Description
Primitive Society 1.7 million – 400 BC
The Xia and Shang Dynasties 21st to 11th Century BC
This book provides images in colour and describes Chinese relics from the primitive period, the Xia and Shang dynasties, 21st to 11th century BC.
About 2 million years ago the Chinese people moved from the woods to the plains and developed a primitive society where material production was the precondition for survival, and where making of tools was paramount. The making of stone tools was the start in this Paleolithic Age – 2 million to 10,000 years ago. The cultural relics are distributed in vast areas of the north, south and southwest of China. Yuanmout Man, Lanthian Man, Peking Man, Hexian Man, Tangshan Man and Yunxian Man all belonging to this period. About 10,000 years ago there was a revolution to a more agricultural, live-stock and handicraft culture with a change from stone implements to more polished ones which led to the Neolithic Age in areas such as the Yellow River Basin, Ynagtze River basin, northeast and southwest China. In particular jade and pottery came to the fore. There were ten separate cultures in this period: Hongshan Culture and Lianggzhu Culture were prominent in the north and the south and featured weapons, ornaments, ceremonial objects and burial articles reflecting all aspects of social life at the time. This volume has examples and descriptions of many of these.
This book, the first in a ten-volume collection bringing these to the English-speaking world for the first time from China. The series has been compiled by an Expert Committee of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics. There are 365 descriptions.
