1. ANCIENT CHINA (Pre-History and the First Two Dynasties)

2. Ancient China – Political Geography

3. Ancient China – Physical Geography

4. Natural Resources and Agriculture
North China plane (the Yellow River / North China Plane) = millet and wheat (loess)
South China (the Yangzi River Valley) = rice
Agriculture =
collective labor

5. Pre-Historic China
Evidence of Neolithic lifestyle – 10,000-12,000 years ago
Yangshao Culture (3,000 BCE) and Longshan Culture (2,000 BCE)

6. Pre-Historic China (Cont.)
The Yangshao People
Domesticated dogs and pigs
Main crop – millet
Elaborate burial and fertility rituals (afterlife)
Painted Pottery
The Longshan People
Cultivated rice and millet
Job specialization and social stratification
Emphasis on ancestor warship
Divination

7. Pre-Historic China (cont.)
The Yangshao pottery
The Longshan pottery

8. Xia Dynasty (2183-1752 BCE?) Mythical?  Not enough evidence
Chinese vs. Non-Chinese interpretation
Shang Sources (Xia people – opposite)

9. The Shang Dynasty (also known as the Yin Dynasty 1750 BCE – 1045 BCE)

10. The Shang Dynasty (cont.)
Alleged Shang Associations
Sun
Sky
Birds
East
Life
Lord-on-High
Alleged Xia
Associations
Moon
Watery Underworld
Dragons
West
Death
Lord Below

11. The Shang Dynasty (cont.)
Highly stratified society (by hereditary rank and occupation)
KINGS
(SCHOLARS? – probably not yet!)
ARISTOCRATS (NOBLES)
PEASANTS
ARTISANS
MERCHANTS

12. The Shang Dynasty – Religious Beliefs

13. Religious Beliefs (cont.)
Oracle Bones / Scapulimancy

14. Examples of Inscriptions on Oracle Bones:
Crack-making on jiashen (day 21), Que divined: “Lady Hao’s (a consort of Wu Ding) childbearing will be good.” (Prognostication:) The king read the cracks and said: “If it be on a ding-day that she gives birth, there will be prolonged luck.” (Verification:) (After) thirty-one days, on jiayin (day 51), she gave birth; it was not good; it was a girl.

15. Examples of Inscriptions on Oracle Bones
Crack-making on yiwei (day 32), Gu divined: “Father Yi (the twentieth Shang king, Xiao Yi, the father of Wu Ding) is harming the king.”
Divined: “Grandfather Ding (the fifteenth king, father of Xiao Yi) is harming the king.”
Divined: “There is a sick tooth; it is not Father Yi (=Xiao Yi, as above) who is harming (it/him).”

16. Ancient Chinese Characters – connections to modern Chinese Characters

17. Religious Beliefs (cont.) - Burial Tombs
Practiced Human and Animal Sacrifice (to appease an “angry ancestral spirit”)
Human sacrifice – mostly prisoners of war
Buried were the objects useful in the afterlife

18. Religious Beliefs – Burial Tombs (cont.)

19. Shang Dynasty – Perception of the World (Us vs. Them)
Political control through direct confrontation and “tribute”
Circles of civilized people
Shang towns – square – Zhangguo – The Central Country (sinocentric view!!!)

20. Shang Dynasty – Major Intellectual, Artistic, and Cultural Accomplishments
Bronze Vessels
Silk Production
Calendar (Lunar Based)
Protective walls (pounded earth)
Economy – bartering / cowry shells

21. Shang Bronze Vessels
Mostly used for ceremonial occasions (rituals, sacrifices, ancestor worshiping)
Bronze – status symbol ( common people worked with simple stone tools)

22. The Zhou Dynasty 1045 BCE – 221 BCE

23. Zhou Dynasty – The Origins
Chinese – speaking people; descendants of Neolithic Longshan people (similar to the Shang)
Located to the West of the Shang territories
Semi-Barbarian in the eyes of the Shang
Intermarriage with the Shang before conquest

24. Famous Leaders:
King Wen (“the cultured king”) – built alliances with neighboring people to increase the power of the Zhou
King Wu (“the martial king”) – sacked the Shang capital, practically ending the Shang rule
Duke of Zhou (King Wu’s brother) – established the Zhou Dynasty

25. Zhou Dynasty - Famous Leaders
King Wen King Wu Duke of Zhou

26. Zhou Dynasty – Accounts Vilifying the Shang
From Chinese sources on the last Shang king:
“. . . [was] dominated by women, given up to sensual self-indulgence with his 'pools of wine and forests of meat,' oppressing the people with his taxes, carving open a pregnant woman to examine the fetus, and killing or imprisoning all who remonstrated against him. He was also famous for his great speed and strength and fond of battling wild animals, and he was a noted devourer of human flesh who fed several feudal lords to his court and even duped King Wen into eating his own son.”

