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World History 1

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	The <OpenstaxTerm>Yellow River</OpenstaxTerm> had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese civilization. It stretches for more than 3,395 miles, beginning in the mountains of western China and emptying into the Bohai Sea from Shandong province. (Only the Yangtze River to the south is longer.) Critical to the development of farming and human settlement along the Yellow River was the soil, which is <OpenstaxTerm>loess</OpenstaxTerm>—a sediment that is highly fertile, but easily moved by winds roaming the plain and driven along as silt by the power of the river. This portability of the soil and the human-built dikes along the river have caused it to constantly evolve and change over the centuries, leaving the surrounding areas prone to regular flooding and subjecting farmers to recurring cycles of bountiful harvests and natural disasters. Rainfall around the Yellow River is limited to around twenty inches annually, meaning that the river’s floods have usually been paired with periodic droughts.
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	Near the Yellow River, the site of <OpenstaxTerm>Erlitou</OpenstaxTerm> in <OpenstaxTerm>Henan</OpenstaxTerm> province reveals a culture defined by the building of palaces, the creation of bronze vessels for rituals, and the practice of forms of ancestor worship. Sites such as these have led to debate about whether they prove the existence of the <OpenstaxTerm>Xia dynasty</OpenstaxTerm>, a fabled kingdom said to have been founded by one of China’s mythological heroes, the <OpenstaxTerm>Great Yu</OpenstaxTerm>. No site has yet been found with documents written by the Xia. Instead, all references to it come from records written many centuries after the possible mythical kingdom ceased to exist.
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	The first Chinese dynasty for which we have solid evidence is the <OpenstaxTerm>Shang</OpenstaxTerm>. It created a complex, socially stratified <OpenstaxTerm>Bronze Age</OpenstaxTerm> civilization whose signature achievement was the creation of a <OpenstaxTerm>written script</OpenstaxTerm>. The Shang were long thought to be a mythological dynasty like the Xia until scholars in the late nineteenth century discovered old turtle shells inscribed with Chinese characters in a medicine shop. Eventually, these shells and other “<OpenstaxTerm>oracle bones</OpenstaxTerm>,” once used in the art of divination, were found to be written records from China’s first dynasty (<a href="#fig-00002">Figure 5.5</a>).
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00002" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/b59b7c0e61d722744990c691850496d9b38463e1" alt="Two images are shown. (a) A picture of a beige stone is shown on a rust-colored pebbled background. The stone is irregularly shaped with the top slanted to the right. Notches show on the top and right sides. Ancient Chinese characters are etched on the front of the stone. (b) An image shows variations of Chinese characters on the right and words and characters on the left: Oracle Bone Script, ‘Large Seal Script’ (Shizhoupian), Seal Script (Shuowen Jiezi), and Regular Script." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1102" height="707" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1102">
	<strong>Figure 5.5</strong> (a) This ancient oracle bone is carved with early variations of Chinese characters. (b) Oracle bone script went through a number of stages to evolve into the contemporary form of script we see today, as evidenced by the early iterations of the characters for the word “autumn,” shown here. (credit a: modification of work “Shang Ox Bone Oracle Bone” by Gary Todd/Flickr, Public Domain; credit b: modification of work “Comparison of Chinese characters for autumn” by “Pat457”/Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
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	Shang kings exerted their authority through rituals of ancestor worship drawn from the Erlitou culture and adapted to the art of bone divination. First carving written characters onto shells and animal bones and then applying heat to crack and shatter them, they posed questions to spirits and divined from the bones the spirits’ predictions regarding impending harvests, military campaigns, or the arrival of an heir. From there, the Shang developed a logographic script whose characters visually represented words and ideas, combining symbols to make new concepts and sounds as needed. These characters served in a number of tasks such as keeping records, making calendars and organizing time, and preserving knowledge and communicating it from generation to generation.
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	The earliest forms of Chinese writing were likely forged on fragile materials such as bamboo or even silk and have not survived. But the Shang’s passing on to future dynasties a <OpenstaxTerm>logographic script</OpenstaxTerm>, rather than a phonographic alphabet, meant that for centuries literacy was the preserve of elites. Reading required memorizing hundreds and eventually thousands of symbols and their meanings, rather than learning the sounds of a far fewer number of letters as is the case with an <OpenstaxTerm>alphabet</OpenstaxTerm>. Chinese ideas, values, and spiritual beliefs stored in this logographic script long outlived the Shang, becoming a key element of continuity from one dynasty to the next.
