| Abstract: |
The term Yue as a reference to non-Han people has been used in many different ways. In late Shang times it seems to have been used to refer to people in northwest China but by late Warring States to Han times it was more generally used to indicate the partly- or un-sinicized peoples of southern China who belonged to different ethnic and linguistic groups and had no political or cultural unity. Since historical, archaeological and anthropological evidence indicates considerable cultural continuity in South China from the prehistoric populations to those of today the term Yue still has some use as a broad reference to the peoples and cultures of this region back into the first millennium BC.
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