But this past was seen to consist of heroes and wise kings such as the mythic Yellow Emperor, who led the Chinese from savagery to civilization. As early as the first and second centuries A.D. , one finds accounts of a historical transition from a stone age throught successive jade, bronze, and iron ages, but this sequence was speculation based on legend, not historical investigation. Westerners introduced modern techniques of prehistoric archaeology to China. Western-trained Chinese soon took up the task. Wartime conditions led to a hiatus in archaeological activity, which was not resumed in a systematic way until 1949.
China has a vast written record extending far into the past.
It has been estimated that a translation only of official histories, compiled from the second century B.C. on, would fill 400 volumes of 500 pages each. There is in addition an enormous body of classical literature, non-standard historical works, philosophy, and so forth, which sheds light on still earlier periods. But while the written materials have provided tremendous insight, little was known about how the ancients lived, and almost nothing was known about the prehistoric period beyond legend. Recent discoveries allow us for the first time to place people in their own temporal contexts, to know how a person of the Han Dynasty differed from one of the Tang. Despite the limitations of the Marxist interpretation of history, archaeological discoveries of the past 50 years have had a significant impact on the way in which the past is viewed in China.