Five Emperors. The head of the Five Emperors was the Yellow Emperor, who was later called the humanistic ancestor of the Chinese people. That is to say, in traditional historiography, the origin of China history, which we call "civilization" today, can at least be clearly explained from the Yellow Emperor. However, in modern times, under the influence of western scientific thought and empirical historiography, the authority of Confucianism and classics has been greatly doubted and shaken in the unprecedented spirit of democratic science in China's ideological and academic circles around the May 4th Movement, and the school of doubting the ancient and distinguishing the false with Gu Jiegang as the core came into being. They take "China's view of ancient history caused by layers" as the distinguishing point.

The research object of the school of ancient history discrimination is the traditional historical materials of ancient China based on Confucian classics. This paper makes a rigorous literature analysis, finds out its completion date, excludes later forgeries and supplementary historical materials, and wants to carry out the basic work of ancient history research. His achievements mainly prove in literature how ancient historical legends in ancient books were deformed by the influence of political theories in the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties and beyond. His main concern is the Confucian classics themselves, and his attention mainly lies in the process of their myths being recorded, conceptualized and deformed.

Learning is the product of the times, and it will inevitably have the limitations of the times. When talking about the limitations of the ancient historical school, the famous Japanese scholar Mr. Bezuka Shigeki once pointed out that myths and legends are very convincing as a series of temporal changes, but the recorded changes of myths and legends are not purely temporal, and the differences between space and region should also be considered. We should realize that its changing process is extremely complicated. Among them, different nationalities and different regions have maintained different myths and legends. There are reasons for the contradiction between myths and legends, and some historical facts also reflect it. We can't rule out that the contradictory legend is a history forged by later generations. The theory of "layer-by-layer causes" itself only considers the changes in time, which is a fundamental deficiency after all [2].

As a theoretical viewpoint or hypothesis of discriminating falsehood, "China's view of ancient history caused by accumulation" really only considers the changes in time, but does not reflect the problems in space and region. However, in practical research, Mr. Gu's "Kyushu Jungle Rongyu" and other papers fully considered the spatiality and regionality of ancient historical legends, and Mr. Gu himself also proposed "breaking the concept of national unity; Break the concept that the region has always been unified; Break the concept of humanization in ancient history; Break the concept that ancient times are the golden world. "

Among Mr. Gu's "four breakthroughs", "breaking the concept of humanization of ancient history" can be further studied today. In ancient history and myths and legends, there is indeed a personification problem from pure "god" to "man", that is, the personification of ancient history. However, in ancient times, under the thinking of "primitive logic" [3], those powerful tribal chiefs and heroes may be regarded as having divine power or divinity when they are alive, and become demigods after death, and their divinity is constantly strengthened and widely spread among tribes or tribes, which is possible. In this way, in the historical and documentary process of myths and legends, some so-called "gods" personified as human beings or demigods may be chiefs or heroes in ancient tribes, that is to say, they have experienced: the living tribal chiefs in ancient times (people, but with divine power and divinity, even regarded as demigods)-the tribal gods after death-are recognized again after entering the recorded history. Therefore, the so-called "humanization" or "deification" of ancient history is extremely complicated. There is a phenomenon from God to man, but it is not just from God to man.

Another deficiency of the school of ancient history discrimination is its excessive suspicion of ancient history, which is often discussed in academic circles now. Although it is suspected of being too suspicious of the ancient times, we should also see that the historical achievement of the ancient historiography school is to sort out ancient books while breaking the ancient history system, which formed the first systematic and large-scale climax of sorting out ancient books in modern academic history. Although there are some "unjust, false and misjudged cases" in the process of doubting the ancient and distinguishing the false, it broke the system of three emperors and five emperors that belonged to later generations, and also rearranged the classics related to the traditional ancient history system. Of course, this work is only preliminary and general, and it is still going on. For example, the first three chapters of Shangshu, Yaodian, Mo Tao and Gong Yu were written before the Xia Dynasty, but they were written much later than those of Pan Geng, Da Ban, Jiu Mao and Jiu Mao. At present, among the scholars who use the first three chapters of Shangshu to study ancient history and culture, the more rigorous approach is: on the one hand, they think that some materials have indeed been handed down from ancient times, but at the same time, they can't help but consider the thoughts, systems and organizational structures of the Warring States period, and even can't help but notice that Yao Dian and other tribes and nationalities originally belonging to different departments are arranged in a court-a unified ancient history system. The difficulty now is what are the criteria for selection? The academic circles have no certain views on this, and even some confusion. We are opposed to the attitude of taking things that we don't agree with when we agree with ourselves, and we are also opposed to saying that a certain material in Yaodian conforms to the principle of social development history as the standard of choice just according to the needs of our own opinions.

