Far East Kingdoms

Early Yellow River Cultures (China)

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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).

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

The 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. 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 in the Early East Asia page, and then in the Early China page.

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 steppelands 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.)

Peiligang Culture (Neolithic Farmers) (China)
c.7000 - 5000 BC
Incorporating the Jiahu Culture

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This was one of the very earliest specifically Chinese cultures, contemporary with Europe's Elshanka and Khirokitia cultures, although it was predated by the early Neolithic Nanzhuangtou. It was to be found mainly in the Yi-Luo river basin (in modern China's Henan Province), in a region which lies immediately to the south of the Yellow River. The culture's spread seems not to have extended beyond an area of a hundred square kilometres on the river's southern bank.

In China's Neolithic period (between about 8000-1800 BC) people gradually learned to cultivate the land as an alternative to foraging. This was roughly at the same time as the Sesklo culture was introducing farming into Europe from Anatolia, and it followed a long drift towards the increased used of early crop plants in the forager diet in China, just as was happening simultaneously further west. Many groups gravitated towards land which makes up the base of the Ordos Desert bulge, where conditions were surprisingly suitable for sedentary agriculture and human settlement.

Thanks largely to the Yellow River, the region abounded in rich loess, a fine-grained, yellowish-brown soil which was deposited by powerful winds from Central Asia. In places, this extremely fertile soil built up over thousands of millennia to depths of over ninety-one metres. Through this flowed the Yellow River which derived its name from the peculiar colour of the soil which permeates the river as it is carried eastwards toward the sea.

The type site for the culture was discovered in 1977 at Peiligang, a village which lies in Xinzheng County. Findings there suggested to archaeologists that this society was an egalitarian one, with the people of each village working together with little political organisation. These people cultivated millet and herded or raised cattle, pigs, and poultry. Alongside early farming efforts, deer and wild boar were hunted and fishing (using hemp-fibre nets) was also undertaken. Its pottery is amongst China's earliest, with an assortment of types which catered specifically for cooking and storage.

A site at Jiahu has revealed the earliest finds which can be associated with the Peiligang. However, although there are many similarities between the main Peiligang settlements and those at Jiahu, the latter was semi-isolated to the south of the main Peiligang sites by several days of travel. At Jiahu rice was cultivated, a development which the main Peiligang sites failed to follow, while the Jiahu site was in use for several hundred years before any Peiligang settlements appeared. There is the possibility in the future that the Jiahu could be detached as a separate - and earlier - culture.

The Peiligang was succeeded by the Yangshao culture which extended far to the east and south of the Peiligang's area of focus. The later Majiayao culture seems to be in the process of being separated from the Yangshao as an entirely separate but contemporary culture, and this generally centred on territory to the north and west of Peiligang centres.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Ancient Sichuan and the Unification of China, Steven F Sage, from Beginnings of China, Stuart B Schwartz, 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 Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States, Li Liu (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and from External Links: Travel China Guide, and the New World Encyclopaedia.)

Yangshao Culture (Neolithic Farmers) (China)
c.5000 - 3000 BC
Incorporating the Majiayao Culture

Fifth & Fourth Millennium BC Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

This was an early Chinese culture which succeeded the Peiligang culture. It was to be found mainly in Henan (the main focus of the Peiligang), Shaanxi, Shanxi, southern Hebei, and eastern Gansu provinces, and was especially prominent alongside in the middle reach of the Yellow River.

People were gradually learning to cultivate the land as an alternative to foraging, with the Jiahu culture having taken several steps towards improving the available processes. This was roughly at the same time as the Sesklo culture was introducing farming into Europe from Anatolia, and it followed a long drift towards the increased used of early crop plants in the forager diet in China, just as was happening simultaneously further west.

The Yellow River provided abundant rich loess, a fine-grained, yellowish-brown soil which was deposited by powerful winds from Central Asia. In places, this extremely fertile soil built up over thousands of millennia to depths of over ninety-one metres. Through this flowed the Yellow River which derived its name from the peculiar colour of the soil which permeates the river as it is carried eastwards toward the sea.

