Preceded by a very long primeval period, the Xia Dynasty arose around the end of 2,100 B.C.-----the first dynasty in the Chinese history. Following the Xia Dynasty arose the Shang Dynasty (about 1,600 B.C.-1,000 B.C.), the Western Zhou Dynasty (about 1,000 B.C.-700 B.C.), the Spring-Autumn and the Warring States periods ( 700 B.C.-221 B.C.) . China evolved through an independent phase of social transition
  ��China was among the earliest countries developing economically. As early as five to six millennia ago the people living in the Yellow River Valley undertook agriculture as a primary subsistence means and also bred livestock. More than 3,000 years ago , during the Shang Dynasty the technology of smelting bronze was invented and some iron tools were known to be in use already . The ceramic industry already existed then. There were both unglazed and colored glazed pottery . Silk reeling and weaving was fairly advanced, bringing forth the initiative jacquard weaving technique in the world.

    During the Warring States period ( 475 B.C.-221 B.C. ), Li Bing and his sons led the construction of the famous Dujiangyan Dam ( near modern Chengdu ) , a water conservancy project , solving reasonably the interrelated problems of irrigation , flood diversion and sand discharging . This project was a splendid achievement of the water conservancy techology in the olden days , and it still functions now . Philosophy and ideology thrived during the Spring-Autumn and the Warring States periods when exponents of various schools wrote books and founded doctrines asserting their views on politics and sociology. There emerged the phase of "A Hundred Schools Contend"with the advent of  representative personages, such as Master Lao , Confucius , Master Mo and Master Sun .