What happened in c.1150 BCE?

The Shang Dynasty ended in about 1050 BCE, when conquerors from the state of Zhou invaded the capital and successfully toppled the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou conquerors claimed to overthrow the Shang Dynasty for moral reasons. They said that the Shang king was evil and that heaven no longer wanted him to rule. They blamed the Shang’s downfall on its king’s excessive drinking, indulgent lifestyle, and immoral behavior. The downfall remained a cautionary tale to kings and emperors for years to come.

Religion

The oracle bone inscriptions (jiaguwen 甲骨文) are essential for our understanding of Shang religion. In the inscriptions we find the names of deified ancestors - former kings - that were worshipped and asked for help by the ruling kings of Yin. An integral part of the Shang religion was the ancestor worship that became later the core of Confucianism and Chinese thinking. The bronze vessels and burial offerings show how the former people have been venerated. The tombs in Anyang and other Shang period sites do not only contain the tomb owner in his richly decorated wooden coffin, but also many tomb offerings of which in most cases only pottery, jade objects and ritual bronze vessels have survived. Furthermore, the whole entourage of the king, like ministers, servants, slaves, concubines, were sacrified and buried together as human sacrifices (renxun 人殉) with their deceased lord.

The king's ancestors (zhu 祖) and the former lords were only a part of a rich world of gods and souls. The highest god was Di or Shangdi 上帝 who was especially responsible for natural powers like wind and rain. The highest deity was able to send down fortune and disaster (inundation, draught, sickness) on people below. The rulers and people of Yin also believed in other natural gods like the Earth, the Yellow River, the god of Mount Song 嵩山/Henan and the Sun. Like Shangdi controlled nature as highest deity, while the king as highest person controlled his domain. Deceased kings were deified as gods and received the title of di 帝 (like Di Xin 帝辛; di is here also acting as component of a binome). Nevertheless, Shangdi as the highest deity of nature was venerated differently from the royal ancestors that were adressed more directly for consultation. Except dynastic ancestors there were also predynastic ancestors and former lords who were treated differently from the direct ancestral line.

The spirit of the ancestors (shi 示, a graph showing the spiritual power descending from above) was inquired and venerated in an ancestor temple (zong 宗). With specially defined types of ritual bronze vessels like jue 爵, ding 鼎, and jia 斝 the souls of the ancestors were offered millet ale and foods. There were five different types of rituals for ancestor hosting: yi 翌, ji 祭, zai {(才/隹)*丸}, xie {劦/口} and yong 肜. Towards the end of the Yin period the belief in the highest deity Shangdi and the natural powers became more indifferent and was overshadowed by the growing importance of the ancestral spirits. At the same time, the king took over the position of the divining shaman himself, a task that was hitherto filled by a group or staff of specialized shamans.

Shang thinking can not be divided from divination. The use of divination by pyromancy, exposing bones or turtle plastrons to the fire and divining by the resulting cracks in the bone's surface, was not only limited to the Shang period - as often is read, but was still in use during the early Zhou Dynasty. To divine, a hole was drilled in the scapula of an ox or in the plastron (breast shield) of a turtle. Exposing the bone to fire, it obtained cracks out of which the professional diviner or the king as a divining shaman read what to do in the next future. The divination's course and the result was written down on the bones before storing and burying them in big jars.

What happened c.1500 BCE?

Late Harappan
Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE, most of the cities were abandoned. However, the Indus Valley Civilisation did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilization can be found in later cultures.
A possible natural reason for the IVC's decline is connected with climate change: The Indus valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BCE.
The region lies on the ancient route used by successive waves of migrations from Aryans to Huns, and later by Turks and Mughals to South Asia over the passes in the Hindu Kush.

Writings

Most of the known inscriptions have been found on seals or ceramic pots, and are no more than 4 or 5 characters in length; the longest is 26 characters. There is no evidence of a body of literature. A complicating factor: No one knows which language Indus civilization people spoke; likely candidates are the Dravidian language family, the Munda, the Indo-Aryan, and Sumerian.

Because the inscriptions are so short, some scholars wonder whether the Indus script fell short of a true writing system; it has been suggested that the system amounted to little more than a means of recording identity in economic transactions. Still, it is possible that longer texts were written in perishable media. Morever, there is one, small piece of evidence suggesting that the script embodies a well-known, widespread, and complex communication system. At a recently discovered Indus civilization city in Western India, evidence has been found that appears to be the remnants of a large sign that was mounted above the gate to the city. Perhaps it was designed to inform travelers (who would have been numerous) of the city's name, analogous to the welcome signs seen today along highways leading to major cities. mily, the Munda, the Indo-Aryan, and Sumerian.

Occupations

Lower Town-VS area: Living
Houses to stay, land to have crops, earn a living.
Oval Well, SD Area:Draw water for nearby bathing platforms or for filling the Great Bath.
Ferry boat on the Indus River near Mohenjodaro:Fishing, trading
They might be a possibility for the people to fish at along the river or trade with others among the Indus Valley.

Indus Valley Civilisation

A view of the houses and streets in VS area, with the citadel and stupa mound in the background.

It is the only well with an oval structure and may have been used to draw water for nearby bathing platforms or for filling the Great Bath.

An image of two travelers crossing the Indus River by ferry boat.

RECap QuEstion on pg 23

1]What are primary and secondary sources?
Primary sources are information by people who were involved or witnessed the events that happened.Secondary sources are records by people from the study of primary sources(evidence) or others which might not be true as they did not directly participate or witness the event.
2]How do historians mkae sure that their sources are reliable?
In order to make sure that their sources are reliable,they must gone through and passed the 3 Cs test(Credibility,Consistency and Corroboration).
3]Why and when is it necessary for historians to revise their interpretations of past events?
They revise their interpretations when there is new information found in research as it can make their sources more reliable if the information match the situation of the event.