Early civilization
2 min readWhen humanity’s ancestors first started to fashion tools out of stone, the curtain slowly rose on human civilization.
China’s Stone Age, or Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, lasted for at least one million years. Over this prolonged period, the ancestors of the Chinese people mastered the arts of tool making, agriculture, spinning and weaving, and architecture. Approximately 7,000 years ago, pottery made its first appearance in China. Representative of this period are Yangshao, or Painted Pottery Culture, which arose on the middle reaches of the Yellow River, and Hemudu Culture, located on the lower reaches of the Changjiang(Yangtze) River.
Yangshao Culture, which flourished from approximately 5000-3000 BC, is characterized by the exquisite painted pottery found at the Banpo Village archeological site in Xi’ an. These artifacts represent the height of early Chinese ceramic art. Used to hold food and water, the vessels were made in a variety of shapes and beautifully decorated, most typically with figures of fish. Various explanations have been given as to the meaning of these unique decorations.
Some scholars believe that they represent Banpo’s totemic deities, others think they were prayers for abundant harvest, while still others say they were good luck pieces to invoke fruitful procreation.
Unlike Yangshao Culture, which arose in the inland region of northern China, the 7,000-year-old Hemudu Culture was representative of southern China. These skillful and intelligent people relied on the cultivation of paddy rice for their living. In 1973, archeologists discovered the carbonized remains of large amounts of rice at the ancient site of Hemudu Village, indicating the abundant harvests and afluence enjoyed by these early Chinese ancestors. The Hemudu people also invented mortise and tenon joinery, which they used to construct wooden post and beam houses. This construction technique is still used in China today.
