Key Terms
Earliest Neolithic culture
Nanzhuangtou (8500-7700 BCE), Hebei province. Last known Neolithic culture: Yueshi (1900-1500 BCE), Shandong province.
Women in Neolithic China
Often buried with same quantity of items as men. Many communities were matrilineal (kinship traced through mother).
Site of Erlitou (Henan province)
Palaces, bronze ritual vessels, ancestor worship. No documents written by the Xia have been found.
Oracle bones used for divination
Carved with written questions, heated to crack, cracks read to predict harvests, military campaigns, and heirs.
Script type
Logographic (characters visually represent words and ideas; symbols combined to make new concepts).
Fu Hao
Notable Shang queen and general who led large armies. Her tomb was dug 25 feet deep; contained 16 human sacrifices and h
Scale of human sacrifice grew over time
King Wu Ding reportedly sacrificed more than 9,000 victims in one ritual.
Shang military
Used bronze spears, bows, and horse-drawn chariots. Conquered and raided neighboring cultures; distributed prizes to vas
Capital at Zhengzhou
City walls erected by 10,000 workers; walls 30 feet high and 60 feet wide.
New terms from this ideology
Zhongguo (China, from "central" + "state"); Huaxia (Chinese people in the Zhou dynasty).
Feudal/decentralized system
Land and power granted to local lords in exchange for tribute and military service. Zhou brokered marriages to cement ti
Focal point
Accumulation of power. Governments draw power from a written legal code backed by rewards and punishments.
Han early emperors
Reduced taxes and burdens on common people; distanced from Shihuangdi's legacy. Key legacy of Qin: uniform laws, standar
Diet and trade goods
Meat, dairy, animal flesh and furs — traded in agricultural villages. Languages: Turkic, Mongolic, some possibly Indo- E
Social structure
Lived in clans (small groups of several families sharing encampment and herding/hunting together). More egalitarian than