Relics from the Yangshao have been found in Yangshaocun in Mianchi County to the north-west (which gave the culture its name), and at the Erlitou Bronze Age site, both in Henan Province. It seems that the settlement at Erlitou was founded by the people of the Yangshao culture, although it only reached the peak of its achievements during the Erlitou culture from around 2200 BC. Over a thousand other Yangshao sites have been found including the Banpo site in Xian, and the Jiangzhai site in Lintong County near Xian.

The majority of Yangshao sites are in Shaanxi, which today is regarded as being the culture's centre. It saw agriculture become a key focus, with the main crops being millet and chestnuts (the former becoming fully developed during the Banpo phase). Tools were made by grinding stones into useful shapes, including knives, millstones, axes, chisels, and arrowheads. Some tools were made of bone, such as harpoons, fishhooks, and similar items. These people also engaged in fishing and foraging, as well as raising pigs and dogs as livestock. During this period agriculture and animal husbandry developed tremendously, much as it was doing across several succeeding cultures in Europe, starting with the Dnieper-Donets II.

The Majiayao phase is sometimes seen more recently as a separate culture. It was prevalent along the upper Yellow River region of eastern Gansu, eastern Qinghai, and northern Sichuan, between 3300-2000 BC. It saw the widespread adoption of agriculture in this region and created painted pottery which was highly distinctive. Such dedicated and advanced work clearly indicates the emergence of a labour force which contained specialist fields.

Far to the west, in Sichuan, the Daxi culture exerted an influence on local Neolithic cultures along the Jialing River. There was also some peripheral Daxi influence outside Sichuan and Hubei, with the Yangshao culture also displaying Daxi-like motifs on ceramic decoration. The Yangshao was succeeded by the Longshan culture.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from the BBC series, The Story of China, by Michael Wood, first broadcast between 21 January and 25 February 2016, from Ancient Sichuan and the Unification of China, Steven F Sage, from Beginnings of China, Stuart B Schwartz, 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 Transition to Agriculture at Dadiwan, R L Bettinger, L Barton, C Morgan, F Chen, H Wang, T P Guilderson, D Zhang (Current Anthropology 51(5), 2010), from Centripetal Settlement and Segmentary Social Formation of the Banpo Tradition, Y K Lee (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26, 2007), from Banpo Site at Xi'an and Jiangzhai Site at Lintong, Shaanxi Province, X Yang (Chinese Archaeology in the Twentieth Century, 2002), and from External Links: Travel China Guide, and the New World Encyclopaedia.)

c.5000 BC

The Yangshao people are foragers who begin utilising more permanent settlements than their predecessors. These early villages are divided into areas for living, for firing pottery, and for burying the dead. Yangshao society is likely to be organised into autonomous egalitarian village communities with little or no social stratification, at least none which is reflected either in house size or mortuary treatments.

The Chinese city of Xi'an seemed to provide a focus point for the Yangshao culture along the Yellow River, with several important sites being found either close to or actually inside the modern city limits, including Banpo, Jiangzhai, and Yangshao

The archaeological site of Banpo village, near Xi'an, is one of the best-known ditch-enclosed settlements of the Yangshao. Another major settlement, called Jiangzhai (also near Xi'an), has been excavated out to its limits, and archaeologists have discovered that it is completely surrounded by a ring-ditch.

c.4800 - 4200 BC

The Banpo phase of the Yangshao culture takes place on the central plain. The settlement at Banpo on the Wei River in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, covers more than 10,000 square metres and is founded around 4800 BC. Excavations in the 1950s uncover forty-six houses, most of which are circular.

Many of the houses are semi-subterranean in nature, with the floor typically a metre below the ground's surface, supported by timber poles and with steeply-pitched thatched roofs. The settlement is surrounded by a moat, with graves and pottery kilns located outside the moat perimeter. A cemetery includes a total of one hundred and seventy-four adult burials.

A further seventy-three urn burials are discovered inside the town's residential area, all of them the bodies of children placed within small conical jars. Keeping them in the residential area means that they remain close to their grieving parents. The settlement dies out around 4200 BC, ending this phase of the Yangshao.