2 The present situation and thinking of the study on the origin of China civilization.

As we all know, the so-called principle of social development history is also summarized according to the situation of some ethnic groups, and it is not absolute and unchangeable. What's more, what we want to explain is the specific history and culture of ancient China, not the general history of social development. Therefore, the general practice is to use books and historical materials such as Pharmacopoeia for textual research and cooperation. When it is combined with archaeology, it should also be based on the systematic study of literature and archaeology respectively. Moreover, this combination can only be based on archaeology and literature as flesh and blood. The backbone has established the basic context of social and historical development and is the most fundamental thing. Blood and flesh enrich the specific history and are auxiliary things. In short, today, if we only rely on documents to establish the system of ancient history, it has fallen far behind the requirements of the times, and the basis of ancient history research before Shang Dynasty is archaeology. Therefore, the practice of archaeology is the most basic for the study of the origin of civilization. It is precisely because of this that when Mr. Xia Nai talked about the origin of Chinese civilization, he also started from the Yin ruins culture in Xiaotun, and traced it back to the Neolithic culture through the Erligang Shang culture in Zhengzhou and Erlitou culture in Yanshi [4].

Archaeology is studied through the remains of ancient human bodies, so it is well-founded and not bound by historical records, but archaeology is explanatory, and the remains themselves cannot speak. It requires people to use technology, economy, environment, demography and other knowledge to explain the way of human activities in line with ancient reality. This explanation often forms some theoretical models, and also draws lessons from some original theoretical models, among which the theoretical model of anthropology is the most obvious. For example, Morgan put forward the theoretical models of "consanguineous marriage and family", "partnership marriage and family", "even marriage and family", "exclusive marriage and family", clan, phratry, tribe, tribal alliance and military democracy in ancient society more than 0/00 years ago, which had a wide influence in the field of archaeology. Since the 1960s, the theoretical model of "Emirates" put forward by western anthropologists still has an impact on archaeology. However, these anthropological models are often formed by vertically classifying various types of societies that can be observed in ethnology according to the viewpoint of social evolution. Although sometimes they are very logical, it is necessary to prove whether there is a progressive evolutionary relationship between them or whether they have universal significance. Archaeology, on the other hand, can determine the time and order of relics according to their hierarchical relationship, so as to observe the development and changes of society. Therefore, archaeology and cultural anthropology can complement each other, but they are irreplaceable. Archaeology can learn from and refer to the theoretical model of anthropology, and establish a set of evolution models that can reflect the social form and structure with archaeological data as the material and skeleton. It is for this reason that the author once combined settlement archaeology with social morphology and put forward the "three-stage theory of the origin of civilization" from the perspective of settlement morphology [5]. Of course, this is only preliminary, only a general framework has been established, and further promotion and in-depth research need further efforts.

In a word, we say that the study of the origin of civilization is not only a theoretical problem of archaeology, but also a practical problem of archaeology, which is in line with reality. Our experience in China's ancient history and culture from believing in the ancient to doubting the ancient to archaeology illustrates this point. Field archaeological excavation is the foundation, and it is also very important to explain or explain archaeological phenomena such as unearthed relics, remains and sites. Whether the interpretation is brilliant or not depends on its knowledge structure, theoretical level and various aspects of literacy. It is worth pointing out that the theory is also innovative. It is important to ask new questions and make new explanations according to the new situation, rather than simply applying a certain theoretical model. Therefore, when we quote or draw lessons from a certain theoretical model, we should also have the requirement of theoretical innovation or make our own theoretical thinking based on China's reality, instead of simply applying it, criticizing the old dogma with new dogma and jumping from one strange circle to another.

Second, the concept, symbol and elements of civilization.

1, the concept of civilization

The word "civilization" first appeared in the classical Chinese book of changes "the civilization of the world", and Shang Shu Yao Dian also has the language of "Ruizhe civilization", both of which mean light and literary talent. The translation of the word "civilization" in English in modern Chinese usually refers to the progressive state of human society, as opposed to the so-called "barbarism" and "ignorance" (of course, in the value system different from modern Europe, primitive society is not really barbaric and ignorant). Some people regard "civilization" as "culture", so some people think that the existence of human society and its corresponding culture is equivalent to the existence of civilization.