Ch 1 - In the Beginning

A Long Way from Home

Neolithic nomads moving out of Central Asia and Siberia spread south and east to settle and populate the lands of China, Korea and Japan.

At some point in early history, perhaps long before the beginning of the Old Stone Age, man discovered that once useless objects, whether thrown or wielded with his arm, could become deadly instruments. That realization transformed him forever. For the first time in his tenuous existence, fear and hunger were no longer absolutes. No longer dependent on the whims of nature for food, man took the future into his own hands and took the offensive. Armed with primitive weapons, man became a creature to be reckoned with, a hunter able to stalk virtually every type of animal walking the earth. Most animals learned to fear and avoid him, even when he was alone.

Paleolithic man left his footprints on the East Asian landscape long before he left physical traces of his existence. We may never know just when the first humans set foot in Asia, but at the onset of the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), c. 500,000 BC, humans already lived throughout that part of the world. Life was a nearly constant struggle for survival, largely dependent on the availability of water, animals to hunt and a ready supply of plant life. Using chipped or crudely flaked stone tools and their wits, people survived by fishing, hunting small animals and gathering edible nuts, fruits and plants.

During the Upper Paleolithic, beginning c. 50,000 BC, newer tools and weapons appeared, including wooden spears tipped with carved antler or animal bone, sharp-edged blades made from chipped flint, harpoons for fishing, and flint tipped arrows and throwing darts. People used clay found along riverbanks to fashion small animal figurines and began leaving their mark on the landscape in the form of cave paintings. With the dawn of the Early Neolithic (New Stone Age) c. 10,000 BC, humans slowly began moving away from constantly adapting to nature and began devising ways of forcing nature to adapt to them. They also began to move across Asia.

In three successive waves of migration, Neolithic ancestors of the great Asian nations emerged from the dim prehistoric past on foot and on horseback to cross the vast wilderness of seemingly endless deserts, steppes and forests that covered central and east Asia.

Nomadic tribes traveling with small herds of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats, left the lakes and lush pastures of the Altai mountain range in western Mongolia and wandered eastward across the northern rim of the barren Gobi Desert. From the high country surrounding Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake and the source of the mighty Lena River, hunter tribes of Turkic-Mongol nomads ventured beyond the forested valleys of the Selenge and Orhon river basins onto the mile-high, wind-swept prairies of the Mongolian Plateau. From the hills and grasslands of the Ordos Plateau in Inner Mongolia, they journeyed southward along the valleys and canyons of the Yellow River basin and spread across the fertile plains and vast forests of the North China Plain.

Tribes of Tungusic hunters left behind the harsh and rugged country of southeastern Siberia. They roamed southward from the dense forests and alpine meadows of the Stanovoy Mountain Range and descended into the broad, lush valleys of the Shilka and Amur river basins. From there, they spread across the wide Manchurian Plain to follow the lengthy river courses of the Sungari, Ussuri and Liao rivers to the sea.

Driven by the dictates of nomadic life , Neolithic tribes wandered onto the rugged, nameless landscape of the Korean Peninsula. Their arrival drove Paleolithic tribes further east toward Sakhalin and Kamchatka and south to Japan. The ancient Paleolithic inhabitants of East Asia are believed to be the ancestors of Japan's Ainu and Siberian Eskimos.

These new arrivals on the peninsula found an area rich with wildlife familiar from their Arctic origins. Large animals such as deer, brown bear, lynx, wild boar, and the great Manchurian tiger lived throughout the high country of the northern highlands. Tribal hunters found an abundance of smaller animals such as the weasel, northern pika, water shrew, and muskrat. Nearly everywhere they saw such birds as the ring-necked pheasant, black grouse, hawk owl, pine grosbeak, and woodpecker. In the milder climate of lower terrain, hunters stalked black bear, river deer, sable, fox and the Manchurian vole. Over one hundred different kinds of fish and nearly forty kinds of reptiles and amphibians lived and thrived in Korea's many rivers and the surrounding seas. The vast shoreline provided enormous quantities of shellfish and edible seaweed and people gathered and ate almost all varieties.

Korea's earliest settlers discovered a bountiful feast among the many alpine plants that shared common characteristics with those found further north in Asia. Throughout the Korean countryside, varieties of fruit bearing trees and plants yielded pine nuts, walnuts, ginkgo, chestnuts, huge pears and apples, wild persimmons, mandarin oranges, and grapes. Tropical plants grew in abundance along the southern coast and on the numerous offshore islands. Vast forests blanketed the slopes of the rugged granite peaks and deep river canyons that stretched southward across the Kaema Plateau. Over two hundred fifty different species of evergreens such as cone-bearing pine and spruce trees grew throughout Korea as well as in the southwestern part of Japan. Great forests of broad-leafed deciduous trees such as oak, elm, birch, willow, poplar and beech carpeted the low country of central and western Korea. The peninsula's verdant woodlands provided not only shelter from the summer heat and firewood for winter, but the raw material for building more permanent structures such as homes .

Over time, temporary camp sites evolved into small settlements, permanent villages that later served as fixed staging areas for other wandering travelers. These tiny "hubs" of civilization became the seeds of new, larger and more stable societies that eventually grew into East Asia's first recognized kingdoms.