[gezhengwen]

The Shang dynasty people knew the pairing structure of hexagrams (inverted/complementary pairs), but cycle decomposition is a modern group theory tool that did not exist until the 19th century. These are two different levels of analysis.

[seanhunter]

They knew about the cycle. That's why it's called the King Wen sequence right? Not sure what part of this you think people didn't know about so we may be talking at cross purposes.