ABSTRACT
The history described in these pages was played out on the stage of the East Asian Heartland Region, comprising the great drainage basins of the Yellow River (Huanghe) and the Yangzi River (Changjiang) and nearby plains suitable for agriculture. That history also involved considerable and continuous interaction with the Extended East Asian Heartland Region, a term denoting the forests, grasslands, deserts, and mountains surrounding the Heartland itself. The East Asian Heartland Region is large and geographically diverse, ranging from semi-arid highlands in the north to semi-tropical mountains and valleys in the south. It is quite mountainous, except for the broad flood plains of the great rivers, and only a small fraction of its area is suitable for agriculture as delimited by topography, soil quality, and availability of water. The Heartland Region is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean. Throughout the land area, the general tendency is for mountain ranges to increase in height from east to west; the region’s major rivers therefore run roughly from west to east, and are fed by tributaries that flow northward or southward to join them. The geographic diversity of the Heartland Region was echoed in the diversity of its Neolithic cultures, which all, broadly speaking, in various ways became part of the roots of Chinese civilization. The fertility and breadth of the Yellow River’s flood plain contributed to the eventual emergence there of a relatively advanced proto-Sinitic culture that spread outward to interact with cultures in other parts of the Heartland. This process was part of the transition from the Neolithic era to the Bronze Age.
