The Xia dynasty is usually, in Chinese archaeology, associated with the Erlitou culture of the Early Bronze Age found around the Yellow River. The Erlitou culture as discovered by archaeologists was an urban and stratified society marked by its manufacture of various types of bronze vessels in a tradition which carries on into the later historical dynasties. So while there was definitely a sophisticated culture in the right place and time and with enough aspects of continuity going forward to be reasonably considered ancestral to Chinese culture.

Calling it a dynasty though gives a very specific idea of the Xia as a single, centrally ruled, political unit. Something which cannot be verified by archaeology in the absence of actual written sources.

The historical sources first describing the Xia come not from the succeeding Shang dynasty, but from the next dynasty after that, the Zhou. The Zhou had conquered the Shang and legitimated that conquest with the idea of the Mandate of Heaven which stated that a dynasty or ruling power basically starts out good and degenerates over time until there comes a point when it can be legitimately and justly overthrown. When the Zhou write about the preceding dynasties they follow the same arc. The Shang take the Mandate of Heaven from the Xia and in turn it is taken from them by the Zhou. Given this simple narrative of Xia>Shang>Zhou as well as the circumstances, it is most likely that the Xia as a single entity were either made up by the Zhou to shore up their new ideology or so heavily embellished as to be unrecognizable compared to what actually happened.

In the end, the evidence for the Xia as a culture is strong but circumstantial and from the evidence they were almost certainly not a dynasty like the succeeding dynasties described in the rest of Chinese history.