Name: ___________________________________________________________________Period: __________ Date: __________
Chinese Societies
Standard: Identify the major achievements of Chinese and Indian societies from 1100 BCE to 500 CE.
Essential Question: What were the major achievements of Chinese and Indian societies from 1100 BCE to
500 CE?
Describe the development of Chinese civilization under the Zhou and Qin.
Geography China
Early Chinese Civilizations
Shang Dynasty
Description:
Development:
Achievements:
Essential Question: What were the major achievements of Chinese and Indian societies from 1100 BCE to
500 CE?
Zhou Dynasty
Description:
Mandate of Heaven:
Dynastic Cycle:
Decline:
Qin Dynasty
Description:
Great Wall of China:
Han Dynasty
Description:
Achievement:
Chinese Societies
Standard: Identify the major achievements of Chinese and Indian societies from 1100 BCE to 500 CE.
Essential Question: What were the major achievements of Chinese and Indian societies from 1100 BCE to
500 CE?
Describe the development of Chinese civilization under the Zhou and Qin.
Geography China
Early Chinese Civilizations
 isolation from other emerging centers of culture (Mesopotamia, Egypt & India)
 late development
Shang Dynasty
Description:
 China’s first flourishing civilization
 ruled from about 1750 to 1122 B.C.
Development:
 believed supernatural forces could help with
worldly life
 Priests read oracle bones to communicate with
the gods
 king’s question to the gods was etched on a bone
 bone was heated until cracked
 Priests interpreted the meaning of the cracks
 valuable source of information about the Shang
period
Achievements:
 organized government
 a system of writing
 making of bronze vessels
Zhou Dynasty
Description:
 ruled from 1122 to 256 B.C.
 overthrew the Shang dynasty
 claimed Mandate of Heaven
 rule for 900 years
 developed feudalism in China
Mandate of Heaven:
 Heaven/law of nature
Dynastic Cycle:
 dynasties went through a cycle of change

kept order in the world through the king
1. (Rise)a new dynasty would establish its power
1. king expected to rule with goodness and
2. (Fall)then begin to decline which lead to
efficiency
rebellions or invasion and end of the dynasty
2. following the proper “Way,” or Dao
3.
(Replacement)a new dynasty would begin and
3. ruled correctly = gods would be pleased
start the cycle all over again
4. ruled incorrectly = gods would allow bad
harvests and/or other disasters
5. king could then be overthrown and replaced
with a new ruler
 helped make legitimate the dynastic cycles
 from beginning to A.D. 1912
Decline:
 collapse of the Zhou Dynasty
 Rulers had difficulty controlling their territory
 Nobles gained more power than the ruler
 Age of the warring states
 two hundred years of civil war
 a period of instability
 Confucius tried to develop a system for good government
Qin Dynasty
Description:
 founded by Shi Huangdi
 unified the Chinese world
Han Dynasty
Description:
 lasted over four hundred years
 202 B.C. to A.D. 221
Great Wall of China:
 concerned with the Xiongnu
o a nomadic people
o lived north near the Gobi dessert
 strengthened a system of walls
 some of the original walls remain standing
 much of what we know today was actually built
1,500 years after the rule of Shi Huangdi
Achievement:
 large and efficient bureaucracy
 created to handle the rapidly increasing
population
 expanded westward into central Asia and
southward into what is modern-day Vietnam
 Many cultural, scientific, and technological
achievements also occurred during this period