Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture

John S. Bowman, John Bowman

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2000
• eBook ISBN: 9780231500043
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Containing more information on Asian culture than any other English-language reference work, Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture is the first of its kind: a set of more than thirty chronologies for all the countries of Asia—East, South, Southeast, and Central—from the Paleolithic era through 1998. Each entry is clearly dated and, unlike most chronologies found in standard history texts, the entries are complete and detailed enough to provide virtually a sequential history of the vast and rich span of Asian cultures. The contributing writers and editors have ensured the book's usefulness to general readers by identifying individuals and groups, locating places and regions, explaining events and movements, and defining unfamiliar words and concepts.

The thirty-two chronologies on individual countries, in conjunction with a detailed index, allow readers to find specific information quickly and efficiently, whether they seek the date for the invention of the iron plow or gunpowder, the fall of the Han Dynasty in China, or Ho Chi Minh's declarations of Vietnamese independence. This invaluable reference culminates with three appendices: "National/Independence Days," "Scientific-Technological Achievements in Asia," and "Asia: A Chronological Overview," which provides an accessible summary of key events and developments in various fields of activity throughout the continent.

The Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture features:

• three discrete chronologies on (1) Politics/History, (2) Art/Culture/Religion, and (3) Science/Economics/Everyday Life for each of Asia's three major cultures—China, India, and Japan—as well as a combined chronology for each of the other nations;

• detailed entries of thousands of historical events as well as important milestones in religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts;

• entries on technological developments and natural events (famines, floods, etc.) affecting the lives of ordinary people; and

• authoritative and accessibly written entries by a team of Asian scholars from Columbia, Harvard, and other major research universities.

Beyond its detailed accounting of Asia's political history, Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture also gives full recognition to religious, intellectual, artistic, and general cultural achievements, as well as to scientific, technological, industrial, agricultural, and economic developments. Concise yet complete, it will stand as an indispensable reference work in the field of Asian studies.

PART ONE

East Asia

China

POLITICAL HISTORY

PREHISTORIC AND LEGENDARY CHINA: 1,960,000–2208 B.C.

Until the late 1980s, it was believed that the first hominid (Homo erectus) appears in China about 800,000 B.C.; excavations at the newly discovered site of Longgupo Cave, however, found fossils, dated to between 1.96 and 1.78 million years old, that some experts claim as hominids but other see as prehominid apes. In any case, this appears to be an isolated instance, and the main focus on early hominids in China remains on the fossils found at the Zhoukoudian caves near present-day Beijing. (The fossils are still popularly known as “Peking Man.”) During the next 500,000–600,000 years, this species disperses through much of central and northeastern China. Eventually this hominid species is replaced by the archaic Homo sapiens, which appears in China sometime after 250,000 B.C. By around 50,000 BP, Homo sapiens sapiens replaces previous hominids in China. By 12,000 BP, late Paleolithic people form a half dozen or more distinct cultures in China, and practices suggesting ideas of kinship, the arts, and religion develop.

China’s legendary history opens around 3,000 B.C. with the advent of a series of semidivine figures who instruct the nomadic Chinese in the activities of a more sedentary civilization: fishing, hunting, farming, and trading. In China’s traditional history, the Yellow Emperor of c. 2700 B.C., the first of the “Five Premier Emperors,” used force to create a unified state; his successors are said to build on his achievement. The story of these early reigns, however, is strictly legendary, with no archaeological confirmation of any of the individuals or events. But increasingly remains of the third millennium B.C. begin to confirm at least some of the later traditions of an emerging and perhaps already distinctive form of society.

1,960,000?–1,780,000? B.C.: Hominid remains (dental fragments) in association with primitive stone tools found at Longgupo Cave near the Yangtze River in south-central China signify that hominids entered China much earlier than long thought. This species has more in common with fossils (Homo ergaster and Homo habilis) found in East Africa and is not the same as the Homo erectus found in China a million years later.

800,000 B.C.: A cranium of a female found near Lantian in central China is the oldest known Homo erectus fossil found in China.

500,000–250,000 B.C.: Hominids of the species Homo erectus inhabit caves at Zhoukoudian, a limestone hill on the edge of China’s north-central plain about thirty miles southwest of present-day Beijing. These creatures have a brain capacity about two-thirds that of modern humans; they walk upright and make basic stone tools; whether they actually hunt animals or just scavenge for food is disputed. Similar hominids are living at numerous sites throughout eastern China during this period but little is known of their way of life except that they make crude stone tools.

250,000–50,000 B.C.: Sometime during this period, archaic Homo sapiens inhabit sites in various parts of China. Most modern scientists believe that fully evolved Homo sapiens came into China from their homeland in Africa; some believe that modern humans in China evolved from the previous Homo erectus living there.

50,000–12,000 B.C.: Truly modern people, Homo sapiens sapiens, begin to emerge and to form distinct cultures in China. They remain nomadic hunter-fisher-gatherers and depend mainly on their stone tools. During this period, these people probably evolve with many of the physical characteristics now associated with the Mongoloid people of Asia.

12,000–6000 B.C.: Scattered agricultural communities develop on the central plain of China. By 6000 B.C. at the latest, people in the Yellow River (Huang Ho) valley are cultivating millet, while people in southern China are probably beginning to cultivate rice.

5000–3000 B.C.: The Yangshao culture flourishes along the middle Yellow River. Settled communities also develop along the southeast coast and on the island of Taiwan.