27. The Duke of Zhou
Subdued territories loyal to the Shang after the Shang capital was conquered
Eliminated all pretenders to the throne (protected his nephew King Cheng)
Favorite historic figure of Confucius

28. The Zhou Rule “Feudal” system More decentralized as the time went on
Zhou kings continued supremacy in sacrifice rituals (other kings claimed their connection to them)
Same culture, though different political territories
Education – luxury for the rich, until Confucius’ ideas become popular

29. The Concept of Heaven
Gradually replaces Shangdi (Di) in the writings of Zhou aristocracy
Replaced with TIAN (English translation “HEAVEN”)
Heaven (in Chinese culture) – does NOT mean “a place to which one's soul goes, or a state of being one's soul attains, after death”

30. The Concept of HEAVEN (cont.)
1. "Heaven" was an all-powerful entity that actively intervened in human affairs. In this meaning, "Heaven" is similar to the older Shangdi.
2. "Heaven" was the cosmos in general or as a whole. It did not actively intervene in human affairs. Instead, "Heaven" was the sum total of the workings of nature including the laws and patterns by which nature operates.
3. "Heaven" also meant the sky, or that which is apart from the earth. This meaning is similar to the English usage in a sentence like "Rain poured down from the heavens."

31. The Mandate of Heaven

32. The Mandate of Heaven (cont.)

33. The Warring States Period (480 BCE -221BCE)

34. The Warring States Period – New Developments
Training and use of larger (citizen) armies
“Barbarian” fighting techniques (horseback) and iron weapons
Successful rulers = able organizers and administrators
Increased need for skilled bureaucrats (tax collectors, scribes, scholars/advisers)

35. End of the Zhou Dynasty The Zhou Dynasty ends in 221 BCE.
Conquered by the state of Qin (semi-Chinese / semi-barbarian state to the West of the Zhou)

36. In the follow up Lecture (take notes in class!!!):
Major School of Thought during the Eastern Zhou Period
*Confucianism
*Daoism
*Legalism

37. Bibliography
Slide 1 – Ancient China (discoverchinatours.com; mystiqueart.com; ecological-design.com)
Slide 2 – Ancient China – Political Geography (worldcoincatalog.com)
Slide 3 – Ancient China – Physical Geography (phschool.com)
Slide 4 – Natural Resources – (
Slide 5 – Pre-Historic China -
Slide 6 – Pre-Historic China -
Slide 7 – Pre-Historic China - brandongallery.com; chnmus.net; allproducts.com
Slide 8 – Xia Dynasty - chinatownconnection.com
Slide 9 – The Shang Dynasty -history.howstuffworks.com
Slide 12 – The Shang Dynasty – Religious Beliefs -
Slide 13 – Religious Beliefs - webexhibits.org; articles.sfgate.com
Slide 14 – Oracle Bones – afe.easia.columbia.edu
Slide 15 – Oracle Bones – afe.easia.columbia.edu
Slide 16 – Ancient Chinese Script - my.opera.com
Slide 17 – Burial Practices -
Slide 18 – Burial Practices - counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com; cloudychina.com
Slide 19 – Perception of the World -
Slide 21 – Bronze vessels - blogonauts.com; history-of-china.com; travelchinaguide.com
Slide 22 – Zhou Dynasty - history-of-china.com;
Slide 25 - history.cultural-china.com; commons.wikimedia.org;
Slide
Slide
Slide 31 – Mandate of Heaven - ilookchina.net
Slide 32 – Mandate of Heaven - east-asian-history.net
Slide 33 – Warring States Period - sjsu.edu
Slide 35 – End of Zhou Dynasty - hubpages.com