This piece of painted pottery dates from around 4000 BC and was found in a Miaodigou site in western Henan Province, which saw the gradual progression of Yangshao culture into the succeeded Longshan

c.4000 - 3000 BC

The Miaodigou I phase succeeds the Banpo until the Yangshao culture itself is succeeded by the Longshan culture around 3000 BC. It sees the Yangshao expand outwards from its original core. A degree of hierarchy begins to appear in some areas, such as in settlements in western Henan Province. A late period sees hierarchies increase and the first rammed earth wall appears around the Xishan settlement in central Henan. Miaodigou II phase is the transition at the beginning of the Longshan into Longshan proper.

However, successive Yangshao phases linger on afterwards in the north-west. The Majiayao phase is dated at around 3300-2000 BC in Gansu, Qinghai. This appears to be a crossover with the Copper Age and Bronze Age, as it contains the earliest discoveries of copper and bronze objects in China, and may also be a reaction to regional drought after the wet period which preceded it during which the Yangshao had emerged.

The Banshan phase succeeds the Majiayao in the same areas, dated around 2700-2300 BC, and the subsequent Machang phase is dated around 2400-2000 BC.

Longshan Culture / Black Pottery Culture (Neolithic Farmers) (China)
c.3000 - 1900 BC

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The Longshan culture (or Lung-shan) succeeded the Yangshao along China's Yellow River. Although they overlapped to an extent, the Longshan was centred farther east, emerging in the territory between the fading Yangshao and the East China Sea. The Yangshao's two Miaodigou phases acted as a transition between the two cultures (one phase for each of them), but by around 3000 BC many of the farmer settlers of the Yangshao seem to be migrating down river towards the coast.

This was a coastline which was little different from its modern counterpart, unlike the sometimes vast differences which can be seen in Europe thanks to the retreat of the ice. There they gradually absorbed and replaced the late phase Dawenkou culture. Referencing the Longshan today is limited to the middle and lower valley of the Yellow River, with other, previously Longshan-ascribed areas being categorised as separate cultures in their own right.

These included the Liangzhu, with 'Longshan Era' now being applied by Yan Wenming to the collective cultures of this period, although this has not been accepted universally. Amongst many other sites, Longshan relics have also been found at the Erlitou Bronze Age site in Henan Province. It seems that the settlement at Erlitou was founded under the Yangshao culture, furthered by the Longshan, and achieved its heyday during the Erlitou culture from around 2200 BC. However, the first find of the Longshan was the Chengziya Archaeological Site which was discovered in 1928. This lies just outside the modern town of Longshan in Shandong Province, giving the culture its name.

Longshan pottery was a distinctive black burnished colour, giving this culture its other name, Black Pottery culture. It was the widespread use of black pottery which had the early scholars assigning all of those regions which were using it to a single culture. Potters had improved and perfected their art since the Yangshao first developed dedicated potters. Now they also used a potter's wheel, and their pottery was made or traded far and wide, finding its way down to the valley of the Yangstze River (and its contemporary Qujialing culture).

Farming techniques in terms of agriculture and raising livestock had also greatly improved. Farmers planted millet as their main crop, and raised pigs, dogs, sheep, and cattle. They also made great advancements in the area of tool making, and were able to create many stone tools which included stone knives used to drill holes, stone reaping hooks, and also stone shovels, just some of their more common tools.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from the BBC series, The Story of China, by Michael Wood, first broadcast between 21 January and 25 February 2016, from Ancient Sichuan and the Unification of China, Steven F Sage, from The Times Atlas of Past Worlds, Chris Scarre (Ed, 1988), from A Companion To Chinese Archaeology, Anne Underhill (2013), from The Archaeology of China: From the Late Palaeolithic to the Early Bronze Age, Li Liu & Xingcan Chen (2012), from The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States, Li Liu, and from External Link: Travel China Guide.)

c.3000 BC

The Longshan culture succeeds the Yangshao on the Yellow River. It begins with Miaodigou II (3000-2600 BC), a transition phase between Yangshao to Longshan 'proper'. This is contemporary with the late phase of the Dawenkou culture on the coastal regions of the Yellow River delta, which it gradually absorbs, and also with the late phase of the Qujialing culture, with which it trades.

