Interestingly, while the first civilizations in the Middle East and India were collapsing, civilization in China and in the Americas was rising.

China and the Yellow River

As the climate warmed from 5000 BC to 3000 BC, more and more people began to settle in farming villages along the river banks of the Yangtze River in South China and along the Yellow River in Northern China just as they had done along the rivers of East Asia. This time period is called the pre-dynastic period of China. During the pre-dynastic period, villages grew larger and more socially organized. Pottery became more elegant, burial customs became more elaborate, and distinct social classes began to emerge. Clan leaders began to surround themselves with assistants and advisers, the beginnings of a bureaucracy. Then somewhere around 2200 BC, the Yellow River flooded thirteen years in a row and something had to be done. (Remember - 2200 BC is when drier weather became more and more of a problem in Sumeria and Egypt! Guess where the rain was going!)

According to Chinese legend a man known as “Yu the Great” solve the flooding problem by organizing the people of North China and building a vast system of dikes and channels. He was so successful that he was eventually made the first king of the first Dynasty of China, the Xia Dynasty (2000-1600 BC). This Dynasty was followed by the Shang Dynasty (1600-1100 BC) and the Zhou Dynasty (1100-770 BC). Chinese civilization was on the rise.

But then, during the period between 770 and 256 BC, all began to fall apart. This was a time of “political fragmentation and moral crisis” in northern China.

A king and his dynasty could rule only so long as they retained heaven’s favor. If a king neglected his sacred duties and acted tyrannically, heaven would display its displeasure by sending down ominous portents and natural disasters. If the king failed to heed such warnings, heaven would withdraw its mandate, disorder would increase, the political and social order would fall into chaos, and heaven would eventually select someone else upon whom to bestow a new mandate to rule. Patricia B. Ebrey

It was not the King’s fault. The global climate changed again.

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