Before modern times, people often couldn't distinguish between legend and history, and in that era, the existence of the Xia Dynasty was something that did not need to be questioned at all. But in modern times, there has been an essential difference between historiography and traditional historiography, and in this case, the existence of the Xia Dynasty has become a problem.
Mr. Gu Jiegang
In modern times, on the one hand, after the rise of modern literature and classics, it has played a role in emancipating the mind, and the historical framework constructed by traditional classics has collapsed violently. On the other hand, the historiography of the nineteenth century, especially the historiography of the Junker school, which emphasized positivism, also questioned the traditional Chinese historical narrative. Coupled with the archaeology from the West, and these two ideological currents stir each other, the traditional historical narrative of the Ancient Chinese has been questioned unprecedentedly, and many ancient people think that the concept of common sense has become something that cannot withstand deconstruction after entering the contemporary era. It is precisely in this historical background that the modern trend of skeptical antiquity emerged.
Mr. Gu Jiegang, a representative figure of the skeptical trend of ancient thought, proposed that mr. Gu's views are still very enlightening. For our people today, it has played a great role in emancipating the mind, letting us know that myth and history are not the same thing, and legend and history are not the same thing. However, Mr. Gu and his followers also have the disadvantages of being too suspicious of the ancient and too brave.
Portrait of Dayu in the Stone
Specific to the Xia Dynasty asked about in the title, when the ancient thought trend was most doubtful, the Xia and Shang dynasties received great doubts, and they doubted whether these two dynasties really existed. At the same time, Western historians do not recognize the existence of these two dynasties. What should be said here is that an important difference between Western historians and Chinese historians is that Western historians rely more on archaeology than we do. Chinese historians pay more attention to the documents passed down from generation to generation. However, there is no rich literature in Western historians, and they rely more on archaeological discoveries to construct the historical genealogy. Therefore, you may notice that there is an exploration complex in the Western concept of history, but Chinese does not.
Later, after Yin Xu discovered it, the doubts about the Yin Shang Dynasty ended without a problem. But the questioning of the Xia Dynasty did not stop. However, after the discovery of the Yin Ruins, it also stimulated people's enthusiasm for finding xia cultural sites. At one time, some people thought that Yangshao culture was Xia culture, and some people thought that Longshan culture was Xia culture. 49 years later, with the development of our country's field archaeology, people have placed greater expectations on archaeology. Mr. Xu Xusheng's contribution to the study of Xia culture is very important, and his "Preliminary Report on the Investigation of Xia Ruins in Western Henan in 1959" determined the direction of the archaeology of the later Xia culture. He pointed out that the direction of exploration of Xia culture should be the area around western Henan, and later people found that it was indeed in this area.
So far, hundreds of sites, which have been the object of discussion on Xia culture, have been found in western Henan and southern Jin. Among them, the discovery of the Site of Dengfeng Yucun in 1952, which is close to the known Zhengzhou Erligang Shang Dynasty Ruins and has a different cultural type, people think that it may be the Xia culture. This discovery opened the prelude to the discussion of xia culture after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In 1956, the ruins of Luoda Temple were excavated in Zhengzhou, which unearthed more cultural relics, with unique cultural characteristics, and had common cultural factors with zhengzhou Shangcheng Erligang culture, and the relative age was earlier than the Henan Longshan culture before the Erligang culture, so after the excavation of this site, people also used it as an object to explore the Xia culture, and named the same type of archaeological culture as the Luoda Temple type culture.
Erlitou ruins
The Erlitou site discovered in 1959 was much larger than the Loda Temple, so people abandoned the name of the Loda Temple and named this type of culture the Erlitou Culture. In short, so far, the explored Xia culture has been found in archaeological excavations, and its upper limit can be the late Henan Longshan culture and the Shanxi Longshan culture, and the Yanshi Erlitou site belongs to the middle and late Xia culture. The existence of the Xia Dynasty has been archaeologically confirmed.
Of course, the problem has not been fundamentally solved. First of all, until now, we have not found any written material belonging to the Xia culture. That is to say, the history of our country with written examination can only go up to the Yin Shang Dynasty. Many scholars believe that the Xia Dynasty should have written language, for example, Mr. Qiu Xigui advocated that the Xia Dynasty had a script. But we haven't found it until now, and maybe never. Secondly, there is controversy about the time of xia culture. In the end, what period of the Erlitou culture was the Xia Dynasty? Different scholars have different opinions. Erlitou culture is also divided into several periods, what is their relationship? There is still room for resolution. Therefore, the questioning of Xia culture has never stopped. Recently, the Erlitou site was going to build a museum, and originally they were going to declare Xiadu, but for the sake of prudence, they still removed the two words xiadu.
The territory of the Xia Dynasty
For the questioner's question, it is possible that the answer will never be found. After all, archaeology cannot absolutely restore history. And archaeological discoveries also have a certain degree of contingency. But our knowledge of history cannot be based solely on archaeology. Originally, the tradition of Chinese historiography was not based on archaeology. Archaeology and history are two different disciplines. The construction of history by Chinese documents cannot be blurred. Among the documents passed down from generation to generation, reliable documents such as the "History of Xia Benji", "Shang Shu", "Zuo Zhuan", and the pre-Qin zhuzi all recorded the true existence of the Xia Dynasty. Even if Erlitou is not a Xia culture, even if we have not found the site of the Xia culture, we cannot say that the Xia culture does not exist, after all, what has not been found does not mean that there is none. For example, we may never be able to use archaeology to confirm the great Yu Zhi Shui, but you can't use the Da Yu Zhi Shui to have not happened. Although it may not be as good as it was recorded in the literature, it cannot be said that it is a myth and legend.
To sum up, what I want to tell you is that the existence of the Xia Dynasty is unquestionable and absolutely true. The evidence is the ancient historical memory of our ancestors, and this is the many records in our documents. Although memory may be biased, memory itself is real and reliable.