IP Blog

The history of East Asia

China was the initial area of food production in East Asia. Some research suggests that there may have been more than one initial site of food production in China prior to its unification. North China and South China differ greatly in their environments. The Northern part of China has an arid and cool climate. In contrast, the South of China is humid and warm. Because Chinese crops favored the cool conditions in the north, most crops diffused north to south throughout China. The prevalence of rivers in northern China enabled irrigation to be employed and made the facilitation of food production easier. For this reason only a limited number of crops diffused from South China to North China.

Interestingly, already by 221 B.C., China was unified politically and had only a single writing system. Technologically superior peoples in Northern China later advanced upon the technologically inferior peoples in Southern China, and forced them to adopt their guns, germs, and steel. Consequently, China became unified and monolithic. China’s inventions later diffused into adjacent areas, resulting from the major east-west axis of Eurasia. These products included paper, the compass, the wheelbarrow, and gunpowder. China’s major influence can still be observed in the nearby countries of Japan and Korea today. 

Michael Hamory
Johnny Soler
Megan Cassel
Lindsay Hoolehan
Courtney Loomis
Alex Guttman
Lindsay Ferris