China

The Yellow River and Yangtze River basins were the home of several Neolithic cultures in China. Despite the video picture below, as with other parts of the world, the Neolithic cultures in China were peaceful and egalitarian and produced functional tools, containers, and housing to benefit their community. Crops in the Chinese Neolithic included millet and rice. There was extensive production of beautiful pottery in Chinese Neolithic cultures. In fact, the Neolithic Chinese were the first to produce pottery.

The Early Neolithic in China lasted from 10000 BC to 4000 BC. The first Neolithic community was the Nangzhuangtou culture 9,500 years BC. It was beside a lake with reeds near the middle Yellow River. There is evidence of the cultivation of millet 8,500 BC and domesticated dogs 8,000 BC. The Pengtoushan culture appeared between 7000 and 5800 BC along the middle Yangtze River. They domesticated rice and practiced rice cultivation. Several Early Neolithic cultures arose in China between 6500 and 5000 BC. The Peligang culture had approximately 100 villages between 7000 and 5000 BC. As with the Ubaid and other Neolithic cultures, they were a peaceful people that practiced agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting and fishing, and gathering of wild vegetation.

The Yangshao culture arose in the middle Yellow River region in 5000 BC (number 3 in Figure 14‑39). With improvements in construction, pottery, and other technologies, it transitioned to a Middle Neolithic culture by 4000 BC.

The Yangshao culture is the most famous and probably important Neolithic culture in China. It was the first Neolithic culture discovered in China and was the origin of the Yellow River Civilization. The Yangshao culture constructed remarkable little round dwellings by excavating to a depth of 1 m with a deeper fire pit in the center of the building. They constructed walls from posts overlaid with mud and built a thatched roof, also overlaid with mud (Figure 14‑40). The Yangshao village in Figure 14-40 was completed surrounded by a 5 m wide channel. There is no evidence of weapons of war in the Yangshao culture; however, the Longshan culture that followed them was violent, had weapons of war, and enormous walls for defense. The Longshan also had other indications of civilization, such as an aristocracy and lower classes, powerful clan leaders, and hoarding of wealth by the rich.

The Yangshao practiced ritualistic burials, surrounding the deceased person with pots and other artifacts (Figure 14‑41). The graves might indicate that it was a matriarchal culture since the women had more pottery and other artifacts in their graves than men. Graves also might indicate that there was no powerful male chieftain; however, archaeologists are reinterpreting data from the Yangshao archaeological sites and possibly changing the original 20th century interpretations.

The pots in the graves have residues of millet. Other indications of farming on the site include plows, sickles, and adzes. The culture appears to have gone through phases. During some phases, they focused on farming while, during other phases, they focused on hunting and gathering wild vegetation. They stored grain in sealed pits, which when deprived of oxygen, preserved the grain from microbial degradation.

The famous Yangshao village of Banpo was suddenly abandoned. The destruction of the village was possibly due to flooding from the dangerous Yellow River.

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