How many stages have Chinese characters come into being? What period does archaeology belong to and what is the time limit?

The form of Chinese characters has gone through a long evolution from Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, where the system can be found, to the main regular script characters used now. In order to describe the general appearance of Chinese characters in different historical periods, we artificially divide the evolution of Chinese characters into six stages, focusing on the official fonts of each era.

These six stages and their representative fonts are: Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, bronze inscriptions in Zhou Dynasty, bamboo slips and silks in Warring States (collectively referred to as Warring States characters), Xiao Zhuan in Qin Dynasty, official script in Han Dynasty (including Cao Li, that is, Cao Zhang) and regular script from Wei and Jin Dynasties to the present (including running script and modern grass).

Among them, between Qin and Han Dynasties, the fonts of Xiao Zhuan in Qin Dynasty and before it were unified into ancient characters, and the fonts after Lishu in Han Dynasty were collectively referred to as near-style characters. The transitional font between ancient Chinese characters and modern Chinese characters is the ancient Chinese character Li (also known as Li), which was popular in Qin and Han Dynasties.