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| 407370710 | Indus river valley | river flows from sources in the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea; location of Harappan civilization. | 0 | |
| 407370711 | monsoons | seasonal winds crossing the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia; during the summer they bring rain. | 1 | |
| 407370712 | Harappan civilization | first civilization of the Indian subcontinent; emerged in Indus river valley ca. 2500 B.C.E. | 2 | |
| 407370713 | Harass and-Dar | major urban complexes of Harappan civilization; laid out on planned grid pattern. | 3 | |
| 407370714 | Aryans | Indo-European nomadic, warlike, pastoralists who replaced Harappan civilization. | 4 | |
| 407370715 | Vedas | Aryan hymns originally transmitted orally; written down in sacred books from the 6th century B.C.E. | 5 | |
| 407370716 | India | chief deity of the Aryans; depicted as a hard-drinking warrior. | 6 | |
| 407370717 | daises | Aryan name for indigenous people of the Indus river valley region; regarded as societally inferior to Aryans. | 7 | |
| 407370718 | caste system | rigid system of social classification introduced by Aryans. | 8 | |
| 407370719 | varnas | clusters of caste groups; four social castes: brahmans (priests), warriors, merchants, peasants; beneath them were the untouchables. | 9 | |
| 407370720 | polygamy | marriage practice in which one husband had several wives; present in Aryan society. | 10 | |
| 407370721 | polyandry | marriage practice in which one woman had several husbands; recounted in Aryan epics. | 11 | |
| 407370722 | patrilineal | social system in which descent and inheritance is passed through the male line; typical of Aryan society. | 12 | |
| 407370723 | Huanghe river | river flowing from the Tibetan plateau to the China Sea; its valley was site of early Chinese sedentary agricultural communities. | 13 | |
| 407370724 | Ordos bulge | located on Huanghe river; region of fertile soil; site of Yangshao and Longshan cultures. | 14 | |
| 407370725 | loess | fine-grained soil deposited in Ordos bulge; created fertile lands for sedentary agricultural communities. Yangshao culture: 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. | 15 | |
| 407370726 | Longshan culture | a formative Chinese culture located at Ordos bulge ca. 2000 to 1500 B.C.E; based primarily on cultivation of millet. | 16 | |
| 407370727 | Yu | a possibly mythical ruler revered for construction of a system of flood control along the Huanghe river valley; founder of Xia kingdom. | 17 | |
| 407370728 | Xia | China's first, possibly mythical, kingdom; ruled by Yu; no archaeological sites yet discovered. | 18 | |
| 407370729 | Shang | 1st Chinese dynasty; capital in Ordos bulge. | 19 | |
| 407370730 | vassal retainers | members of former ruling families granted control over peasant and artisan populations of areas throughout Shang kingdom; indirectly exploited wealth of their territories. | 20 | |
| 407370731 | extended families | consisted of several generations, including sons and grandsons of family patriarch and their families; typical of Shang China elites. | 21 | |
| 407370732 | nuclear households | husband, wife, and their children, and perhaps a few other relatives; typical of Chinese peasantry. | 22 | |
| 407370733 | oracles | shamans or priests in Chinese society who foretold the future through interpreting animal bones cracked by heat; inscriptions on bones led to Chinese writing. | 23 | |
| 407370734 | ideographic writing | pictograph characters grouped together to create new concepts; typical of Chinese writing. | 24 | |
| 407370735 | Zhou | originally a vassal family of the Shang; possibly Turkic in origin; overthrew Shang and established 2nd Chinese dynasty. | 25 | |
| 407370736 | Xian and Loyang | capitals of the Zhou dynasty. | 26 | |
| 407370737 | feudalism | 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. | 27 | |
| 407370738 | Mandate of Heaven | the divine source of political legitimacy in China; established under Zhou to justify overthrow of Shang. | 28 | |
| 407370739 | shi | probably originally priests; transformed into corps of professional bureaucrats because of knowledge of writing during Zhou dynasty. | 29 |
