PICTURES ON A CHINESE TIME LINE

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When humans migrated out of Africa, their original homeland, their migrations led them to the southwestern region of what now is China. They were still very primitive hominins, which scientists named Homo erectus. Just when the migrations began is lost in the mists of time. It appears to have been during the Ice Ages. Homo erectus was living in Yunnan 1.7 million years ago. 460,000 years ago these primitive men had spread as far as today’s Chinese capital, Beijing.

PICTURES ON A CHINESE TIME LINE speculates on how these Ice Age people might have looked, and how they survived with their early tools and weapons in a world of ferocious predators and environmental upheavals. Other migrations from Africa brought less primitive humans, Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens sapiens, modern people. The people settled and began to plant and harvest crops as the earth grew warmer. It was a time of farmers and fables. Ancestors became important.

The use of copper, and then bronze led to tyranny and traditions. Villages became cities, head men became rulers of many cities, and China became an empire. The people viewed their homeland as the center of the whole world. Barbarians invaded to get at the riches of China. The Mongols had their day and ruled China for a hundred years.

Splendid cities, high taxes, difficult tests for government offices, sea voyages and fine vases illustrate the rule of the Ming family. Rebellions and Invasions from the Manchurians in the north led to a new royal family, the Ch’ing. Historians consider China about 1800 AD as the high point of the Chinese empire. Europeans and Americans, “Foreign Devils” to the Chinese, entered the country as traders, took over the ports and colonized parts of China.

The Ch’ing government kept to traditional ways, ignoring industrial successes in the west, and gradually lost its power. In 1911 a revolution threw out the Ch’ing emperor and installed a democratic government. War lords, a Japanese invasion and a civil war ended in 1950 with the Communists in power. The Communists emphasized farming and tried to change peoples’ ways of thinking about old ways.

New demonstrations for democracy and environmental concerns resulting from pressure to industrialize brought new problems. Growth of computer and other technologies created a new place for China in the world.