What they say about Hongshan and Niuheliang

Li Xinwei, director of the Chinese School of Classical Studies at Athens

Almost all primary civilizations around the world shared a common pattern: when an early state was established, people commonly tried to formalize social norms based on cosmic order. Hongshan culture is a remarkable illustration of this pattern, which used primitive cosmology to develop early religion, thereby gathering people to build a complex society. Therefore, the early link between primitive cosmology and political systems exhibited in Hongshan culture was an important origin of Chinese people's worldview.