Early Civilizations at a Glance: Part 2 –

South & East Asia

 The Indus Valley Society
 The Indo-European Migration
 Dark-skinned Harappan society overrun
 Dravidians people
 Unidentified writing system
 Aryan (light-skinned) invasion
 Pastoral economy
 No writing system, oral works (Vedas)
 The Vedic Age: 1500-500 B.C.E.
 trading contacts with Mesopotamia
 Society in South Asia
 The Caste System (hereditary, unchangeable )
 brahmins (priests),
 kshatriyas (warriors and aristocrats),
 vaishyas (cultivators, artisans, and merchants),
 shudras (landless peasants and serfs)
 Jati, or subcastes, were determined by occupations
 social mobility difficult but still possible
 Religion in the Vedic Age
 Indra, the Aryans' war god and military hero
 Gods of the sun, the sky, the moon, fire, health,
disease
 God Varuna: ethical concern, cosmic order
 The Upanishads (religious teachings )
 Brahman: the universal soul
 Highest goal: to escape reincarnation and join with
Brahman
 Samsara: an individual soul was born many times
 Karma: specific incarnations that a soul experienced
 Moksha: permanent liberation from physical
incarnation
 Life Along the Yellow River
 The Shang Dynasty
 1766-1122 B.C.E.
 developed in considerable isolation
 Managed construction of tombs and palaces
 Strong central gov.
 Writing: from pictograph to ideograph
 Social Order
 Elites
 Manual for etiquette
 Free artisans and craftsmen (mostly worked for elites )
 Merchants and trade
 Peasants (majority of population )
 Slaves (mostly war prisoners)
 Veneration of ancestors
 Patriarchal society evolved out of matrilineal one
 Focus on men/ women devalued
 Zhou Dynasty
 1122-256 B.C.E.
 Mandate of heaven, the right to rule
 decentralized administration
 Used princes and relatives to rule regions
 weak central government and rise of regional powers
 The Warring States period(403-221 B.C.E.)
 100’s of small states fighting for power
 China during the Period of the Warring States, 403-221
B.C.E.
 What Early Civilizations Tell Us
 What We Know
 After humans around the world
 had relatively little contact with each other,
 separate languages and cultures developed
 By 1000 B.C.E
 Trade began to link the world
 Four civilizations developed
 Each had trade, writing, and cities
 in many ways different from the others