Professor Guo Jingyun argues against the conventional view of the Yellow River Valley being the cradle of the Chinese civilization. She moves the "central plain" to south-central China, because rice cultivation was first invented there, and the region was also home to some of the most ancient cities such as Shijiahe. My criticism is that the home of the agricultural revolution is not necessarily the birth place of the first civilization. Guo is also overly concerned with whether south-central China was the first to enter the Bronze Age, but my contention is that there has not been any consistency in the application of the tripartite archaeological periodization. Guo might be right in seeing the Shang people as nomadic in origin, but she misplaces the Eurasian Steppes to the north of the Amur River.