The "5,000 year" claim is based purely on mythology. The archeological evidence makes 3500 - 4000 years more likely. In other words: the mythical events that happened 5000 years ago were likely oral history retellings of events that actually happened 3500 - 4000 years ago. Chinese history history certainly isn't much older than about ~2000 BCE, and that was prehistory as Chinese writing didn't develop until around 700 years later.

While writing was developing in China, the Great Pyramids were already 1,000 years old, and the great city walls of Uruk were 1500 years old. Cuneiform writing is older still. Göbekli Tepe had already had its golden era and had bee abandoned for 6500 years by the time the first writing started to develop in China.

China is not the oldest civilization. It is barely even in the running, and only if you take the mythological 5000 years at face value. Comparing archeological evidence, ancient china isn't actually that ancient, compared to the Middle East.

I know it's widely believed there that China is the oldest civilization. But it's a laughable claim.

China has a lot of fertile ground for archaeological discovery. "The tomb, designated M27, is located in the Wangzhuang ruins in Yongcheng city and dates back to the middle and late periods of the Dawenkou Culture (4000 BCE-2600 BCE), a Neolithic culture in ancient China."

https://archaeologymag.com/2024/10/5000-year-old-royal-tomb-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawenkou_culture

Having neolithic ruins doesn’t mean your civilisation developed from those societies. For example the UK didn’t evolve from whoever built Stonehenge.

most chinese people have no interest in those who started the first civilization. in fact most of them there have to work about 12~14 hours a day and have no ability to spend any time to 'think' and 'assert'.

only a few people there that have higher position and get well educated that know a little about the very old times... and most of them believe Egipt or middle east started the first civilization because that's what the schools there teach.

You probably tried to write something out of compassion for those tired Chinese workers, but what you actually wrote appear as insensitively dismissive (an average poor guy at an assembly line absolute have abilities to think). And more importantly I don't think it's correct. Most people, even those who do have plenty of spare time, don't dig archeology, or fact-based history that much. History as a part of identity is a different story, and many are very emotionally invested in it, and from my experience in Far East cultures especially so. So 'most Chinese people' may not look interested, but only before somebody tells them they are not that ancient.

I'm glad that the schools are teaching scientific truth then. It doesn't really matter what lineage is older, and the cutoff is arbitrary anyway. But teaching historical facts that disagree with nationalistic and party narratives is a good barometer for respect for science itself, which is very important.