The early cultures of North America were predominantly agrarian-based, with small communities developing in and around areas where the natural environment provided rich sources of food. By AD 700 three distinct cultures had developed. These were more urban and culturally diverse, and they were heavily influenced by Mexican civilizations. By the beginning of the 15th century, however, these cultures were in decline.
By 300 BC, the area stretching from Ohio to West Virginia had already been settled. Small communities and villages developed in river valleys, where natural food resources (such as mammals, birds, fish and vegetable foods) were both abundant and close at hand. Horticulture also developed around this time: sunflowers, marsh elder and squashes were cultivated.
Archaeological evidence from this period points to the existence of chiefdoms: the elaborate burial sites, such as that at Hopewell in Ohio, are excellent indicators of the social, religious and trade networks through which imported goods, as well as ideas, filtered. By AD 700, three distinct cultural traditions had emerged in southwestern North America: the Hohokam, Mogollon and Anasazi. Their area of influence covered much of the territory that is now Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, and also extended south into Sonora and Chihuahua.
The Hohokam, Mogollon and Anasazi cultures all had contact with Mexico, and this contact became a significant influence on their development. Excavations have revealed ball courts and Mesoamerican-style mosaics, bracelets, effigy vessels and figurines. The architectural layout of the towns (which were used as economic, religious and trading centres) also reveals Mexican influence, and the Mexicans may even have established Casas Grandes in Chihuahua as the “capital” of the Mogollon culture.
The first true towns in North America appeared in the Middle Mississippi Valley from AD 700. They were characteristically built on large, flat-topped, rectangular mounds, which supported temples and mortuary houses for the elite society and more modest timber houses for the town’s merchants and officials. A town generally consisted of up to 20 mounds grouped together around a plaza and enclosed by a defensive wooden stockade. The towns had substantial populations: it is estimated that some reached 10,000 inhabitants.
The large rural population (about 200 people per square km) was based predominantly in the fertile river valleys surrounding the towns. Again, Mexican influence here is evident: after AD 700, a hardier strain of maize, popular in Mexico, was introduced and cultivated. In addition, the introduction of the bow and arrow to replace the spear-thrower and dart meant more efficient hunting of the abundant game on the uplands.
By the time 16th-century French explorers discovered the area, the population had advanced to a ranked, matrilineal society headed by a chief who ruled four well-defined classes. Archaeological evidence from Mississippi to Minnesota and from Oklahoma to the Atlantic coast also bears witness to the widespread existence of a religion known as the Southern Cult. Reaching its peak in 1250, the cult was strongly influenced by Mexican practice, especially in regard to the importance of the four cardinal points and the significance placed upon death.
Disease, caused by unhealthy overcrowding and poor sanitation, heralded the slow decline of the early North American cultures after AD 1300. However, their demise was a but a pale foreshadowing of the destruction that was to befall these cultures when Europeans arrived in the New World.
TO 475 BC
THE BEGINNINGS OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION
Geographically and climatically China has a range of favourable conditions for human settlement, which took place 500,000 years ago. A turning point was reached at about 1600 BC when China entered the Bronze Age. It was then that Chinese culture took shape, as written languages, philosophies and stable socio-political and economic structures gradually emerged.
China has been inhabited continuously by humans since very early times. Remains of early hominines, which are similar to those from Java, have been found across large areas of southeast China. In about 500,000 BC Peking Man—Homo erectus—was living around Pohai and in the southeast and possibly in central and southern China as well. Homo sapiens first appeared in Palaeolithic cultures in the Ordos region, in the north and in the southwest in about 30,000 BC. Later Mesolithic cultures flourished in the north, south and southwest and in Taiwan.
EARLY AGRICULTURALISTS
Neolithic agricultural communities, the immediate ancestors of Chinese civilization, arose around 7500 BC in what is now southern China and in the loess-covered lands of the north and northeast, where the well-drained soil of the river terraces was ideal for primitive agriculture. One of the best early sites is Pan-p’o, with round and rectangular houses, pottery kilns and a cemetery area. In the valley of the Yellow River, early agriculture depended heavily on millet, but in the Yangtze delta area evidence of rice-paddies dates from the 5th millennium BC. By 3000 BC, more sophisticated skills developed, including the carving of jade, and small townships rather than villages began to emerge.
Around 1600 BC China entered the Bronze Age with its first archaeologically proven dynasty, the Shang (c. 1520–1030 BC). Chasing copper mines, the Shang moved their capital at least six times, and three, at Cheng-chou, Erh-li-t’ou and An-yang, have been excavated. Many smaller Shang sites have been found and some are now known from the Yangtze valley in central China indicating the Shang expansion southward. In addition, the Shang had trade relations with most of the northern and central east Asian mainland.
THE CHOU DYNASTY
In the 11th century BC the Shang territory was conquered by the Chou, of different ethnic origin, who inhabited the northwest border of the Shang domain. The Chou gradually extended their sovereignty, including the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and parts of the middle basin of the Yangtze. At first their capital lay near Hsi-an. The Chou territory was divided into numerous domains among the king and the elites—a system of delegated authority similar to the later European feudal system.
Until the 8th century BC the Chou constantly extended their territory. About 770 BC, however, internal disorders broke the kingdom into numerous units and forced the Chou king to abandon his homeland in the Wei valley and move to the eastern capital at Lo-yang, where his power diminished. Over the next two and a half centuries wars caused more than 100 petty units to be swallowed up by some 20 of the more powerful ones, among whom there emerged a clear pecking order.
The Shang and early Chou periods were differentiated from their predecessors by their political organization and their bronze technology, and also by the use of writing; their culture was already recognizably “Chinese”. Their cities maintained a hierarchy of nobles, royal officers and court servants. They drew support from communities of craftsmen working in bronze, jade, wood, stone, ceramics and textiles. Peasants working the various domains that belonged to the landed classes produced revenues and foodstuffs. Market activities were common and mint currencies were in use.
Bronze was used for ritual objects and a wide range of weapons and tools, with the exception of farming equipment. Farmers working in the fields continued to use stone implements, growing rice, millet, barley and hemp and raising pigs, poultry and silkworms.
Towards the end of the period, the old social order began to collapse. The more powerful units employed bureaucrats rather than the hereditary nobility of older times. A new group of administrators (shih) emerged. A leading figure among this group, Confucius, formulated a new ethos, which was to have currency far into the future and far beyond China’s territory.
TO 1392
KOREA
The area now known as Korea was the mountainous eastern edge of the Eurasian continent until the Yellow Sea formed and the west coast emerged to define a peninsula. Peoples migrated into and through the peninsula to the islands. Chinese political culture and Buddhism followed on, and states emerged. With Chinese aid, one of three competing kingdoms conquered the peninsula, but instability led to anarchy by the late 9th century. The successful kingdom created a bureaucratic state with strong aristocratic characteristics and established a Korean identity.