Gojoseon

Korean history opens with two kinds of evidence that do not agree on much. Archaeology gives pottery, farming, bronze and tombs, with careful dates. Chronicles give a state called Gojoseon and a founder, Dangun, with a precise date that no excavation supports. This chapter keeps the two apart.

Prehistory: What the Ground Shows

History of Korea (as read for Korean History 1) says the Palaeolithic "began roughly half a million years ago" in its lead, but also that "No fossil proven to be Homo erectus has been found" on the peninsula, though one candidate has been reported. The earliest known Korean pottery is dated "around 8000 BC".

The article adds that rice "was not the dominant crop" in the Early and Middle Mumun, when millets, barley, wheat and legumes were also grown. Late Middle Mumun megalithic burials on the southern coast held bronze daggers, jade and red-burnished vessels. It says the Bronze Age label "may be misleading".

Gojoseon: The Record

The Gojoseon article calls it "the first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula", with Go ("old") added to tell it apart from the Joseon of 1392. The same article carries a [citation needed] tag on its claim that Gojoseon "possessed the most advanced culture in the Korean Peninsula at the time", and quotes Byington: "it is entirely unclear as to whether it was a state-level polity". The two statements sit in one article, and I leave them side by side.

• Written references. The Guanzi records trade with the state of Qi (the article gives no date for the text). The Shanhaijing places it "to the north of the Bohai Bay". The Zhanguoce, Shanhaijing and Shiji treat Joseon as a region until the Shiji calls it a country "from 195 BCE onwards".
• Archaeology. The article says Korean Bronze Age culture "derives from the Liaoning and Manchuria" but has "unique typology and styles", and that "mandolin-shaped daggers" suggest "the existence of Old Chosŏn dominions". That reading is the article's, and the Mumun article's caution about bronze applies to it.
• Location. Traditionally northern Korea. Since the 1980s and 1990s, the article says, South Korean scholarship has extended it into Manchuria, and research "has historically been strongly influenced by Japanese colonial legacies and modern Korean nationalism".

Gija, Wiman and the Han Conquest

• Gija (Kija). Said to have arrived in 1122 BCE after the Shang fell. The article says the earliest surviving Chinese record is the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the first Korean text is Kim Pusik's Samguk sagi (1145), which called the account uncertain. Many modern scholars deny Gija's historical existence.
• Wiman (Wi Man). A military officer of Yan origin who, the article says, usurped King Jun in 194 BCE and ruled from Wanggeom-seong.
• Fall. Wiman's grandson King Ugeo refused passage to Jin ambassadors and killed a Han envoy. Emperor Wu of Han attacked by land and sea; the forces coordinated poorly, but Wanggeom fell in 108 BCE and the Han set up the Four Commanderies in the western part of the former territory.
• After. The article says Old Joseon disintegrated by the first century BCE, and names Buyeo, Okjeo, Dongye and Goguryeo and Baekje (which arose from Buyeo) among its successors. Goguryeo destroyed the last commandery, Nakrang, in 313 CE.

Dangun: The Story

As the Dangun article tells it, Hwanung, son of the Lord of Heaven Hwanin, came down to Taebaeksan with 3,000 followers and founded Sinsi. A tiger and a bear asked to become human; Hwanung gave them garlic and mugwort and told them to stay out of the sun for 100 days. The tiger gave up, the bear became the woman Ungnyeo, and she and Hwanung had a son, Dangun Wanggeom. He built the walled city of Asadal near Pyongyang (the article says its location is disputed) and named the kingdom Joseon.

• Earliest source. The Samguk yusa (thirteenth century; the Gojoseon article gives 1281). It claims to cite the lost Gogi and China's Book of Wei, but the Dangun article says the surviving Book of Wei contains no Dangun records. Similar versions appear in the Jewang ungi and the early Joseon Sejong sillok. Korean Literature 2 covers these works as literature.
• The date. The Tongguk tonggam (1485) is the basis of the usual 2333 BC, tied to the fortieth year of Emperor Yao. The article notes that other sources give different regnal years for the start of Dangun's rule (the 50th, 1st and 25th years of Yao). It does not say who calculated 2333 BC.
• Afterlife of the date. The Dangi calendar, counting years from 2333 BC, was in official use in South Korea until 1961. 3 October is Gaecheonjeol, South Korea's National Foundation Day, a public holiday. North Korea dates the founding to the early thirtieth century BC; the article says that after a supposed tomb was excavated in 1994 it claimed Dangun was a real person.
• Politics. The article says Dangun is central to nationalism and was important to the independence movement under Japanese rule, and that Shin Chaeho elevated him. South Korean scholars treat Dangun Wanggeom as a high-priest-like head of Gojoseon society (the article's wording).

What to Take from This

My own reading, unverified: the safest statement is the narrowest one. Archaeology shows farming, bronze working and burial customs from c. 1500 BC. Chinese texts mention a place called Joseon; the strongest dated events are Wiman's coup (194 BCE) and the fall of Wanggeom (108 BCE), and even those have internal conflicts. The Dangun story is a foundation story with a long life, important for how Koreans have told their own history, but the article says there is no supporting evidence for it.

What the Sources Left Open

• Whether Gojoseon was a state, and where it was (Byington's remark; the north-Korea-versus-Manchuria disagreement).
• Whether Gija existed at all.
• When bronze working began (13th century BCE or c. 700 to 550 BC).
• Wiman's dates, Wanggeom's date as capital, and who calculated 2333 BC.
• How to date the Guanzi, which the article does not.

Exercises

Next: Korean History 3 follows Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla and Gaya, the Three Kingdoms that grew out of this world.