周一良既承傳統乾嘉考據學的餘風，復具過人的現代外語訓練及能力，加上史料掌握之精純及犀利的洞察力，凡此皆使他能做出比別人更優勝的成績，發前人所未發之覆。諸如魏晉南北朝民族關係史、史學史及敦煌書儀研究等，在一定程度上，都有其開創之功，在當時是具有超時代的地位。毫無疑問，周一良早已是魏晉南北朝史研究的「第一線」及「第一流」學者，難怪周一良曾被認為是當時青年學人中最有希望傳陳寅恪衣缽者。可惜，五○年代以降，周氏一度被調到亞洲史的教研崗位，又加上大陸政治運動不斷，使他暫別了中古史研究垂二十年之久，這對他個人以及中國大陸的六朝史研究，不啻是重大損失。

Zhou Yiliang inherited the remaining legancy of the Qianjia period of textual research. Blessed with an extraordinary training in and ability for foreign languages, combined with a sophisticated mastery of historical materials and a penetrating mind, he was able to accomplish things that others could not, both in terms of quality and originality. For instance, his research on the history of inter-tribal relations during the Wei-Jin and Northern-Southern Dynasties periods, the history of historiography, and Donhuang documents, were in certain respects pioneering studies and, in his time, way ahead of his colleagues. Without doubt, Zhou was a first rate scholar in his field, and it is not surprising that he was considered the most promising, among the young scholars of his generation, to inherit the mantle of Chen Renke. Unfortunately, in the 50's Zhou was transferred to a teaching and research unit on Asian history and endless political campaigns became the rule of the day. All these put a stop to Zhou's research on Chinese medieval history, which lasted for more than twenty years, and for him as well as China's research on the Six Dynasties period, this was certainly a great loss.