Monsoon Asia as a Unit of Study

• European and Asian history were largely segregated until European expansion in the 16th century

Geography

• “encompasses over 17 million square miles”

• The Ural mountains in the north are low-lying and easily crossed. Either side is mostly coniferous forest. The area overall is sparsely populated, receives little rain and seasonal temperature extremes.

• Central Asia is an arid desert and was conquered by Muslim invaders in the 8th century ce. This results in the regions cultural similarity to Arab lands

• Southeast Asia is known as “monsoon Asia”

• Monsoon is an Arab word for “season” or “seasonal wind”

• Monsoons typically occur in the spring and summer but the arrival and duration of the season can change drastically from year to year

Population Density

• The majority of Asia is sparsely populated but the lowlands of “monsoon Asia” are extremely densely populated

• Agriculture is the basis of life and most productive industry in “monsoon Asia”

• European observers from the time of Marco Polo noted that Asia was richer than much of Europe until the 18th century

• The Chinese empire began its expansion in the Han dynasty in the 2nd century BCE

• They conquered Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan), “a largely desert area still inhabited by Turkic people”. As well as the arid regions of Mongolia to protect against nomadic raids

Common Cultural Patterns

• The geography (mountains and seas) of “monsoon Asia” has divided it into many different cultural regions

• The 4 main regions are India, China, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia

  Commonalities in these cultures

  • is “the basic importance of the extended family and the kin network.

  • The respect and importance attached to learning for its own sake and as a path to earthly success.

  • The veneration of age and it perceived wisdom

  • the traditionally submissive roles of women (exceptions in southern India and southeast Asia.

  • social hierarchies

  • awareness and importance of the past

  • group welfare of individual interest

Agriculture

• A majority of Asia is agrarian

• Japanese industry rapidly developed in the 1920’s

• “By 2018, China, India, and South Korea have become major industrial and commercial economies

• Asian agriculture is noted for its labor intensiveness (mostly human labor, including construction and maintenance of irrigation systems)

• Asian per-acre crop yields have been higher than anywhere else in the world

  • With the addition of manuring and chemical fertilizers they are still the highest in the world (especially Japan)

• Alluvial - river silt, warm temperatures, and generally adequate rainfall have supported the success of monsoon Asia’s farming since the first millennium bce

• As a result of the high crop output, population density has remained high

Social Hierarchy

• the high population density has influenced the development of the cultural ideal of group effort and group welfare, a mistrust of individualism and the dependence on clearly sanctioned behavior rules.

• individuals were always had a defined place and prescribed role

• individual happiness and welfare has always been resting on a structure

• Most societies are patriarchal and male dominant

• Family is the primary institution and “ruled” by the oldest member (typically male)

• the chief virtue of all Asian societies is respect and deference to elders and those of higher status

• In agricultural societies accumulated experience is the best guide to ones problems and the small number of formally educated people are looked up on by the others

• Individual success is a credit and material benefit to the family

• Three generations of family often lived together

• In southeast Asia brides would typically move in with the husband’s family (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and India)

• Before the beginning of written record the relationship between the sexes was more egalitarian

• India before the Aryan migration, Japan whose chief deity was a woman, and Korea before Confucian influence in the Choson period (1398-1910 ce) husbands move in with the wives family

• In southeast Asia men paid bride prices unlike the dowry, typical in other places

• Asian farms were small (less than 5 acres) but intended to support a whole family

• rice fields are called paddies

• Rice is native to mainland southeast Asia

• meat is very minimal in the diet of Monsoon Asia except in the coastal areas (aka the vegetable civilization

The Study of Monsoon Asia

• Knowledge of Asia was not sought after until after WWII

• The US has produced more scholarly and popular books than any other country

• Since 1970 the largest share of US trade has been from Asia

Chapter 1: Prehistoric Asia

Covers Asia in the long paleolithic era or old stone age, the neolithic revolution, the origins of agriculture in southern Asia, and the origin of civilizations in India, southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan

Early and Paleolithic Cultures

• The earliest Homo Erectus findings were made in Java (Indonesia)

• The species is believed to have been widespread around 1.5 million years ago

• they were believed to be cannibals or they ritually ate the brains and bone marrow of their dead

• They used simple. handheld stone tools

• American Indians ind the Inuit share characteristics with Asians as their ancestors migrated to the continent

The Neolithic Revolution

• toward the end of this period weapons were being made out of metal

• revolution is being used to describe the development of agriculture

• the earliest main areas of settled agriculture were the uplands of southwest Asia (surrounding the Tigris-euphrades lowland), the Nile river delta, Costal Peru and the coastal areas of southwest Asia

• Other noted settlements Southern Anatolia( (Turkey), Palestine, Syria, Northern Iraq, and Western Iran

• Early Neolithic stone-toothed sickles dated 10,000 bce have been found

• Small villages turned into cities around 4000 bce in the lower Nile

• Mesopotamia was home to the worlds first cities (Ur, Nippur, Uruk, and Eridu)

• The agricultural surplus made it possible for the development of Artisan careers

Origins of Civilization in India

• India is the oldest continuously existing civilization in existence

• Civilization is defined as involving a writing system, metalworking, and some concentration of settlement in cities where most of the inhabitants aren’t farmers

• The above developments having occurred in Mesopotamia and Egypt by about 4000 b.c.e. They would end by Roman times and reappear with Arab conquests

• Civilization had emerged by 3000 b.c.e. in India and 2000 b.c.e. in China

• During the 5th millennium small towns and villages popped up along the overland route from sumer to India

• Agriculture appeared on the Indus Flood plain by the 6th and 5th millennia B.C.E.

• By 3000 b.c.e true cities had arisen in the Indus Valley

• Consistent agricultural surpluses made it possible for literate cities, use of metal, capacity to store surplus food, division of labor, arts, town planning

The Indus Civilization

• Indus civilizations were also known as Harappan civilizations

Relations with Sumer

• Indus valley script has not been translated

• Linguists don’t know if they are relatives of Indians or Iranians

• There is evidence of trade between sumer and the Indus valley civilizations

The Cities of the Indus

• City layouts were planned and included piped water supply

• Harrapan civilizations likely believed in reincarnation

• The houses in the cities suggest a “lack of social distinction”