River+Dynasties+in+China

=RIVER DYNASTIES IN CHINA!=

BOLD: Loess:The Huang He, whose name means “yellow river,” deposits huge amounts of yellowish silt when it overflows its banks. This silt is actually fertile soil.

Oracle Bones: Shang kings consulted the gods through the use of oracle bones, animal bones and tortoise shells on which priests had scratched questions for the gods. After inscribing a question on the bone, a priest applied a hot poker to it, which caused it to crack. The priests then interpreted the cracks to see how the gods had answered.

Mandate of Heaven: A just ruler had divine approval, known as the Mandate of Heaven. A wicked or foolish king could lose the Mandate of Heaven and so lose the right to rule.

Dynasty Circle: A cycle historians described as the pattern of rise, decline, and replacement of dynasties.

Fuedalism: a political system in which nobles, or lords, are granted the use of lands that legally belong to the king. In return, the nobles owe loyalty and military service to the king and protection to the people who live on their estates. Similar systems would arise centuries later in both Japan and Europe.

KEY EVENTS/IDEAS:

GEOGRAPHY OF CHINA:
 * Natural barriers somewhat isolated ancient China from all other civilizations. To China’s east lay the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the Pacific Ocean.
 * Mountain ranges and deserts dominate about two-thirds of China’s landmass. In west China lay the Taklimakan Desert and the icy 15,000-foot Plateau of Tibet.
 * To the southwest are the Himalayas.
 * Two major river systems flow from the mountainous west to the Pacific Ocean. The Huang He, also known as the Yellow River, is found in the north. In central China, the Chang Jiang, also called Yangtze, flows east to the Yellow Sea.
 * Only about 10 percent of China’s land is suitable for farming.
 * Throughout China’s long history, its political boundaries have expanded and contracted depending on the strength or weakness of its ruling families.

CIVILIZATION EMERGES IN SHANG TIMES:
 * Fossil remains show that ancestors of modern humans lived in southwest China about 1.7 million years ago. In northern China near Beijing, a Homo erectus skeleton was found. Known as Peking man.
 * people settled on the river valley as much as 500,000 years ago.
 * Even before the Sumerians settled in southern Mesopotamia, early Chinese cultures were building farming settlements along the Huang He. Around 2000 B.C., some of these settlements grew into China’s first cities.
 * According to legend, the first Chinese dynasty, the Xia (shyah) Dynasty, emerged about this time. Its leader was an engineer and mathematician named Yu. His flood- control and irrigation projects helped tame the Huang He and its tributaries so that settlements could grow.
 * The Shang Dynasty lasted from around 1700 B.C. to 1027 B.C.It was the first family of Chinese rulers to leave written records. The Shang kings built elaborate palaces and tombs.
 * Among the oldest and most important Shang cities was Anyang (ahn•YAHNG), one of the capitals of theShang Dynasty. Unlike the cities of the Indus Valley or Fertile Crescent, Anyang was built mainly of wood.
 * The higher classes lived in timber-framed houses with walls of clay and straw. These houses lay inside the city walls. The peasants and crafts- people lived in huts outside the city.
 * The archaeological remains of one city include a wall of packed earth 118 feet wide at its base that encircled an area of 1.2 square miles. It likely took 10,000 men more than 12 years to build such a structure.

DEVELOPEMENT OF THE CHINES CULTURE:


 * In the Chinese view, people who lived outside of Chinese civilization were barbarians. Because the Chinese saw their country as the center of the civilized world, their own name for China was the Middle Kingdom.
 * The family was central to Chinese society. The most important virtue was respect for one’s parents. The elder men in the family controlled the family’s property and made important decisions.
 * Women, on the other hand, were treated as inferiors. They were expected to obey their fathers, their husbands, and later, their own sons.
 * Shang society was sharply divided between nobles and peasants. A ruling class of warrior-nobles headed by a king governed the Shang. These noble families owned the land.
 * 52Chapter 2 In China, the family was closely linked to religion. The Chinese believed that the spirits of family ancestors had the power to bring good fortune or disaster to living members of the family.
 * the spirits were more like troublesome or helpful neighbors who demanded attention and respect. Every family paid respect to the father’s ancestors and made sacrifices in their honor.
 * In the Chinese method of writing,each character generally stands for one syllableor unit of language.
 * The Chinese system of writing had one major advantage. People in all parts of China could learn the same system of writing, even if their spoken languages were very different. Thus, the Chinese written language helped unify a large and diverse land, and made control much easier.
 * The disadvantage of the Chinese system was the enormous number of written characters to be memorized—a different one for each unit of language. A person needed to know over 1,500 characters to be barely literate. To be a true scholar, one needed to know at least 10,000 characters.
 * For centuries, this severely limited the number of literate, educated Chinese. As a general rule, a noble person’s children learned to write, but peasant children did not.

ZHOU AND THE DYNASTIC CYCLE:
 * In around 1027 B.C. people called the Zhou overthrew the shang and established their own dynasty.
 * Zhou rule brought new ideas to the Chines cilivization.
 * To justify themselves the Zhou leaders had said that the final shang king had been sych a bad leader that the gods had taken him away from being a leader and gave the priviladge to the Zhou people.
 * The Zhou dynasty controll lands far beyond the Hung He and the Hung Jiang.
 * The Zhou dynasty invented many different things like roads roads for trading, coined money, and blast furnaces.
 * The Zhou used iron in many way but especally to create weapons like the soward.
 * The Zhou ruled from 1020 to 256 B.C.
 * in 771 B.C. Nomads from the north sacked the Zhou captil and killed the Zhou monarch.
 * Later years in Zhou ruling were called "The time of warring states."

Key People:

Enviormental Challenges:

Like the other ancient civilizations in this chapter, China’s first civilization developed in a river valley. China, too, faced the dan- gers of floods—but its geographic isolation posed its own challenges.

•The Huang He’s floods could be disastrous. Sometimes floods devoured whole villages, earning the river the nickname “China’s Sorrow.”

•Because of China’s relative geographic isolation, early settlers had to supply their own goods rather than trading with outside peoples.

•China’s natural boundaries did not completely protect these settlers from outsiders. Invasions from the west and north occurred again and again in Chinese history.

Hinduism and Buddism develope

Bold: Reincarnation- an individual soul or spirit born over and over until moksha is achieved. Karma- a souls good or bad deeds follows from one reincarnation to a another. Jainism- was founded by Mahavira, it means that everything in the universe has a soul and should not be harmed. Siddhartha Gautama- the founder of Buddism. He was born into a Nobel family that lived in the foothills of the himalayas in Nepal. Enlightenment- it means wisdom, siddhartha search for it for six years. Nirvana- the Budda's word for release from selfishness and pain. Anyone could reach nirvana if they followed the Eightfold path.

Key people:

Key events/ideas: HINDUISM EVOLVES OVER CENTURIES Hinudism is a collection of religious believes the developed slowly over time. Hinudism cannot be traced back to one founder with a single set of ideas. Hindus see religion as a way of liberating the soul from illusions, disappointments, and mistakes of everyday existence. Hindu teachers comments are called Upanishads they are written as dialogue or discussion. Moksha is a state of perfect understanding of all things. Hinduism has gone through many changeover the last 2,500 years. Brahman means soul. Brahman was sometimes seen as having the personalities of three gods: brahma the creator, Vishnu the protector, Shiva the destroyer. Vishna took on many personalities on it own like Krishna the Devine cowherder or as Rama the absolute perfect king. Over Manu centuries the creator Brahma faded into the background while many forms of the goddess Devi grew in importance. Hindus today are free to choose the deity they worship or choose none at all.

Enviormental challenges: