Chapter 1 - The Origins of Chinese Civilization

Question 1

What is the Chinese ‘great man’ theory for how their civilization was developed?

Answer 1

The Chinese attributed creation to a series of extraordinarily brilliant human beings and the inventions that step by step transformed the Chinese from a primitive people to a highly civilized one

Question 2

Who were the great men this theory describes?

Answer 2

• Fu Xi, the Ox-tamer, domesticated animals and
  invented the family
• Shen Nong, the Divine Farmer, invented the
  plough and hoe
• Huang Di, the Yellow Lord, invented the bow and
  arrow, boats, carts, ceramics, writing, and silk
• Huang Dia also fought a great battle against
  alien tribes, securing the Yellow River plain for
  his people

Question 3

What was Huang Di labeled as in early Chinese history?

Answer 3

He was labelled the first of the five great pre-dynastic rulers, the last two being Yao and Shun

Question 4

What is Yao credited with in early Chinese history?

Answer 4

Yao was credited with devising the calendar and rituals

Question 5

Who was Yu and what did he do to the Yellow River?

Answer 5

• Yu was an officer appointed by Shun to help with
  the prevention of floods
• He travelled through the land, dredging the
  channels that came the rivers of north China

Question 6

How was the Shang dynasty founded?

Answer 6

The tyrant King Jie was deposed by a subordinate who then founded the Shang

Question 7

What made it possible for the Zhou to overthrow the Shang?

Answer 7

A self-indulgent and obstinate king lost the support of the nobles and people which made it easy for the Zhou armies to come in from the west and overthrow the Shang

Question 8

What are considered to be the three ancient dynasties in China?

Answer 8

The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties

Question 9

What can the way China’s past was recorded be compared to?

Answer 9

It was written much like the past of a family that could be traced back through a single line of ancestors, one before the other

Question 10

Do modern scholars construct a similar story of the origins of Chinese civilization?

Answer 10

No, their accounts differ from the traditional story by giving more weight to the role of ritual and religion in shaping the significant characteristics of Chinese culture

Question 11

What is the geography like in the north? How does that affect the kinds of crops they can grow?

Answer 11

The north is colder, flatter, and more arid; its growing season is shorter and its soil more alkaline, making it best suited to crops like wheat and millet. North of the Yellow River, rainfall is frequently too light for unirrigated agriculture.

Question 12

Why is the Yellow River prone to flooding?

Answer 12

Because as it flows through the loess regions of the northwest, it collects silt which it gradually dropped as the river makes its way east and the current slows. Because the silt builds up the height of the river bed, over the centuries, farmers and government forces constructed dykes to keep the river in its course, a practice that made floods, when they occurred, that much more destructive, inundating nuge regions

Question 13

What’s different about the geography of the region that is drained by the Yangzi River and how does that that affect the kinds of crops they can grow?

Answer 13

It is warmer and wetter than the north. Most of it stays green all year and receives more than 60 inches of rainfall annually, making it well suited to rice cultivation and to double-cropping

Question 14

What kind of travel is the southland suited for?

Answer 14

Due to the Yangzi and many numerous small rivers crisscrossing the south are navigable, making the south a land suited to boat travel

Question 15

What kind of travel is the north suited for?

Answer 15

In the north, until modern times, people travelled by land, on foot, on the backs of horses or donkeys, or in carts drawn by animals

Question 16

What technological advancements had the villagers at Hemudu develop?

Answer 16

They built wooden houses on stilts and made lacquered bowls and blackish pottery with incised geometric designs. Basketry and weaving were highly developed; residents left behind spindle whorls used to twist yarns and shuttles used in weaving. Other wooden tools included hoes, spears, mallets, and paddles

Question 17

What accompanied the domestication of plants in both the north and south?

Answer 17

The domestication of animals such as dogs and pigs (5000 BC) which were found in both areas, sheep and cattle (3000 BC) which were important in the north, and water buffalo and cattle (3000 BC) in the south

Question 18

What were artistic styles and burial practices like in the west?

Answer 18

In the Yangshao culture area burials were generally simple and pottery was often decorated with painted geometric designs (commonly done in red and black with spirals, diamonds and other geometric patterns)

Question 19

What were artistic styles and burial practices like in the east?

Answer 19

Pottery was rarely painted, but more elaborate forms appear early, including tripods and pedestalled bowls and cups. The finest wares were thin-walled with a burnished surface almost metallic in appearance. Burials in the east ended to vary, some of the dead were buried in coffins and occasionally a wooden chamber was built to line the burial pit. The riches grave sites contained 50-100 objects including necklaces and bracelets made of jade, stone or pottery beads

Question 20

Why is it difficult to work with jade?

Answer 20

Jade is a very hard stone, formed when the crystals of rocks have been crushed over millions of years to make a matted configuration of molecules. As jades does not split or fracture easily, to shape it requires grinding with abrasive sand in a slow, labour-intensive process

Question 21

What are bi and cong? How were they used a couple thousand years after they were first created?

