西南夷是指中国古代分布在今四川西南、西北和云南、贵州等地区各个族群的总称。新石器时代晚期，西南夷地区形成了15个文化区域。春秋战国时代，西南夷地区形成了13个青铜文化区域，区分为农耕、半农半牧以及游牧等三种经济类型的社会以及酋邦和部落两种政体。本书首次建立起先秦秦汉时期西南民族政治与文化发展演进的历史序列，对西南民族地区政治与文化的演进提出若干创新观点，为中国古代国家与文明的形成提供了新的理论分析模式。
　　The Southwest Yi（Southwest Minority Groups）is the generic term for the ancient ethnic groups distributed in southwest and northwest of Sichuan， Yunnan， Guizhou regions. At the late Neolithic age， the area of the Southwest Yi formed 15 cultural regions. At the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period， the area of the Southwest Yi formed 13 bronze cultural regions， divided into farming， half farming and half nomadism ，and nomadic economic types of societies and two regimes of tribe and chiefdom.
　　This book is first established the series of historical evolution of political and cultural development of the ethnic groups of southwest China during the period of the pre-Qin，Qin and Han period， puts forward some innovation viewpoint in evolution of politics and culture of the ethnic groups in southwest China， and provides a new theoretical analysis model for the formation of the ancient states and civilization of China.