MLK-+china

Home Page

Geography- Environmental Challenges- Time Period- Institutions(cities)- Culture- Social Class- Religion- Literature- Technology and Trade- Warfare- Government-
 * To the east- yellow sea, east china sea, and pacific ocean.
 * West China- taklimakan desert and plateau of tibet.
 * Southwest- Himalayas
 * Morht- Govi desert and mongolian plateau.
 * Two rivers- Huang He ( the yellow river ), and The Chang Jiang (yangtze)
 * Yellow silt from the yellow river provides fortile soil, also called loass
 * 2/3 is mountain & desert
 * Floods
 * Little trade- had to supply own goods
 * Invasions from the west and from the north
 * ONly 10L% suitable for farming "North China Plain"
 * People have been living in southwest China 1.7 million years ago
 * People settled the river valley as much as 500,000 years ago
 * Around 2000BC some settlements grew into chinas first cities
 * Shang Dynasty lasted from around 1700BC-1027BC
 * Anyang: most important shang city, one of the capitals of Shang dynast, built mainly of wood
 * Shang surrounded their cities with massive earthen walls for protection
 * Cities were constantly waging war.
 * Strong Unifying Bonds
 * groups seem to have been more important then individual
 * loyalty throughout life was to family
 * Women treated as inferiors
 * Arranged marriages
 * Sharply divided between nobles and peasants
 * Wawrrior-nobles haeded by a king governed (Noble families owned land)
 * Spirits of family ancestors brought good fortune or disaster
 * Spirits were more like troublesome or helpful neighbors (demanded attention and respect)
 * Consulted gods through ancestors
 * Worshipped a supreme god
 * King consulted gods through oracle bones (animal bones & torquoise)
 * Polytheism
 * Each character generally stands for one syllable or unit of language
 * system of writing helped unifly a large diverse land
 * enormous number of written character to be memorized
 * Noble persons children learned to write, peasants children did not
 * roads and canals built to stimulate trade and culture
 * coin money improved trade
 * blast furnaces produced cast iron
 * Used iron to create weapons.
 * Nomads from north sacked Zhou capital and killed Zhou Monarch
 * Mandate of heaven- a just ruler had divine approval
 * Dynasties
 * Feudalism- a political system in which nobles, or lords, are granted the use of lands that legally belong to the kings
 * Dynastic Cycle