Slavery is rare among hunter–gatherer populations, it being a system of social stratification.

Mass slavery, to be viable, also requires economic surpluses and a high population density.

Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic revolution about eleven thousand years ago.

Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures.

Prehistoric graves from about 8000 BCE in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people enslaved a San-like tribe.

East Asia (2637 – 910 BCE): Rivers, Metals, and the Rise of States

Regional Overview

During the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, East Asia emerged as one of the world’s great civilizational heartlands.
From the Yellow and Yangtze valleys of China to the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Taiwan, and the highlands and steppe corridors of western China and Mongolia, societies transformed irrigation, metallurgy, and writing into the instruments of state power.
This was an age of hydraulic empires, bronze workshops, and expanding frontiers, when settled farmers, mobile herders, and maritime voyagers together forged the cultural matrix that would define East Asia’s classical eras.

---

Geography and Environment

East Asia’s vast domain encompassed temperate plains, subtropical coasts, and alpine plateaus.
The Yellow River carved loess terraces ideal for millet and wheat, while the Yangtze Delta offered lush paddies for rice.
To the north and west lay the steppe and desert margins—Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Gansu—where grasslands merged into arid basins and mountain ranges.
Along the Pacific rim, the Korean and Japanese archipelagos formed the maritime frontier, linked to the mainland by currents and trade.
These diverse settings sustained a continuum from intensive wet-rice agriculture to high-pasture nomadism.

---

Climate and Environmental Shifts

Holocene stability continued, though alternating floods, droughts, and cool spells along the Yellow River spurred engineering and migration.
Monsoon rains sustained southern rice fields, while drier cycles reshaped steppe pastures.
Environmental mastery—levees, canals, and paddy works—became the defining measure of political capacity.

---

Societies and Political Developments

By the mid-third millennium BCE, the Longshan culture of northern China had introduced walled towns and social hierarchy, evolving into the Erlitou state (often equated with the semi-legendary Xia).
The Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) institutionalized bronze ritual, written records, and urban administration; its successor, the early Zhou, extended feudal rule across the plains.
In the south, Liangzhu and its heirs built water-managed jade-working centers.
Across the steppe rim, pastoral chiefdoms traded horses and metalwork with the settled zones, while in Korea, the Mumun culture advanced agriculture and monumental dolmen building.
The Jōmon peoples of Japan refined a maritime-forest economy, their cord-marked ceramics among the world’s oldest continuous traditions.

---

Economy and Technology

Agriculture anchored all development: millet and wheat in the north, rice in the south, supplemented by legumes, fruit trees, and silk production.
Bronze metallurgy reached unprecedented artistry under the Shang, producing ornate vessels, chariot fittings, and weapons.
Iron smelting appeared toward the close of this era, transforming farming and warfare.
Riverine and coastal transport expanded trade in jade, salt, ceramics, and textiles; the Yangtze Delta became a maritime hub connecting inland producers with Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
In the west, the Hexi Corridor and Tarim oases formed early nodes of the Silk Road, moving jade eastward and horses west.

---

Belief, Writing, and Art

Shang oracle-bone inscriptions inaugurated Chinese writing, binding religion and administration.
Bronze vessels embodied a theology of ancestor worship and royal mediation between Heaven and Earth.
In the south, jade rituals expressed a cosmology of water and fertility; in the steppe, stone stelae and kurgan rings honored sky gods and heroic ancestors.
Across Korea and Japan, dolmens, shell mounds, and figurines encoded lineage and territorial identity.
Art and ritual thus formed a shared grammar of power from the Pacific to the Altai.

---

Movement and Interaction Corridors

East Asia’s civilizations grew through constant motion.
Caravan and river routes carried goods from the Tarim Basin to the Yellow Plain; maritime passages through the Bohai, East China, and Japan Seas linked coastal polities and disseminated crops, metals, and ideas.
These overlapping land and sea networks prefigured the trans-Eurasian and trans-Pacific exchange systems of later antiquity.

