East Asia in the ancient world (3500 BC – 800 BC). The first cities, the first writing, the first kings who called themselves gods. These articles cover Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus and the Bronze Age world that connected them.
A 2017 PNAS paper dated ten dams and the Tangshan Levee at Liangzhu to 5,200–4,800 years ago, older than the 300 ha walled city they protected.
· 3000 BCThirteen rammed-earth pillars at Taosi, Shanxi, dug in 2003–04, were read as a sunrise observatory of the 21st century BC. A 2025 paper queries it.
· 2100 BCErlitou in Henan has palaces, a bronze foundry and grid roads from about 1900 to 1500 BC, and no writing to say whether its rulers were the Xia.
· 1700 BCZheng Zhenxiang excavated Fu Hao's unlooted tomb at Yinxu, Anyang, in 1976; the name inscribed on 109 of its bronzes divided scholars by 1986.
· 1200 BCA Sichuan city cast a 2.6-meter bronze man, giant masks and bronze trees, then broke, burned and buried them in eight pits about 1200 BC. No text says why.
· 1200 BCAnyang farmers sold inscribed Shang divination bones to pharmacies as "dragon bones" until 1899, when scholars read the marks as the earliest Chinese writing.
· 1200 BC