In the settled farming areas below the south bend of the Yellow River, villagers live on a millet diet with supplements of game and fish. They hunt with bows and arrows, keep dogs and pigs, use hemp for fabrics.

By 5000 B.C. wet-rice cultivation is spreading along the lower Yangtze River valley, possibly introduced there from lands to the south.

4000–2000 B.C.: Perhaps overlapping and certainly ultimately succeeding the Yangshao culture, the Lungshan culture develops to the east of the Yangshao settlements. The Lungshan people exchange their goods, and this leads to some accumulation of wealth, which in turn leads to a society that appears to support more social classes, various rituals, and elaborate burials. Their towns are protected by walls of earth, suggesting some kind of conflict. At Erlitou, regarded as the first city in China, remains from about 2000 B.C. suggest an almost feudal society, possibly the basis for the Xia dynasty of Chinese myth and legend.

2852 B.C.: According to the tradition that begins in the Han dynasty, this is the date for the beginning of the legendary Age of Three Sovereigns.

2698–2599 B.C.: Han dynasty tradition claims that Xuanyuan Gongsun, the chieftain of a tribe in present-day central Henan, ascends as the Yellow Emperor, the first of those Confucius later calls the Five Premier Emperors. He is a semilegendary figure, although some historians regard him as having a historical basis.

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Wherever under heaven there were people who disobeyed him, [the Yellow Emperor] would go after them; but as soon as they were pacified, he would leave them alone. He crossed mountains and opened roads, never stopping anywhere to rest for long.

Records of the Historian, by Sima Qian (145–90 B.C.?)

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2514–2437 B.C.: Han dynasty tradition claims that Zhuanxu reigns as second of the Five Premier Emperors; he quells a rebellion of the Jiuli tribes to the south and claims dominion south of the Yangtze.

2436–2367 B.C.: Han dynasty tradition claims that Ku reigns, overseeing a period of general quiet and prosperity.

2357–2258 B.C.: Han dynasty tradition claims that Yao’s long reign is marked, toward the end (c. 2300? B.C.), by a legendary Great Flood that inundates vast areas of the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys and causes widespread famine and political disruption.

2255–2208 B.C.: Han tradition claims that Shun rises by virtue from humble origins to become the last of the Five Premier Emperors. During this era, the outlines of the ancient system of feudal land tenure emerge. Shun also reorganizes the bureaucracy, establishing government departments for agriculture, justice, education, public works, and other areas. Before his death, he appoints his trusted chief minister Yu as his successor.

2208 B.C.: Yu succeeds Shun and is honored as the founder of the Xia, the first dynasty of ancient China. By legend, Yu is a descendant of the Yellow Emperor.

THE THREE DYNASTIES (XIA, SHANG, ZHOU): 2208–249 B.C.

The Xia (c. 2200–1750 B.C.), established by the semilegendary Emperor Yu, is the first of the three ancient dynasties. Shang (c. 1750–1040 B.C.) and Zhou (1040–256 B.C.) follow. Historians are not entirely convinced the Xia dynasty actually exists; in any case, the three dynasties are probably not more than episodic hegemonies, historians suggest, and they likely overlap rather than succeed each other in direct line.

The Bronze Age Shang is the first of China’s historic dynasties, with its first capital near present Zhengzhou and a second, later, near Anyang north of the Yellow River. Though its domain encompasses a relatively small area (parts of today’s Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Hebei, and Shanxi provinces), Shang culture becomes widespread in North China and present Sichuan. A written language emerges. Royal palaces are built in the capital towns. Mansions of the wealthy class feature post and beam construction. A complex agricultural society develops. Political structures take root and society stratifies into a peasantry and an aristocracy of landowner-warriors. The first Chinese calendar comes into use. Shang artisans reach an advanced state of development in metalworking, pottery, and other crafts.

The third of the ancient dynasties, Zhou, shares a culture similar at its origins to Shang, though it develops in forms that would have been unrecognizable to rulers of the earlier dynasty. The Zhou era is the classical age of Confucius and Laozi (“the old master,” by tradition the founder of Daoism). Written laws and a money economy develop. Iron implements and ox-drawn plows appear.

Zhou is a period of general political disorder and turbulence. Zhou society evolves steadily from the feudal form, with its hereditary warrior nobility, toward an independent, centralized state with armies drawn from a landed peasantry, a unification process that reaches its fulfillment in Qin. Traditional Zhou subdivisions are the Spring and Autumn (722–481 B.C.) and Warring States (403–221 B.C.) periods.

2208–c. 2195 B.C.: By tradition, Yu reigns for a peaceful and prosperous thirteen years. He is succeeded by sixteen kings in a dynasty that survives for nearly five hundred years.

2000 B.C.: Humans are being buried under the foundations of important buildings on the North China plain—evidence (from modern archeological sources) of human sacrifice, probably of war captives.

1800 B.C.: The Xia dynasty comes to an end with the reign of a degenerate king. This will become a feature of Chinese historical presentation: the last ruler of a dynasty is por...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• List of Consultants and Contributors
• Introduction
• Map of Asia
• Part One: East Asia
• Part Two: South Asia
• Part Three: Southeast Asia
• Part Four: Central Asia
• Appendix 1: National/Independence Days
• Appendix 2: Scientific-Technological Achievements in Asia
• Appendix 3: Asian History: A Chronological Overview
• Index