1600 BC

Shang dynasty

Emergence of the early Shang-associated Erligang state

China’s first textually attested dynasty left no founding text. Its earliest surviving royal archive appears centuries later and documents the dynasty’s late phase.

A date that argues with itself

The metadata on this entry disagrees internally: the slug and stored date point to about 1800 BCE, while the displayed title says about 1700 BCE. Modern reference chronologies place the Shang beginning nearer 1600 or 1570 BCE.

No contemporary record identifies a day when the dynasty began. Archaeologically, the relevant transition is the emergence of the Erligang civilisation in the Yellow River valley around the middle of the second millennium BCE.

What the ground shows

The emerging Erligang system included an immense walled centre at Zhengzhou and a large-scale, technologically sophisticated bronze industry. Soon after, distinctive Erligang elite material culture spread across much of the Central Plain and south to the Yangzi.

Some reconstructions mark the Shang beginning with the founding of an Erligang-culture walled city at Yanshi around 1600 BCE, which is how the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project arrives at its figure. The Cambridge History gives roughly 1570–1045 BCE for the whole Shang period.

Where the label comes from

Calling Erligang “Shang” is a historical identification imposed on an archaeological culture. Erligang has not yielded the kind of royal written archive known from late Shang Yinxu, dated to approximately 1300–1046 BCE.

That is also why the oracle bones cannot settle the question: the Anyang inscriptions belong to the dynasty's late phase, not its beginning. Whether Erligang-style objects across the Central Plain represent conquest, trade, colonies or local alliances is still argued.

The relationship among late Erlitou, Yanshi, Zhengzhou and the traditional conquest story remains disputed.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-1600.

What the sources leave uncertain

The listed metadata conflicts with itself: the slug and stored date point to approximately 1800 BCE, while the displayed title says approximately 1700 BCE.
Modern reference chronologies more commonly place the Shang beginning around 1600 or 1570 BCE, not 1800 BCE.
Calling Erligang “Shang” is a historical identification imposed on an archaeological culture. Erligang itself has not yielded the kind of royal written archive known from late Shang Yinxu.
The exact relationship among late Erlitou, Yanshi, Zhengzhou and the traditional conquest story remains disputed.