---

Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Flood-control levees, paddy irrigation, and terrace farming stabilized yields in volatile climates.
Nomadic mobility balanced the steppe’s shifting pastures, while coastal fishers diversified protein sources and trade goods.
In every zone, societies developed adaptive mosaics of agriculture, herding, and craft that cushioned environmental stress and underpinned political endurance.

---

Regional Synthesis and Long-Term Significance

By 910 BCE, East Asia was a continent of interconnected yet distinctive worlds:

• In China, bronze states and written administration redefined governance.

• In Korea and Japan, agrarian and megalithic cultures matured along maritime arteries.

• In the western highlands and steppe, mobile herders linked China to Central Asia’s metallurgical frontier.

Together these traditions laid the foundations of the classical Chinese, Korean, and Japanese civilizations, and established East Asia’s lasting role as a pivot between the land empires of Eurasia and the oceanic cultures of the Pacific.

Although Shimao, an inland jade–fortress polity, belongs to the interior political world of Upper East Asia, its extraordinary jade corpus underscores how far the Longshan prestige network radiated—reaching not only the Shandong coast and lower Yellow River corridor, but also the northern loess terraces. As Maritime East Asian societies developed coastal jade workshops, salt–fish economies, and early seafaring routes toward Taiwan, the inland Longshan frontier was simultaneously producing monumental centers like Shimao. Together they represent two complementary arms of a broader Late Neolithic transformation: one coastal and maritime, one interior and fortified.

Maritime East Asia (2637 – 910 BCE): River Valleys, Coastal Plains, and Early States

Geographic and Environmental Context

Martitime East Asia—including eastern China, Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan—was anchored by fertile river basins such as the Yellow River and Yangtze River, alongside extensive coastal plains and sheltered inland seas. The Bohai Gulf, East China Sea, and Sea of Japan created maritime corridors, while inland mountain ranges like the Qinling and Taebaek defined cultural and ecological boundaries. The climate ranged from temperate in the north to subtropical in the south, fostering diverse agricultural systems.

Agriculture and Early Civilizations

By the mid–third millennium BCE, the north’s Yellow River basin supported millet and wheat farming, while the Yangtze basin cultivated rice in sophisticated paddy systems. These agricultural foundations sustained some of East Asia’s earliest complex societies.

• In the Yellow River region, the late Longshan culture (c. 3000–1900 BCE) developed rammed-earth walled towns, elaborate pottery, and social stratification, laying the groundwork for the emergence of the Erlitou cultur e(c. 1900–1500 BCE), often identified with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty.

• The Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) established one of the first fully documented states in East Asia, with urban centers, palatial compounds, and control over large territories through networks of allied and subordinate polities.

• In the Yangtze basin, complex cultures such as Liangzhu (before c. 2300 BCE) and its successors specialized in jade production, hydrological engineering, and ceremonial centers.

Technological and Cultural Developments

Bronze metallurgy flourished under the Shang, producing ritual vessels, weapons, and chariot fittings of extraordinary skill. Oracle bone script emerged as the earliest known form of Chinese writing, used for divination and state record-keeping. Jade carving traditions—especially in Liangzhu-descended communities—produced bi disks and cong tubes, objects central to ritual and elite identity.
In Korea, the Mumun period (c. 1500–300 BCE) introduced intensive agriculture, large-scale dolmens, and bronze weaponry. In Japan, the Jōmon culture maintained a hunter-fisher-gatherer economy with some plant cultivation, producing highly distinctive cord-marked pottery and shell middens that attest to rich coastal subsistence.

Maritime Networks and Exchange

Coastal and riverine transport tied together communities across Lower East Asia. The Yangtze Deltaacted as a hub for trade in jade, ceramics, and textiles, while the Shandong Peninsula facilitated contact between northern China and the Korean Peninsula. Early seafaring along the East China Sea connected mainland cultures with Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands, moving nephrite jade, shell ornaments, and possibly agricultural crops.

