A History of China

• PRINT
• EMAIL

The human record in China can be traced back at least 1.7 million years with the discovery in southwest China of fossils known as Yuanmou man, a closely related ancestor of modern man. Another protohuman toolmaker called Peking man lived about 500,000 years ago in North China. By about 25,000 , also in the vicinity of Beijing (Peking), a fully advanced human, sometimes referred to as Upper Cave man, hunted and fished and made shell and bone artifacts.

 

Although fossil remains of early humans have been discovered in various other places in China, the North — especially the fertile region watered by the Huang He (Hwang Ho, or Yellow River) — was the nuclear area of ancient Chinese civilization. There, and also along the southeastern coast, the switch from hunting-gathering methods of food collection to an agricultural way of life first occurred in China sometime during the 6th to the 5th millennium , a development that was independent of the Near Eastern Neolithic revolution.

During the first phase of the Chinese Neolithic Period (c.5000–2500 ), called Yangshao (Yang-shao) after the first associated site, farmers employed primitive techniques of cultivation, shifted their villages as the soils became exhausted, and lived in semisubterranean houses in the region of modern central Shaanxi (Shensi), southwestern Shanxi (Shansi), and western Henan (Honan) provinces. Their handcrafted, painted pottery occasionally bears a single incised sign that may be a forerunner of Chinese writing. During the second, or Longshan (Lung-shan), phase (c.2500–1000 ) agriculture became more advanced. Farmers lived in more permanent settlements and began a wide-spreading cultural expansion into the eastern plains, Manchuria, and Central and South China. Longshan farmers worshiped their ancestors, a Chinese custom that still persists. (See also Chinese archaeology.)

Asian Pacific American Heritage: Confucius
Learn about Confucius, the Chinese sage who founded the philosphical system known as Confucianism.

Daoism (Taoism) | Asian Philosophy
Learn about Daoism (sometimes called Taoism), a movement that developed alongside Confucianism into both a philosophy and a religion, becoming one of the major belief systems in traditional China.

LESSON PLAN	Comparing Lifestyles Students learn about China from literature. Then they compare and contrast their lifestyle to the life of a Chinese child.
UNIT PLAN	Exploring China This unit introduces students to the culture of China. Students compare the U.S. to China and learn through literature and Internet resources.
ONLINE ACTIVITY	Angel Island This section follows the story of Li Keng Wong, a Chinese American who came through Angel Island in 1933. Includes a live interview of Li Keng in 2003