商族起源考

A Study in the Origin of the Shang Clan

商族在商汤灭夏建立商王朝之前,不断迁徙,游移不定,是一个常常迁徙的民族。由于史籍记载不详,加上后世地名变化很大,商族起源于何地一直为难解之谜。千百年来,专家学者们作了大量的考证,得出了商族起源于东方说、西方说、北方辽河流域说、燕山地区说、山西说等各种各样的结论。结合文献记载和近年来的考古发掘资料,可知商族起源于东方说最为合理。商族最早的族居地在今豫东、鲁西南地区,后来一度迁到河北省的中南部和河南省的北部,不久又迁回豫东、鲁西南地区。在商汤灭夏前,商族以今天的曹县一带为中心,积聚力量,终于一举灭夏,建立了商王朝。

Before the Shang Dynasty was established, the Shang clan lived a migrating life. Its origin has been a complicated topic for the scholars due to the lack of documents and the diversification of place names. Former studies supplied different conclusions to the origin place of the Shang clan： they were from the East, from the West, from the northern area of Liao river, from the Yan mountain or from Shanxi Province. After integrating recent archaeological data into the historical documents, the author points out that the Shang clan were from the east Yu and southwest Lu area. They had moved to the central southern area of Hebei Province and the northern area of Henan Province then went back. At last under the lead of Shang Tang, the Shang clan gathered at the Cao county area to fight against the Xia Dynasty, and finally they established the Shang Dynasty.