The first communities that can be identified culturally as Chinese were settled chiefly in the basin of the Huang He (Yellow River). Gradually they spread out, influencing other tribal cultures, until, by the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce), most of China proper was dominated by the culture that had been formed in the cradle of northern Chinese civilization. Over this area there slowly spread a common written language, a common belief in the power of heaven and the ancestral spirits to influence the living, and a common emphasis on the importance of ceremony and sacrifice to achieve harmony among heaven, nature, and humankind. These beliefs were to have a great influence on the character of Chinese painting, and indeed all the arts of China.
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