Those finds that can be definitively linked with modern Chinese people date from the Neolithic era. Evidence about the Neolithic age is plentiful and historians have sifted through it to provide a clear image of cultural and technological innovations. The most significant changes from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic were the development of agriculture and a growing dependence on farming for survival. A fragile hunting and fishing economy became a more stable, agrarian-based society. Archeological excavations since 1949 have challenged the earlier view that China had two, and only two, demarcated Neolithic cultures. At least four such cultures have been identified, and the sites are scattered throughout the country. The new discoveries have considerably altered the previously accepted dates for the Neolithic. J. G. Andersson, who excavated one of the Neolithic sites in the early 1920s, had given 2500 BCE as the approximate onset of the Neolithic, but more-accurate dating techniques have shown that his village was founded as early as the fifth millennium BCE and that other Neolithic sites existed around 6500 BCE, if not earlier.
The earliest known sites can be found as far apart as southern Hebei province and eastern Gansu province, and several have been found in south China. The residences and cemeteries excavated in the northern areas share specific characteristics – round or square houses, underground storage pits, use of specialized stone tools including knives, axes, hammers, and mortars and pestles, and simple handmade red or brown pots. Pigs and dogs had been domesticated, and this may serve to explain why (in an indication of the vital role of the pig in early China) the Chinese character for “pig” placed under the character for “roof” came to form a new character meaning “family” or “household.” The dead were buried singly in individual graves and provided with pottery or stone tools. Many of the sites in south China are located in caves, again scattered across a wide variety of regions in the provinces of Jiangxi, Guangxi, and Guangdong. Judging from the tools found in these sites, the cave dwellers worked the land but also hunted and fished. Bones of deer, sheep, rabbits, and birds indicate the range of animals they hunted. Like their contemporaries in the north, they had domesticated the pig, and the large number of pig bones indicates the animal’s value to the inhabitants.
The Yangshao sites are doubtless the most renowned of the early Neolithic cultures. Discovered in 1921 by J. G. Andersson, they provide a wealth of data on the peoples and economies located in the area. Banpo village in the modern city of Xian is a typical example of these sites. Excavated by archeologists starting in 1953, the site has been turned into a well-arranged museum with helpful descriptions of the original layout of the village. Because it has been left in pristine condition, it provides a glimpse of Neolithic life. The discovery of the bones of various animals, including deer, raccoons, and foxes, confirms that the Banpo villagers, like their counterparts in Paleolithic cultures, hunted for part of their sustenance. The uncovering of seeds from trees verifies that the inhabitants also gathered food. Yet their generally sedentary existence and their larger populations necessitated a steadier source of supply than hunting and gathering. Since agriculture offered greater control of their environment, the villagers turned to farming for most of their needs. Millet was their principal food crop, and rudimentary farm implements, such as hoes and spades, exemplify some of their technological sophistication. Fishing provided variety to their diet and appears to have been a significant economic activity, as evidenced by the numerous representations of fish on their pottery.
Banpo was a well-laid-out village. Its inhabitants placed their sturdy houses, which were either at or below ground level, at the center of the village complex. Plastered floors and walls, as well as roofs supported by wooden posts, gave an appearance of permanence to the dwellings. Adjacent to the houses were storage pits, with pottery containers often used as granaries, and enclosed areas for domesticated animals. A cemetery (in which more than a hundred skeletons of adults were discovered) and a kiln were located on the fringes of the village. A communal dwelling was found at the center of the village, and the doors of the individual dwellings opened out onto the center. The large number of infants and children buried in the cemetery and in burial urns near the houses attests to the fragility of life in this era.
Like most of the other Neolithic sites in the north, Banpo was situated near a tributary of the Yellow River. The nearby waters provided the foundations for agriculture. The river conveyed the fine grains of sand that had, probably for millennia, been transported from the Mongolian deserts. After the sand was deposited and weathered, it eventually formed the loess soil that made the land productive. Layers of loess soil deposited over thousands of years facilitated farming, partly due to the ability of the loess to absorb water, and the river provided the water to nourish the soil. However, the river could cause havoc to neighboring villages. Accumulation of substantial amounts of loess in the river could, on occasion, result in water spilling over the banks and flooding. Villages downstream felt the full energy of the river. The reaction to such flooding was simply to move to higher grounds to avoid the onrushing water. Later, substantial irrigation projects would be devised to control the river.
Figure 1.1 Ceramic urn, Gansu province, Neolithic period. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, USA/The Bridgeman Art Library.
Banpo’s inhabitants had made great strides in the production of pottery, which varied considerably in color, decoration, and shape. They used a red pigment to paint a large number of the pottery vessels, but not all were painted; some were gray or black. The shapes of the vessels, which were remarkably diverse, were often dictated by their use, from tripods for cooking to thin-topped but large-bodied jars for storage to both small and large bowls for food and for ritual observances. The decorative motifs were also varied, with geometric designs, realistic depictions of fish and deer, and abstract representations of fish and animals. These depictions of fish and animals reflected the continued significance of hunting and, particularly, fishing in the economy of the village. Symbols on some of the pottery may have indicated ownership or the sign of the potter and may have signaled the beginnings of a written language.
The village’s tools and ornaments were more numerous and diversified than similar artifacts of the Paleolithic era. Stone chisels, polishing tools, hoes, and spades supplemented the stone axes, knives, and arrowheads of earlier times. Antler needles, fishhooks, spearheads, and polishers showed significant improvements in technology. The fashioning of decorative items such as rings and beads made of jade and other semiprecious and precious stones indicated the development of an economy producing more than subsistence products.
The Banpo village and the original Yangshao villages were not the only north China sites of Neolithic culture. Since the 1920s, other such sites have been excavated in the provinces of Gansu (the so-called Painted Pottery Culture), southern Hebei, central Henan, and Shaanxi. They shared some of the same cultural and economic traits of Banpo, but there were nonetheless variations in the sizes of the villages, the types of pottery and stone implements, and the methods of burial. Such differences presaged a characteristic of much of Chinese history and a persistent theme in this book – the local deviations from the central patterns or, later, from the central government’s demands and laws.
South China also witnessed the development of early Neolithic cultures, but the early and late Neolithic sites found in the province of Shandong (in the northeast) were most closely related to the earliest true Chinese civilization. Like the Yangshao, the Dawenkou culture of Shandong, which originated later than the Yangshao culture, was based upon millet production, but its tools, pottery, weaponry, and crafts were more complex in design and in performance. In addition, excavation of the graves revealed growing complexity in social organization. A few were extremely elaborate, with exquisite pottery and stone implements, while most were bare or had relatively few furnishings. Such evidence points to a more hierarchical social structure. In addition, it is apparent that Dawenkou had been influenced by other Neolithic cultures. The borrowing of practices confirmed that the various Neolithic communities were in touch with and affected each other.