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| river flows from sources in the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea; location of Harappan civilization. |
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| seasonal winds crossing the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia; during the summer they bring rain. |
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| first civilization of the Indian subcontinent; emerged in Indus river valley ca. 2500 B.C.E. |
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| major urban complexes of Harappan civilization; laid out on planned grid pattern. |
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| Indo-European nomadic, warlike, pastoralists who replaced Harappan civilization. |
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| Aryan hymns originally transmitted orally; written down in sacred books from the 6th century B.C.E. |
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| chief deity of the Aryans; depicted as a hard-drinking warrior. |
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| Aryan name for indigenous people of the Indus river valley region; regarded as societally inferior to Aryans. |
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| rigid system of social classification introduced by Aryans. |
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| clusters of caste groups; four social castes: brahmans (priests), warriors, merchants, peasants; beneath them were the untouchables. |
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| marriage practice in which one husband had several wives; present in Aryan society. |
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| marriage practice in which one woman had several husbands; recounted in Aryan epics. |
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| social system in which descent and inheritance is passed through the male line; typical of Aryan society. |
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| river flowing from the Tibetan plateau to the China Sea; its valley was site of early Chinese sedentary agricultural communities. |
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| located on Huanghe river; region of fertile soil; site of Yangshao and Longshan cultures. |
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| fine-grained soil deposited in Ordos bulge; created fertile lands for sedentary agricultural communities. |
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| a formative Chinese culture located at Ordos bulge ca. 2500 to 2000 B.C.E.; primarily an intensive hunting and gathering society supplemented by shifting cultivation. |
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| a formative Chinese culture located at Ordos bulge ca. 2000 to 1500 B.C.E; based primarily on cultivation of millet. |
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| a possibly mythical ruler revered for construction of a system of flood control along the Huanghe river valley; founder of Xia kingdom. |
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| China's first, possibly mythical, kingdom; ruled by Yu; no archaeological sites yet discovered. |
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| 1st Chinese dynasty; capital in Ordos bulge. |
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| members of former ruling families granted control over peasant and artisan populations of areas throughout Shang kingdom; indirectly exploited wealth of their territories. |
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| consisted of several generations, including sons and grandsons of family patriarch and their families; typical of Shang China elites. |
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| husband, wife, and their children, and perhaps a few other relatives; typical of Chinese peasantry. |
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| shamans or priests in Chinese society who foretold the future through interpreting animal bones cracked by heat; inscriptions on bones led to Chinese writing. |
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| pictograph characters grouped together to create new concepts; typical of Chinese writing. |
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| originally a vassal family of the Shang; possibly Turkic in origin; overthrew Shang and established 2nd Chinese dynasty. |
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| capitals of the Zhou dynasty. |
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| social organization created by exchanging grants of land (fiefs) in return for formal oaths of allegiance and promises of loyal service; typical of Zhou dynasty. |
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| the divine source of political legitimacy in China; established under Zhou to justify overthrow of Shang. |
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| probably originally priests; transformed into corps of professional bureaucrats because of knowledge of writing during Zhou dynasty. |
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