Answer 21

Bi are disks and cong are columns, they are ritual objects made from jade. A couple thousand years later, bi and cong were still used in rituals and were considered to have cosmological significance, the circles and squares representing heaven and earth respectively

Question 22

When was metal starting to be more widely used and what did it cause?

Answer 22

Metal began to be used on a small scale for weapons, and in the north China plain walled settlements appeared

Question 23

What did the appearance of thick walled settlements allude to?

Answer 23

Enclosing a settlement with such a wall of rammed earth no doubt required the ability to coordinate labour and thus also indicates advances in social organization

Question 24

What was China’s bronze-age civilization marked by?

Answer 24

Writing, metal-working, domestication of the horse, class stratification, and a stable political-religious hierarchy administering a large territory from a cult center

Question 25

Is it 100% certain that the Xia dynasty existed?

Answer 25

No, it is uncertain whether or not there was a full-fledged Xia dynasty before the Shang, but there was, without doubt, a major transition in this period of Chinese history

Question 26

What kind of technology had advancements since pre-Shang times?

Answer 26

Military technology like bronze-tipped spears and halberds, composite bows, and horse-drawn chariots

Question 27

Was Shang kingship based on military supremacy or religion?

Answer 27

Shang kingship was firmly grounded in religion and ritual, the Shang king played a priestly role in the worship of the high god Di and the royal ancestors, a role that justified his political powers

Question 28

Was the succession of lineage in the Shang dynasty patriarchal or matriarchal?

Answer 28

Kingship passed from elder to young brother and father to son, but never to or through sisters or daughters

Question 29

What were the principles underlying sacrifice in China?

Answer 29

Reciprocity and feeding: one makes offerings to those from whom one wants help, and one feeds rich foods to the god or ancestor to keep him strong

Question 30

Where was the earliest evidence of full sentences found in China?

Answer 30

On the oracle bones of the late Shang - showed that the Shang used a language directly ancestral to modern Chinese

Question 31

What were the consequences of the Shang creating a logographic script rather than a phonetic one?

Answer 31

It shaped the nature of the elite: the difficulty of mastering this script made those expert in it an elite possessed of rare but essential skills

Question 32

What was the development of more complex forms of social organization in Shang China tied to?

Answer 32

Perfecting metal-working techniques

Question 33

What was the complexity of design of Shang bronzes achieved through?

Answer 33

It was achieved through mould casting and prefabrication - legs, handles, and other protruding members were cast first and then the body was cast on to them

Question 34

What was the founding of the Zhou associated with?

Answer 34

A series of important religious changes such as the scale of human sacrifice at burials declining, suggesting that ideas about death and the afterlife were changing

Question 35

What was the rule of the Zhou king linked with?

Answer 35

Heaven - a king and a dynasty could rule only so long as they retained heaven’s favor

Question 36

What were moral values built into in the Zhou dynasty?

Answer 36

They were built into the way the cosmos worked, and history was read as a mirror of heaven’s will

Question 37

Since ideas of heaven and the cosmos are not existent in Shang cosmology, what are they believed to be in the Zhou dynasty?

Answer 37

They are thought to be elaborated by the early Zhou rulers as a kind of propaganda to win over the conquered subjects of the Shang

Question 38

Who are the three Zhou rulers who were given credit for establishing a stable state?

Answer 38

King Wen (the Cultured King), King Wu (the Martial King), and the Duke of Zhou

Question 39

What did the three Zhou rulers represent?

Answer 39

THey represent the leadership qualities required for the establishment of enduring states: military prowess, the morally based civil arts, and loyalty

Question 40

Rather than attempt to rule all of their territories directly, what did early Zhou rulers do?

Answer 40

They sent out relatives and trusted subordinates with troops to establish walled garrisons in the conquered territories, where that was not possible, they recognized local chiefs as their representatives

Question 41

What title did the king of Zhou bear?

Answer 41

They bore the title Son go Heaven

Question 42

What terms was Zhou society strongly conceived in?

Answer 42

Hierarchical terms - ranging from the Son of Heaven, through the lords, to the great ministers, other officers, the knights and court attendants, and finally the ordinary farmers

Question 43

What important shifts from Shang tradition did Zhou art show?

Answer 43

The animal mask or taotie all but disappeared - birdlike imagery became more important, along with purely ornamental decorations, such as spikes and ribs (the use of such suggests that vessels were being viewed from greater distances, during rituals performed in front of audiences)

Question 44

When did the earliest CHinese poetry originate from?

Answer 44

The early Zhou period - many of the 305 poems in the Book of Songs would have been sung at cuort during important ceremonies

Question 45

What do most Chinese historians and archaeologists point to as proof that early Chinese civilizations discovered/invented writing on their own?

Answer 45

They pointed to marks on neolithic pots as possible early stages in writing system to refute the notion that the idea behind writing might have been transmitted by illiterate peoples across the steppe