2. Early Neolithic

Separate communities of genetically and linguistically distinct communities that domesticated plants and animals independently, but also in parallel with each other. Europe and the Near East also went through a similar situation.

Independent language phyla during the Early Neolithic in China (cf. Vovin, Robbeets, etc.):

• 1. Amuric = Nivkh

  2. Koreanic

  3. Old Liaodong = "Japanic" ("pre-Japonic" in the Liaodong and Korean Peninsulas)

  4. Old Liaoxi = phylum that influenced Altaic via agricultural vocabulary, etc., but is not Altaic itself

  5. Old Zhongyuan = "pre-Sinitic" ("isolate" substratum in Sinitic)

  6. Old Shandong = "para-Austronesian"; very genetically and archaeologically distinct from Old Lower Yangtze; thus, likely a separate phylum unrelated to Old Lower Yangtze

  7. Old Lower Yangtze (OLY) = "pre-Austronesian"

  8. Old Middle Yangtze (OMY) = "pre-Hmong-Mien"

  9. Old Lingnan = "pre-Austroasiatic"

  10. Old Upper Yangtze = early Sino-Tibetan

  11. Old Xiangxi = "pre-Tujia" ("isolate" substratum in Tujia)

  12. Siangic

Migrations into China during the Bronze and Iron Ages (cf. Vovin, Robbeets, etc.):

• 1. Turkic

  2. Mongolic

  3. Tungusic

  4. Yeniseian

  5. Ruanruan

  6. Indo-European (Tocharian)

(Note that I do not consider Altaic to be a true family, but rather a linguistic area, much like how the five language phyla of East Asia form a linguistic area.)

That's 18 phyla total during the Early Neolithic. There were likely even more.

Today, in China we have only 8 phyla:

• 1. Sino-Tibetan

  2. Kra-Dai

  3. Hmong-Mien

  4. Austroasiatic

  5. Turkic

  6. Mongolic

  7. Tungusic

  8. Koreanic