Other cities were comparably large. So far, scholars have been very cautious about calling them civilizations. This is partly because they all lack writing, which first appeared with the Shang Dynasty in the Yellow River plain area by around 1300–1500 BCE. Signs on vessels before 2000 (see, e.g., photographs in Shao 2002: 106 and K.-c. Chang 2002b: 133) are suggestive, but most of them clearly are tally marks rather than real characters (see, again, Li Feng and Branner 2011). Earlier writing will, however, probably turn up. The earliest Shang writing has a well-developed look, implying some prior history. Fast-wheel pottery, a technically sophisticated craft, was locally known by this time (Shao 2002). Spectacular jade work was common; many through the centuries have held that Chinese civilization never equaled the quality of its precivilization jades (see Shao 2002 for spectacular photographs that might convince many more). Southeast Asia has produced nothing so large so early, but advanced cultures by 1500 BCE show that this area too was advancing almost in step with China.
In short, Chinese civilization was a diverse set of traditions from earliest times. Different language groups are certainly represented and surely include Thai as well as Sinitic; most scholars suspect that Miao (Hmong), Yao (Mien), Altaic, and other groups were also involved.
The Earliest Dynasties
According to historical tradition, China’s first dynasty was the Xia, which ruled the very center of the Chinese world: the great bend area of the Yellow River as it turns from the mountains to cross the North China Plain. It was founded by the legendary Great Yu, who tamed the Yellow River floods and prepared the land for planting. He was so busy that, according to folklore, he passed his family door several times over many years without once going in. This later gave him a reputation for a lack of filial feeling, causing debates about how much serious business must take precedence over family ritual. The Xia supposedly ruled from 2205 to 1766 BCE, when they were conquered by the Shang, probably from farther east.
The last emperor of Xia became the prototype of the “bad last emperor,” who lost the Mandate of Heaven—the legitimacy of his rule in the eyes of the people and the gods—by sinning. He supposedly had a meat forest—trees hung with drying meat—and a lake of ale (or “wine”—jiu, i.e., fermented grain drink). Supposedly he went swimming in it, and the courtiers drank from it like beasts. This exaggeration was cut down to size by Wang Chong (1907: 486–89) in the Later Han dynasty. Wang, a chronic skeptic, debunked this and other fantastic tales of heroic drunkards (including Confucius). But the lure of a sinful wish-fulfillment fantasy was too much for the Chinese historians, and the lake of wine remained—often, though, with a skeptical disclaimer. Stories of bad last emperors proliferated thereafter, providing excuses for their removal by subsequent conquering dynasts.
The existence of a Xia Dynasty continues to be debated, but there certainly was a major chiefdom or early civilization at that time and place. The main city site known so far is Erlitou, often identified as the capital of the Xia Dynasty. It was large and complex, with stunning art and monumental architecture including many large buildings and walls. It peaked at around 24,000 inhabitants (Liu and Chen 2012:270), and more in large suburbs. During Xia times (perhaps a bit earlier), bronze technology was introduced from the Near East (see, e.g., Sherratt 2006). The evidence for Near Eastern origin of Chinese bronzemaking is now overwhelming (Golas 1999), but the Chinese were quick learners. A huge bronze industry flourished at Erlitou, with copper being mined as much as a hundred miles away.
The site seems to have had all the trappings of civilization—except one: true writing. We have tallies, symbols, and possible ancestors of characters, but no real characters. Erlitou’s art style spread all over the core area of what would later be China (Allan 2007). A dragon made of turquoise stones, arranged carefully, was found in a grave at Erlitou (Lawler 2009).
A fascinating speculation on Xia religion and behavior exists in the Li Ji, a Han Dynasty text. The Han writers (or Warring States writers they were copying) assumed: “At the first use of ceremonies, they began with meat and drink. They roasted millet and pieces of pork; they excavated the ground in the form of a jar, and scooped the water from it with their two hands … when one died, … they filled the mouth … with uncooked rice, and (set forth as offerings to him) packets of raw flesh” (Legge 2008: 216). The Li Ji goes on to reconstruct a whole prehistory, including ideas that the very earliest people knew no fire, ate their food raw, and lived in nests; later they invented fire, liquor, and other foods and took to extensive use of the liquor in ceremonies. These ancient times were considered a sort of golden age, rough and hard but natural and free from guile. Because of this, there were no crop failures or disasters, and heaven and earth produced dews and sweet wine (227). Acquaintance with neighboring peoples gave early writers a sense of what simpler, less civilized cultures might do or have done.
Other large and impressive towns existed in many parts of north China at the same time. Current thinking suggests a mosaic of chiefdoms throughout the region (see, e.g., Hui 2005; Loewe and Shaughnessy 1999). There may have been 10,000 (give or take many thousand!) small independent local societies, with the number shrinking to a couple of thousand states or near-states during Shang times and perhaps still 1,200 at the end of Western Zhou (K.-c. Chang 2002b: 126). They rapidly declined to the well-known couple of dozen Warring States after 500 BCE. K.-c. Chang (2002a, b) points out that the growth of polity size enlarged the work forces available to the rulers of the states that managed to grow. He maintains that productivity per worker did not increase much during this period (a debatable claim). Of course the elites in the loser states became part of that work force!
Shamanism flourished, and shamans obviously had great power, but exactly how much is hotly debated. Chang (2002a) also notes that Chinese civilization resembled Native American civilizations, and differed from West Asian (and later European) ones, in seeing continuity with nature and revering nature spirits and nature-related deities who were close to humans. They seem to have been psychologically as close as ancestors. As noted above, Chang felt that the East Asian–American universe was one of “continuity” between humans and the rest of the cosmos, divine or worldly. The West, to Chang, displays “rupture” between people and nature and between people and their remote heavenly gods (K.-c. Chang 2002: 193). This is supported by texts from Mesopotamia from the same time period: works like the Epic of Gilgamesh display a strong contrast between the civilized and the wild, with the latter being disliked and feared. This attitude runs through Western literature and philosophy from that time on and is indeed in dramatic contrast with China’s cosmology.
The Shang Dynasty, in contrast to Xia, is now quite well known (K.-c. Chang 1980, 1983; Keightley 2000; Loewe and Shaughnessy 1999). It began around 1500 to 1600 BCE, not 1766 (as traditional histories recorded). It ruled the central Yellow River region, and its power seems to have extended well up and down stream, as well as west into the Wei Valley and north into the North China Plain. Shang was a brilliant but local civilization, centered on the great central plain of north China, depending on intensive agriculture and pig-raising. It seems to have begun its glory days by conquering the Erlitou polity; it was probably a semiperipheral marcher state conquering the local core, thus beginning a pattern that was frequently repeated in northern China. The Shang people built a capital nearby at Yanshi but soon afterward moved the seat of government downriver to Zhengzhou, which grew to at least 25 square km (Lu Liancheng and Yan 2002: 152) with a population of around 104,000 (Liu and Chen 2012: 282), a huge size for an early city. The capital then moved again, finally settling at Anyang, where another huge city grew up.
The Shang world was a world of small city-states, and Shang may have been little more than a league of them (Keightley 2000; Lewis 2006, see esp. 137). However, in later times it was clearly a true state. It was probably a typical early Asian state: centered on the capital with the boundaries vague (Keightley