Chang Kuang-chih, former assistant director of Academia Sinica and now a well-known archeologist at Harvard University, states that Chinese civilization had already evolved by 4,000 BC into a number of separate cultural spheres. Each sphere was independent and unique, but the various spheres also interacted with and influenced each other, so that they all shared certain common characteristics.
前中研院副院長、美國哈佛大學著名的考古學家張光直就曾指出，中國文明在公元前四千年前，已經顯形了一個交互作用圈，而這些文化圈各自獨立、自有特色；卻又相互影響，帶著一些共通性，可以說就像一朵重瓣交疊的花朵。