Far East Kingdoms

Early Yellow River Cultures (China)

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. For well over a century, archaeological cultures have remained the framework for global prehistory. The earliest cultures which emerge from Africa and the Near East are perhaps the easiest to catalogue, right up until human expansion reaches the Americas. The task of cataloguing that vast range of human cultures is covered in the related feature (see link, right).

The view of what is now China's emergence into the historical record has been undergoing a revolution of rethinking and examination in recent decades. Gone (or as near so as makes little difference) is the view that regional history has been one smooth progression from start to finish.

Modern humans seemingly reached China at a surprisingly early stage of the general exodus from Africa via the Near East, a period which is covered under the entry for Early East Asia, and then under Early China.

Early cultures along the Yellow River are no longer being viewed as the only source of China's creation (although they do provide the foundation for the Sino-Tibetan language family which now dominates China and Tibet). Now a broader view is being taken which sees China evolving from the influence and input of many cultures from far afield, and not just along the Yellow River (such as the Sanxingdui).

Nevertheless, the Yellow River region played a vital role in shaping China. This area was less promising than the water-filled plains which gave birth to the Indus culture or that of the Sumerians. From its source on the Tibetan plateau, the Yellow River winds its way through the desolate Ordos Desert region - one of East Asia's earliest archaeological cultures can be found here in the form of the Ordosian - to reach the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea.

Like the semi-arid steppeland to the north and west, the great bend in the river around the desert's edge receives a limited and uncertain amount of rainfall. The wet monsoons which inundate much of south and coastal China are so spent by the time they reach the Ordos region that the northern part of the area is largely desiccated.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from The Times Atlas of Past Worlds, Chris Scarre (Ed, 1988), from the Encyclopaedia of China - The Essential Reference to China, its History and Culture, Dorothy Perkins (1999), from The Cambridge History of Ancient China - From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC, Michael Loewe & Edward L Shaughnessy (1999), and from Beginnings of China, Stuart B Schwartz.)