Forerunners of Chinese Characters
2 min readPrior to the emergence of characters what did human beings rely on to exchange information or have another kind of communication？At the sites of the early Yangshao cultural period such as Banpo，Jiangzhai，and Beishouling，carved symbols that once served as a tool for communication and remembrance have been found.
By the late Yangshao period and the Longshan period，such carved symbols had been used even more extensively.The symbols from different areas were similar in shape and were in the line with the later shell and bone in scriptions.These symbols such as ×，A，+，I and so on，must have been one of the sources of the shell and bone inscriptions.Besides，the pictograms in this period must have beenanother group of forerunners of characters.The pictograms found so far are fewer than carved symbols.The most noticeable pictograms were found at sites of Lingyang River，Dazhu Village and Zhuchengqian Village of Ju County in Shandong province，dating back to the late Dawenkou cultural period.And there are some other pictograms dating back to the late Qujialing cultural period，the Shijiahe cultural period and the late Liangzhu cultural period.At No.2 cultural site at Hualouzi inXi’an of Shaanxi province there found more than a dozen cuneiform carvings in thebeast bones which must be the primitive characters.A shard of pottery bearing the carving of”共”and another pottery piece bearing 11 characters dating back to the Longshan cultural period were respectively unearthed at Dengfeng in Henan province and Dinggong of Zouping County in Shandong province.These characters must have beer invented even earlier.So it can be inferred that characters had appeared by the late patriarchal society.
