Considering how a lot of Western cultural foundations originated in Asia, I decided to look a bit further into the development of bronze technology which our ancestors used to make various weapons and tools. Chapter 5 briefly mentions the Neolithic Era as the time when the first hand tools were created to allow early humans to hunt. Archeological evidence has been uncovered within southern China, indicating the introduction of tools enabled farming and agriculture to thrived in ways impossible to achieve in the hot, dry climate of northern China.
During the Bronze Age, the Chinese people learned how to farm and cultivate food so that the upper class and other workers (bronze-smiths, miners, builders, etc.) could do their parts in sustaining Chinese civilization during the Shang Dynasty. In many ways, the societal setup was very similar to how medieval European civilization was maintained. The farmers and other workers functioned as the peasants monitored by their king's vassals so that the kingdom was prospering. Interestingly, the idea of kingship and religion was very different in the Far East from the European perspective. Another distinct aspect of Chinese royalty was the king's duty to please the ancient sun and rain gods so that the harvest in his land wouldn't be spoiled or ruined. If he wanted the gods on his side, the king had bronze vessels filled with cereals and wined heated over a fire.
The Bronze Age was an extraordinary time in China as numerous materials were made out of the bronze metal and one of the first writing systems was created during that time. One very important representation of Chinese life from this era is underground chamber full of 7,000 life-sized terracotta warriors, charioteers, and cavalry troops. This massive tomb symbolizes how the Chinese ruling families sought to honor their dead preserve their culture by making exact replicas of the people who made China what it is today.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_4000bce_bronze.htm
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