It is the Longshan culture and time span to which belongs the Legendary Period which is seen to form the start of a near-continuous chain of Chinese dynasties. This 'chain' is a view which is being challenged by archaeology and historians, but even if its accuracy is in doubt it still provides a useful framework for whichever reality is ultimately proved to exist.

The Longshan culture succeeded the preceding Yangshao, but initially it was primarily based further east, only gradually spreading back along the Yellow River to cover depopulated Yangshao lands, and also absorbing coastal cultures such as the Dawenkou and Liangzhu

c.2600 - 2000 BC

Late Phase Longshan takes place along the Yellow River. It encompasses the classic Shandong Longshan culture of Longshan Town itself, the heartland of the culture. By this time, settlements which are part of this culture stretch back from the coast, following the course of the Yellow River westwards to the desiccated ground of the Ordos Desert river bulge. This great spread of settlements can be broken down into several sub-groups, which express minor variations in technology and practices.

With the Shandong Longshan farthest east, along the lower Yellow River and across the Shandong peninsula, the sub-groups which border it to the west are the Hougang II and Wangyoufang (north and south of the river respectively), Wangwan III, Taosi, Sanliqiao II, and Kexingzhuang II. Together they stretch all the way back across the earliest settlement zones of the preceding Yangshao.

However, the Taosi at least shows no continuity back to the Yangshao, suggesting a collapse here and later repopulation from the expanding Longshan. The closely-related Sanliqiao and Kexingzhuang areas also show much-reduced populations.

This piece of painted pottery dates from around 4000 BC and was found in a Miaodigou site in western Henan Province, which saw the gradual progression of Yangshao culture into the succeeded Longshan

These depopulations could be related to the ending of a warm period known as the Holocene Climactic Optimum (circa 7000-3000 BC). This also has a marked effect on European cultures, effectively consigning to extinction the Cernavodă culture of Romania and Bulgaria, for example.

A mega-drought of about 2200 BC may also play a part. This can also be linked to the decline of Sumerian civilisation, the Akkadian empire, and the Egyptian Old Kingdom, the start of Egypt's 'First Intermediate' period, and flooding in Bronze Age Britain.

c.2100 BC

China's first historical dynasty (or at least semi-historical) emerges along the Yellow River. The Xia dynasty has a capital which is probably at the Bronze Age site of Erlitou, now a small village in Henan Province which lies a little way south of the ancient settlement.

The Erlitou culture emerges in Upper China as an immediate successor to the Longshan culture and is located in the 'Middle Plain' of the 'Middle Land', the latter being China itself. Its emergence has lasting repercussions for all of Chinese culture, laying down several important principles which are followed thereafter.

However, despite the Erlitou culture seemingly lying at the heart of China's first (very early) dynasty, other cultures do exist either now or later in the second and first millennia BC which are separate from the Yellow River area of emerging civilisation.

The Longshan cultural items shown here come from what is now known as Longshan Town, Jinan, in Shandong Province, which itself is around two thousand years old and is famed for its numerous relics

One such culture is the relatively short-lived Sanxingdui, which arises in Sichuan province by around 1600 BC. Others also exist, either to provide some cultural influences to the Yellow River kingdoms or to be conquered by them within the next three thousand years.

c.2000 - 1900 BC

The Longshan culture declines rapidly, matched by a long period of population decline and possibly even depopulation. The two probably go hand-in-hand, although the cause is still being debated.

Severe environmental changes seem to be the most likely cause, whether climatic fluctuations, flooding river systems, or marine transgression. Many Longshan settlements disappear entirely, while a political shift seems to favour western Shandong and Henan.

Since the reduction in site number after the Longshan period is a common phenomenon across the Shandong region, the cause may be complex, and could include both social and environmental factors. Early Chinese society in the region re-emerges in the form of the Erlitou culture.