The first prehistoric dynasty is said to be Xia (),
from about the
twenty-first to the sixteenth century B.C. Until scientific
excavations were made at early bronze-age sites at Anyang
(
), Henan
(
)
Province, in 1928, it was difficult to separate myth from reality
in regard to the Xia. But since then, and especially in the 1960s
and 1970s, archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze
implements, and tombs that point to the existence of Xia
civilization in the same locations cited in ancient Chinese
historical texts. At minimum, the Xia period marked an
evolutionary stage between the late neolithic cultures and the
typical Chinese urban civilization of the Shang dynasty.
Thousands of archaeological finds in the Huang He
(
),
Henan Valley (
)
--the apparent cradle of Chinese civilization--provide evidence about
the Shang (
) dynasty, which endured roughly
from 1700 to 1027 B.C.
The Shang dynasty (also called the Yin (
)
dynasty in its later
stages) is believed to have been founded by a rebel leader who
overthrew the last Xia ruler. Its civilization was based on
agriculture, augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. Two
important events of the period were the development of a writing
system, as revealed in archaic Chinese inscriptions found on
tortoise shells and flat cattle bones (commonly called oracle
bones or
), and the use of
bronze metallurgy. A number of ceremonial
bronze vessels with inscriptions date from the Shang period; the
workmanship on the bronzes attests to a high level of
civilization.
A line of hereditary Shang kings ruled over much of northern China, and Shang troops fought frequent wars with neighboring settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes. The capitals, one of which was at the site of the modern city of Anyang, were centers of glittering court life. Court rituals to propitiate spirits and to honor sacred ancestors were highly developed. In addition to his secular position, the king was the head of the ancestor- and spirit-worship cult. Evidence from the royal tombs indicates that royal personages were buried with articles of value, presumably for use in the afterlife. Perhaps for the same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, were buried alive with the royal corpse.
The last Shang ruler, a despot according to standard Chinese
accounts, was overthrown by a chieftain of a frontier tribe
called Zhou (
), which had settled in
the Wei (
) Valley in modern
Shaanxi (
)
Province. The Zhou dynasty had its capital at Hao
(
), near
the city of Xi'an (
), or Chang'an (
), as it was known in its heyday in
the imperial period. Sharing the language and culture of the
Shang, the early Zhou rulers, through conquest and colonization,
gradually sinicized, that is, extended Shang culture through much
of China Proper north of the Chang Jiang (
or Yangtze
River). The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other, from 1027
to 221 B.C. It was philosophers of this period who first
enunciated the doctrine of the "mandate of heaven" (tianming or
),
the notion that the ruler (the "son of heaven" or
) governed by
divine right but that his dethronement would prove that he had
lost the mandate. The doctrine explained and justified the demise
of the two earlier dynasties and at the same time supported the
legitimacy of present and future rulers.
The term feudal has often been applied to the Zhou period
because the Zhou's early decentralized rule invites comparison
with medieval rule in Europe. At most, however, the early Zhou
system was proto-feudal (),
being a more sophisticated version of
earlier tribal organization, in which effective control depended
more on familial ties than on feudal legal bonds. Whatever feudal
elements there may have been decreased as time went on. The Zhou
amalgam of city-states became progressively centralized and
established increasingly impersonal political and economic
institutions. These developments, which probably occurred in the
latter Zhou period, were manifested in greater central control
over local governments and a more routinized agricultural
taxation.
In 771 B.C. the Zhou court was sacked, and its king was killed
by invading barbarians who were allied with rebel lords. The
capital was moved eastward to Luoyang (
) in present-day Henan
(
)
Province. Because of this shift, historians divide the Zhou era
into Western Zhou (1027-771 B.C.) and Eastern Zhou (770-221
B.C.). With the royal line broken, the power of the Zhou court
gradually diminished; the fragmentation of the kingdom
accelerated. Eastern Zhou divides into two subperiods. The first,
from 770 to 476 B.C., is called the Spring and Autumn Period
(
),
after a famous historical chronicle of the time; the second is
known as the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.
).