Eastern economies retained much that had emerged from the
Sumerian cities of the fourth millennium b.c.e.
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
A lack of written records makes it diffi cult to characterize
the economies of ancient Asia and the Pacifi c. Writing ar-
rived late in Oceania, in many areas not until the arrival
of Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries. Japan did not
begin keeping written records until the 600s c.e. In China
before the Han Dynasty (202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) merchants and
shopkeepers were considered insignifi cant people unworthy
of including in government records, and the emperor Qin
Shi Huangdi tried to have all historical records of China
destroyed during his reign (221–210 b.c.e.) in order to have
all history begin with him. Th e lot of peasants was of little
concern to record keepers so long as they paid their taxes
and served their overlords. In India records are confused be-
fore the Maurya Dynasty (321–185 b.c.e.) because the writ-
ten language of the earliest civilization, the Harappan (ca.
2600–1500 b.c.e.), has yet to be translated, and the records of
the succeeding Vedic culture were mostly oral tales; modern
historians are still trying to sort out who ruled when and rely
mostly on archaeological evidence for information about
economic development.
People throughout eastern Asia, southern Asia, and the
Pacifi c were originally hunter-gatherers; the rain forests of
southern Asia off ered plenty to eat. In Australia the climate
was mostly dry, but hunter-gatherers found animals to eat.
In the plains of northern China and Mongolia fi nding food
became increasingly tough because the land was becoming
desert. Nonetheless, prior to the introduction of agriculture,
people could hunt big animals such as horses and deer; in
Siberia people took to following reindeer herds on their mi-
grations. Th ese ancient peoples traded with one another, with
seashells being traded to inland tribes and stone tools coming
from central Asia. Th is trade resulted in the development of
a new kind of economy, one in which people could acquire
goods beyond their day-to-day needs as well as tools that
would enable them to create more sophisticated products for
use in their own societies and in further trade.
Th e seashells became particularly important for economic
development, because some kinds became money that could
be exchanged for goods or services. In China and India this
was the beginning of the cash economies that would eventu-
ally make them the economic giants of ancient eastern Asia.
Th ere was not a big leap from bartering goods to using money.
Instead, the shift was gradual, and bartering never entirely
disappeared, especially in rural areas. In China government
offi cials kept track of the use of barter, using its frequency as
a sign of the health of the national and local economy: Th e
more bartering, the less healthy the economy. Th us, Han Dy-
nasty offi cials were alarmed when peasants shift ed away from
using coins to bartering in the fi rst century c.e.
Th e fi rst signifi cant civilizations of Asia and the Pa-
cifi c had agricultural economies. An agricultural economy
is one in which the wealth of the nation depends on the
productivity of farming. Agriculture began in eastern Asia
around 6500 b.c.e. In the Yellow River region people began
growing millet. Th ose people sometimes grew surpluses
that they could trade for goods, thus raising their standard
of living through being able to own more goods than could
hunter-gatherers. In this way, some people gained more
wealth than others and contributed to the development of
upper and lower classes in society. Exactly when the abil-
ity to trade surpluses for wealth resulted in a shift to a full
cash economy is not as yet known, but archaeological evi-
dence from Chinese Shang Dynasty (1500–1045 b.c.e.) sites
indicates that it had developed a strong cash economy. It
was possible for people to build factories for manufacturing
metal goods and pottery, to pay workers with coins, and to
sell products for coins. Th is development gave the Shang a
more effi cient economy than one based entirely on barter,
which was an advantage in its competition for power with
its neighbors.SHANG DYNASTY
An economy that depends for its wealth on products manu-
fac t u red i n fac tories is ca l led a n i ndust ria l economy. In Sha ng
China were the beginnings of industry focused on the mass
production of household goods and tools, but it nonetheless
still depended on agriculture for most of its wealth. Th e cen-
ter of the early Chinese economy was the Yellow River, where
the Shang Dynasty was founded. Archaeological evidence is
only beginning to reveal what economic life was like before
the Shang. Th e people of the Yellow River were farmers. To
their north were nomadic hunter-gatherers; to the south was
the Yangtze River basin, where people grew rice; and farther
south were people who lived in vast forests. Th e Yellow River
people had begun farming in about 5800 b.c.e., several hun-
dred years aft er rice was cultivated near the Yangtze. Instead
of rice, they cultivated cereals such as millet.Bronze cast coin, Maurya Empire (which at its peak stretched from
Kabul in Afghanistan to Nellore, near Madras, in southern India),
third century b.c.e.; the Maurya Dynasty opened extensive foreign
trade routes. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)economy: Asia and the Pacific 355