Around 2000 BC, people in China learned how to make bronze out of tin and copper, so we call this the Bronze Age. About the same time, people in China also developed writing. Like Sumerian and Egyptian writing of this time, their writing is based on pictures that stand for ideas or sounds. We know of this writing from oracle bones, which are bones with writing carved into them. They were used to tell fortunes. People also used bones and tortoise shells to keep records about who paid what to who, much like Linear A in Crete or Linear B tablets in Greece at the same time.
Ancient China Civilization |