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	Through their invention of writing, the Shang were also able to command enormous resources for two centuries. They developed the organizational capacity to mine metal ores and transport them to foundries to make bronze cups, goblets, and cauldrons that grew to weigh hundreds of pounds. Shang artisans began weaving silk into cloth, and the city walls around an early capital in <OpenstaxTerm>Zhengzhou</OpenstaxTerm> were erected by ten thousand workers moving earth into bulwarks that stood thirty feet high and sixty feet wide.
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	But the Shang became China’s first dynasty largely because of their military prowess, expanding their power through conquest, unlike the earlier and more trade-oriented cultures. Through warfare and the construction of a network of walled towns, the Shang built one of the world’s first large territorial states controlled by a noble warrior class. This area included territory in Henan, <OpenstaxTerm>Anhui</OpenstaxTerm>, <OpenstaxTerm>Shandong</OpenstaxTerm>, <OpenstaxTerm>Hebei</OpenstaxTerm>, and <OpenstaxTerm>Shanxi</OpenstaxTerm> provinces. The Shang used bronze spears, bows, and later horse-drawn chariots to make raids against neighboring cultures, distributing the prizes to vassals and making enemies into allies for a share of the plunder. The prizes included captives of war, enslaved by the Shang warrior elite or sacrificed. An aristocratic and militaristic culture, the Shang also organized royal hunts for game such as deer, bear, and even tigers and elephants to hone their skills.
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	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Link to Learning </OpenstaxNoteTitle> 
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		Visit this website and read a <a href="https://openstax.org/l/77RitualKill">detailed summary of the importance to ancient Chinese cultures of ritual killing</a> to learn more about and see visual examples of the Shang’s ritualistic vessels, art of divination, and burial customs.
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	The oracle bones suggest that religion and ritual were the backbone of Shang society. The kings were not just military leaders but high priests who worshipped their ancestors and the supreme deity known as <OpenstaxTerm>Di</OpenstaxTerm>. Shang queens and princesses were also active in politics and warfare, with a few notable women such as the general <OpenstaxTerm>Fu Hao</OpenstaxTerm> leading large armies onto the battlefield. Aristocratic women also regularly served as priests in the royal ancestral cult. Like many other ancient societies, the Shang dynasty exhibited a theocratic dimension, with the kings claiming the exclusive right to act as intermediaries between their subjects and the spirit world.
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	To stage this royal role, the <OpenstaxTerm>Shang</OpenstaxTerm> built palaces, temples, and altars for worship in their capital cities, served by artisans making a host of goods. They developed enormous tombs tunneled beneath the earth for royals and nobility, signifying their capacity to organize labor and resources on a vast scale. Fu Hao’s tomb, for example, was small by comparison to many others for Shang royals, but it was dug twenty-five feet deep into the earth and was large enough to hold sixteen human sacrifices and hundreds of bronze weapons, mirrors, bells, and other items fashioned from bone, jade, ivory, and stone. A comparison of early Shang tombs in <OpenstaxTerm>Zhengzhou</OpenstaxTerm> with those of a later period discovered in <OpenstaxTerm>Anyang</OpenstaxTerm> suggests that human sacrifices became ever more spiritually significant, and also more extreme. Later kings were found buried not with a few victims but with hundreds of servants and prisoners of war, as well as animals such as dogs and horses. By spilling human blood, Shang royalty hoped to appease Di and their ancestors to ward off problems such as famine. But the scale of these rituals ballooned, with one record indicating that King <OpenstaxTerm>Wu</OpenstaxTerm> Ding went so far as to sacrifice more than nine thousand victims in one ritual bloodletting.
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	Under the sway of the Shang, the disparate <OpenstaxTerm>Neolithic cultures</OpenstaxTerm> of northern China grew more uniform, while even groups beyond the Shang’s control in the <OpenstaxTerm>Yangtze River</OpenstaxTerm> valley and the west were influenced by their artistic styles and motifs. Yet over the course of their reign, the Shang’s reliance on constant warfare and a religion centered on human sacrifices bred discontent and may have fueled the perception of their kings as corrupt and sadistic. It might even have precipitated revolt against the Shang rulers and the culture’s eventual demise.
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5.1.2 Early Dynastic China

