ssels, however, which made their appearance about 1450 B.C. are
entirely different from anything produced in other parts of Asia; their
ornamentation shows, on the one hand, elements of the so-called "animal
style" which is typical of the steppe people of the Ordos area and of
Central Asia. But most of the other elements, especially the "filling"
between stylized designs, is recognizably southern (probably of the Tai
culture), no doubt first applied to wooden vessels and vessels made from
gourds, and then transferred to bronze. This implies that the art of
casting bronze very soon spread from North China, where it was first
practised by Turkish peoples, to the east and south, which quickly
developed bronze industries of their own. There are few deposits of
copper and tin in North China, while in South China both metals are
plentiful and easily extracted, so that a trade in bronze from south to
north soon set in.

The origin of the Hsia state may have been a consequence of the progress
due to bronze. The Chinese tradition speaks of the Hsia _dynasty_, but
can say scarcely anything about it. The excavations, too, yield no
clear conclusions, so that we can only say that it flourished at the
time and in the area in which the painted pottery occurred, with a
centre in south-west Shansi. We date this dynasty now somewhere between
2000 and 1600 B.C. and believe that it was an agrarian culture with
bronze weapons and pottery vessels but without the knowledge of the art
of writing.

Chapter Two

THE SHANG DYNASTY (_c._ 1600-1028 B.C.)

1 _Period, origin, material culture_

About 1600 B.C. we come at last into the realm of history. Of the Shang
dynasty, which now followed, we have knowledge both from later texts and
from excavations and the documents they have brought to light. The Shang
civilization, an evident off-shoot of the Lung-shan culture (Tai, Yao,
and Tunguses), but also with elements of the Hsia culture (with Tibetan
and Mongol and/or Turkish elements), was beyond doubt a high
civilization. Of the origin of the Shang _State_ we have no details, nor
do we know how the Hsia culture passed into the Shang culture.

The central territory of the Shang realm lay in north-western Honan,
alongside the Shansi mountains and extending into the plains. It was a
peasant civilization with towns. One of these towns has been excavated.
It adjoined the site of the present town of Anyang, in the province of
Honan. The town