Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
Chapter 9, Lesson 1, China's Early History (pp. 262-269)
I. China's Geography
B. Rivers serve to link the different regions.
C. Flooding rivers provide minerals that enrich the soil but also
sometimes bring disaster.
II. Prehistoric Cultures
B. The Lungshan farmers harvested silk, wove fabric, made pottery, and used
simple written symbols and numbers.
C. According to legend, a Lungshan engineer named Yu founded the first great
Chinese dynasty called the Xia, around 2000 B.C.
III. The Shang Dynasty
B. The Shang built some great walled cities, developed bronze, devised
a money system, and developed a class of skilled artisans.
C. The Shang people believed in an afterlife, many gods, ancestor worship,
and the use of oracle bones to predict the future.
IV. The Zhou Dynasty
B. The Zhou worshipped tian, and established the mandate of heaven as
the right to rule.
C. The Zhou spread their rule through feudalism, and used a character-based
written language to unify communication.
Lesson at a Glance Outline
A. Mountains and deserts separated regions in China and led them to
develop separately from each other.
A. The Yangshao settled in farming villages and built houses with
plaster floors and roofs supported by wooden posts.
A. The Shang Dynasty followed the Xia and ruled for more than 700 years.
A. Wu the Martial attacked the Shang king and established the Zhou Dynasty,
the longest in China's history.
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