Cultural and Symbolic Expressions

In the north, Shang ritual life centered on ancestor worship, with elaborate bronze vessels used in feasts and sacrifices. In the south, water-focused cosmologies and earth–sky symbolism infused jade artistry and ceremonial landscapes. Across Korea and Japan, monumental burial sites—dolmens in Korea, shell mounds in Japan—served as both funerary monuments and markers of social memory.

Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Communities engineered river levees, paddy fields, and irrigation channels to manage seasonal flooding and droughts. Coastal fishing villages diversified diets with shellfish, seaweed, and marine fish, buffering agricultural shortfalls. In Korea and Japan, seasonal resource scheduling allowed balanced exploitation of marine and terrestrial environments.

Transition to the Early First Millennium BCE

By 910 BCE, Martitime East Asia was a region of dynamic cultural interaction and technological sophistication. In China, the Shang state’s political, economic, and ritual systems set precedents for later dynasties, while in Korea and Japan, evolving agricultural and maritime traditions created the foundations for complex societies that would integrate more fully into continental networks in the centuries ahead.

Maritime East Asia (2637 – 910 BCE): River Valleys, Coastal Plains, and Early States

Geographic and Environmental Context

Martitime East Asia—including eastern China, Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan—was anchored by fertile river basins such as the Yellow River and Yangtze River, alongside extensive coastal plains and sheltered inland seas. The Bohai Gulf, East China Sea, and Sea of Japan created maritime corridors, while inland mountain ranges like the Qinling and Taebaek defined cultural and ecological boundaries. The climate ranged from temperate in the north to subtropical in the south, fostering diverse agricultural systems.

Agriculture and Early Civilizations

By the mid–third millennium BCE, the north’s Yellow River basin supported millet and wheat farming, while the Yangtze basin cultivated rice in sophisticated paddy systems. These agricultural foundations sustained some of East Asia’s earliest complex societies.

• In the Yellow River region, the late Longshan culture (c. 3000–1900 BCE) developed rammed-earth walled towns, elaborate pottery, and social stratification, laying the groundwork for the emergence of the Erlitou cultur e(c. 1900–1500 BCE), often identified with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty.

• The Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) established one of the first fully documented states in East Asia, with urban centers, palatial compounds, and control over large territories through networks of allied and subordinate polities.

• In the Yangtze basin, complex cultures such as Liangzhu (before c. 2300 BCE) and its successors specialized in jade production, hydrological engineering, and ceremonial centers.

Technological and Cultural Developments

Bronze metallurgy flourished under the Shang, producing ritual vessels, weapons, and chariot fittings of extraordinary skill. Oracle bone script emerged as the earliest known form of Chinese writing, used for divination and state record-keeping. Jade carving traditions—especially in Liangzhu-descended communities—produced bi disks and cong tubes, objects central to ritual and elite identity.
In Korea, the Mumun period (c. 1500–300 BCE) introduced intensive agriculture, large-scale dolmens, and bronze weaponry. In Japan, the Jōmon culture maintained a hunter-fisher-gatherer economy with some plant cultivation, producing highly distinctive cord-marked pottery and shell middens that attest to rich coastal subsistence.

Maritime Networks and Exchange

Coastal and riverine transport tied together communities across Lower East Asia. The Yangtze Deltaacted as a hub for trade in jade, ceramics, and textiles, while the Shandong Peninsula facilitated contact between northern China and the Korean Peninsula. Early seafaring along the East China Sea connected mainland cultures with Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands, moving nephrite jade, shell ornaments, and possibly agricultural crops.

Cultural and Symbolic Expressions

In the north, Shang ritual life centered on ancestor worship, with elaborate bronze vessels used in feasts and sacrifices. In the south, water-focused cosmologies and earth–sky symbolism infused jade artistry and ceremonial landscapes. Across Korea and Japan, monumental burial sites—dolmens in Korea, shell mounds in Japan—served as both funerary monuments and markers of social memory.

Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Communities engineered river levees, paddy fields, and irrigation channels to manage seasonal flooding and droughts. Coastal fishing villages diversified diets with shellfish, seaweed, and marine fish, buffering agricultural shortfalls. In Korea and Japan, seasonal resource scheduling allowed balanced exploitation of marine and terrestrial environments.

Transition to the Early First Millennium BCE

By 910 BCE, Martitime East Asia was a region of dynamic cultural interaction and technological sophistication. In China, the Shang state’s political, economic, and ritual systems set precedents for later dynasties, while in Korea and Japan, evolving agricultural and maritime traditions created the foundations for complex societies that would integrate more fully into continental networks in the centuries ahead.

The last Shang ruler, a despot according to standard Chinese accounts, is overthrown by a chieftain of a frontier tribe called Zhou, which had settled in the Wei Valley in modern Shaanxi Province.

The Zhou dynasty has its capital at Hao, near the city of Xi'an, or Chang'an, as it is known in its heyday in the imperial period.

Sharing the language and culture of the Shang, the early Zhou rulers, through conquest and colonization, gradually sinicize, that is, extend Shang culture through much of China Proper north of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River).

The Zhou dynasty will last longer than any other, from 1027 to 221 BCE.

It is philosophers of this period who first enunciate the doctrine of the "mandate of heaven" (tianming), the notion that the ruler (the "son of heaven") governs by divine right but that his dethronement would prove that he had lost the mandate.

The doctrine explains and justifies the demise of the two earlier dynasties and at the same time supports the legitimacy of present and future rulers.

A line of hereditary Shang kings rules over much of northern China, and Shang troops fight frequent wars with neighboring settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes.

The capitals, one of which is at the site of the modern city of Anyang, are centers of glittering court life.

Court rituals to propitiate spirits and to honor sacred ancestors are highly developed.

In addition to his secular position, the king is the head of the ancestor- and spirit-worship cult.

Evidence from the royal tombs indicates that royal personages were buried with articles of value, presumably for use in the afterlife.

Perhaps for the same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, are buried alive with the royal corpse.

Atlantic Southwest Europe (2637 – 910 BCE): River Valleys and Inland Atlantic Gateways

Geographic and Environmental Context

Atlantic Southwest Europe—including northern Spain and central to northern Portugal (with Lisbon and the surrounding Tagus Valley)—was characterized by a temperate Atlantic climate, rugged uplands, and fertile river basins. The Tagus, Douro, and Minho rivers carved productive valleys and served as natural corridors from the interior to the coast. The region’s inland plateaus and foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains contrasted with lowland agricultural zones, while the Atlantic coast provided sheltered estuaries and rich fishing grounds.

Subsistence and Settlement

By the mid–third millennium BCE, farming communities cultivated wheat, barley, and legumes, along with orchard crops such as olives and grapes in favorable microclimates. Herding of cattle, sheep, and goats complemented agriculture, and pigs were kept in lowland forests. Coastal and riverine settlements exploited fish, shellfish, and waterfowl, while inland hunting targeted deer, wild boar, and small game. Settlements ranged from hilltop fortified sites to open villages in fertile valleys.

Technological and Cultural Developments

Polished stone axes and adzes remained in use alongside the adoption of copper and early bronze for tools, weapons, and ornaments. Pottery included both undecorated utilitarian forms and vessels with incised geometric designs, reflecting local styles and interaction with broader Atlantic cultural zones. In some areas, megalithic tombs and stone circles continued in use, often re-purposed or rebuilt during the Bronze Age.

Maritime and Overland Networks

While not a center for long-distance seafaring at this stage, the Atlantic coast supported coastal trade and movement between estuaries. Overland routes linked the Douro and Tagus valleys to the Meseta and further to the interior of Iberia, moving salt, livestock, hides, and metal ores. Exchange connections extended northward into Atlantic West Europe and southward toward Mediterranean-linked networks.

