ABSTRACT
Prior to the rise of the Zhou, the central plain was dominated by the Shang people, who had developed a mature bronze culture with a writing system and organized a state that in its initial stage had been just a chiefdom and then gradually culminated in a monarchy. The Shang state was probably one of a few entities that existed along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangzi (Yangtze) River drainages. By the late part of the second millennium b.c.e. the Shang appeared to have been the strongest of the contenders for dominance in that area until they were replaced by the Zhou ca. 1200 b.c.e. The early past of the Zhou is not totally clear to us. They might have been related to the Xia, who were the major competitors of the Shang. It is possible that the Xia dominated the yellow earth plain before the Shang achieved that status. Thus, in traditional Chinese historiography, the Xia, the Shang, and the Zhou are collectively called the Three Dynasties. On the other hand, according to their own legendary past, the Zhou experienced a period of several centuries during which they eventually gave up agriculture and over several generations migrated into the Wei River valley, where they left abundant archaeological remains by which we may verify their presence. Early Zhou epics depicted their migratory path along the Jing River to enter the rich Wei valley as they were pressed by the Jungdi people. Although there are only a few suggestive clues to their predynastic migration, the long-distance migration itself, in addition to the claim that they once gave up agriculture, reveals that there had been rather active movements of peoples along the transitional zone between the pastoralists in Inner Asia and the farming cultures in China. The close alliance between the Zhou and the proto-Tibetan Jiang therefore appears as a natural one.