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life after College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Early Humans

2.1 Early Human Evolution and Migration

2.1.1 Human Evolution

2.1.2 Why Did Humans Move and Where Did They Go?

2.1.3 Early Human Technologies

2.2 People in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.1 Ice, Ice, and More Ice

2.2.2 Life in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.3 Diverse Paleolithic Peoples

2.3 The Neolithic Revolution

2.3.1 The Development of Agriculture

2.3.2 How Farming Changed the Human Experience

2.3.3 Neolithic Peoples

3 Early Civilizations and Urban Societies

3.1 Early Civilizations

3.1.1 Attributes of Early Civilizations

3.1.2 The First Urban Societies

3.2 Ancient Mesopotamia

3.2.1 The Rise and Eclipse of Sumer

3.2.2 The Rise of the World’s First Empire

3.2.3 Later Empires in Mesopotamia

3.2.4 Society and Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

3.3 Ancient Egypt

3.3.1 The Origins of Ancient Egypt

3.3.2 The Age of Pyramid Building

3.3.3 A Second Age of Egyptian Greatness

3.4 The Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.1 The Origins of the Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.2 Trade, Writing, and Religion

3.4.3 The Era of Decline

4 The Near East

4.1 From Old Babylon to the Medes

4.1.1 Power Politics in the Near East

4.1.2 Foreign Affairs and Trade

4.1.3 Daily Life and the Family in the Near East

4.2 Egypt’s New Kingdom

4.2.1 The Hyksos in Egypt

4.2.2 The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom

4.2.3 Egypt’s Foreign Policy

4.3 The Persian Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of Persia

4.3.2 Darius I and the Reorganization of the Empire

4.3.3 Persian Culture and Daily Life

4.4 The Hebrews

4.4.1 The History of the Hebrews

4.4.2 The Culture of the Hebrews

5 Asia in Ancient Times

5.1 Ancient China

5.1.1 Prehistoric China

5.1.3 The Zhou Dynasty

5.1.4 The Warring States Era and Qin Unification

5.2 The Steppes

5.2.1 The Nomadic Culture of the Steppes

5.2.2 Tribes, Confederations, and Settled Neighbors

5.3 Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia

5.3.1 Ancient Korea

5.3.2 Ancient Japan

5.4 Vedic India to the Fall of the Maurya Empire

5.4.1 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

5.4.2 The Aryans and Brahmanism

5.4.3 Buddhism

5.4.4 The Mauryan Empire

5.4.5 The Gupta Dynasty

6 Mediterranean Peoples

6.1 Early Mediterranean Peoples

6.1.1 The Late Bronze Age World

6.1.2 Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans

6.2 Ancient Greece

6.2.1 Archaic Greece

6.2.2 Sparta and Athens

6.2.3 Classical Greece

6.3 The Hellenistic Era

6.3.1 The Kingdom of Macedon

6.3.2 Hellenistic Culture

6.4 The Roman Republic

6.4.1 The Foundation and Function of the Roman Republic

6.4.2 The Expansion of the Roman Republic

6.5 The Age of Augustus

6.5.1 The First Triumvirate

6.5.2 From Republic to Principate

7 Experiencing the Roman Empire

7.1 The Daily Life of a Roman Family

7.1.1 The Structure of Roman Families

7.1.2 A Day in the Life of a Roman Family

7.1.3 What Family Meant in Rome

7.2 Slavery in the Roman Empire