Cultural and Symbolic Expressions

Burial traditions included both collective megalithic tombs and individual barrows, often accompanied by metal daggers, beads, and decorated pottery. Carved stelae in some areas depicted stylized weapons or human figures. The continued maintenance of megalithic monuments suggests the persistence of ancestral veneration and ceremonial gathering traditions.

Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Communities adapted to Atlantic rainfall patterns through crop diversification and mixed farming, balancing grain production with livestock husbandry. Settlement placement reflected awareness of flooding risks in river valleys and the advantages of defensible upland locations. Access to both inland and coastal resources reduced vulnerability to localized shortages.

Transition to the Early First Millennium BCE

By 910 BCE, Atlantic Southwest Europe was a stable agricultural and pastoral landscape integrated into inland and coastal trade systems. The combination of fertile valleys, mineral resources, and strategic location along Atlantic cultural routes positioned it for increasing connectivity in the Late Bronze Age.

Elamite, regarded as a language isolate, is unrelated to the neighboring Semitic languages, to the Indo-European languages, or to Sumerian, even though it adopted the Sumerian syllabic script.

Linear Elamite, a writing system from Iran attested in a few monumental inscriptions only, was used for a very brief period during the last quarter of the third millennium BCE.

It is often claimed that Linear Elamite is a syllabic writing system derived from Proto-Elamite, although this cannot be proven.

Several scholars have attempted to decipher Linear Elamite, most notably Walther Hinz and Piero Meriggi.

The Elamite language is first written in pictographs around 2500.

The Elamite Cuneiform script, consisting of about one hundred and thirty symbols, far fewer than most other cuneiform scripts, has been adapted from the Akkadian Cuneiform.

The Awan Dynasty is the first dynasty of Elam of which anything is known today, appearing at the dawn of historical record.

The Elamites are likely major rivals of neighboring Sumer from remotest antiquity; they are said to have been defeated by Enmebaragesi of Kish (who flourished in the twenty-fifth century BCE), who is the earliest archaeologically attested Sumerian king, as well as by a later monarch, Eannatum I of Lagash.

Awan is a city or possibly a region of Elam whose precise location is not certain, but it has been variously conjectured to be north of Susa, in south Luristan, close to Dezful, or Godin Tepe.

At one time, a dynasty from Awan exerted hegemony in Sumer, according to the Sumerian king list, which mentions three Awan kings, who supposedly reigned for a total of three hundred and fifty-six years.

Their names have not survived on the extant copies, apart from the partial name of the third king, "Ku-ul...” who it says ruled for thirty-six years.

This information is not considered reliable, but it does suggest that Awan had political importance in the third millennium BCE.

A royal list found at Susa gives twelve names of the kings in the Awan dynasty.

As there are very few other sources for this period, most of these names are not certain.

Little more of these kings' reigns is known, but Elam seems to have kept up a heavy trade with the Sumerian city-states during this time, importing mainly foods, and exporting cattle, wool, slaves and silver, among other things.

A text of the time refers to a shipment of tin to the governor of the Elamite city of Urua, which was committed to work the material and return it in the form of bronze—perhaps indicating a technological edge enjoyed by the Elamites over the Sumerians.

The Land of Punt, also called Pwenet, or Pwene by the ancient Egyptians, is a trading partner known for producing and exporting gold, aromatic resins, African blackwood, ebony, ivory, slaves and wild animals.

Information about Punt has been found in ancient Egyptian records of trade missions to this region.

At times, Punt is referred to as Ta netjer, the "land of the god.” The exact location of Punt remains a mystery.

Most scholars today believe Punt was located to the southeast of Egypt, most likely on the littoral of the Horn of Africa in what is today Puntland in northern Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and the Red Sea coast of Sudan.

However, some scholars point instead to a range of ancient inscriptions that locate Punt in Arabia.

Pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty (twenty-fifth century BCE) organized the earliest recorded Egyptian expedition to Punt although gold from Punt is recorded as having been in Egypt in the time of king Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt.