Early humans
The fossil record in China promises fundamental contributions to the understanding of human origins. There is considerable evidence of Homo erectus by the time of the Lower Paleolithic (the Paleolithic Period [Old Stone Age] began about 2,500,000 years ago and ended 10,000 years ago) at sites such as Lantian, Shaanxi; Hexian, Anhui; Yuanmou, Yunnan; and, the most famous, that of Peking man at Zhoukoudian, Beijing municipality. The Lower Cave at Zhoukoudian has yielded evidence of intermittent human use from about 460,000 to 230,000 years ago, and fossils of Peking man found in the complex have been dated to about 770,000 years ago. Many caves and other sites in Anhui, Hebei, Henan, Liaoning, Shandong, Shanxi and Shaanxi in northern China and in Guizhou and Hubei in the south suggest that H. erectus achieved wide distribution in China. Whether H. erectus pekinensis intentionally used fire and practiced ritual cannibalism are matters under debate.
ZhoukoudianThe Zhoukoudian archaeological site, near Beijing.Ian Armstrong
Significant Homo sapiens cranial and dental fragments have been found together with Middle Paleolithic artifacts. Such assemblages have been unearthed at Dingcun, Shanxi; Changyang, Hubei; Dali, Shaanxi; Xujiayao, Shanxi; and Maba, Guangdong. Morphological characteristics such as the shovel-shaped incisor, broad nose, and mandibular torus link these remains to modern Asians. Few archaeological sites have been identified in the south.
A number of widely distributed H. erectus sites dating from about 1.8 million years ago during the early Pleistocene Epoch manifest considerable regional and temporal diversity. Upper Paleolithic sites are numerous in northern China. Thousands of stone artifacts, most of them small (called microliths), have been found, for example, at Xiaonanhai, near Anyang, at Shuoxian and Qinshui (Shanxi), and at Yangyuan (Hebei); these findings suggest an extensive microlith culture in northern China. Hematite, a common iron oxide ore used for colouring, was found scattered around skeletal remains in the Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian (c. 10th millennium bce) and may represent the first sign of human ritual.
Neolithic Period
The complex of developments in stone tool technology, food production and storage, and social organization that is often characterized as the “Neolithic Revolution” was in progress in China by at least the 6th millennium bce. Developments during the Chinese Neolithic Period (New Stone Age) were to establish some of the major cultural dimensions of the subsequent Bronze Age.
Climate and environment
Although the precise nature of the paleoenvironment is still in dispute, temperatures in Neolithic China were probably some 4 to 7 °F (2 to 4 °C) warmer than they are today. Precipitation, although more abundant, may have been declining in quantity. The Tsinling) Mountains" class="md-crosslink">Qin (Tsinling) Mountains in north-central China separated the two phytogeographical zones of northern and southern China, while the absence of such a mountain barrier farther east encouraged a more uniform environment and the freer movement of Neolithic peoples about the North China Plain. East China, particularly toward the south, may have been covered with thick vegetation, some deciduous forest, and scattered marsh. The Loess Plateau north and west of the Qin Mountains is thought to have been drier and even semiarid, with some coniferous forest growing on the hills and with brush and open woodland in the valleys.
Food production
The primary Neolithic crops, domesticated by the 5th millennium bce, were drought-resistant millet (usually Setaria italica), grown on the eolian and alluvial loess soils of the northwest and the north, and glutenous rice (Oryza sativa), grown in the wetlands of the southeast. These staples were supplemented by a variety of fruits, nuts, legumes, vegetables, and aquatic plants. The main sources of animal protein were pigs, dogs, fish, and shellfish. By the Bronze Age, millet, rice, soybeans, tea, mulberries, hemp, and lacquer had become characteristic Chinese crops. That most if not all of these plants were native to China indicates the degree to which Neolithic culture developed indigenously. The distinctive cereal, fruit, and vegetable complexes of the northern and southern zones in Neolithic and early historic times suggest, however, that at least two independent traditions of plant domestication may have been present.
The stone tools used to clear and prepare the land reveal generally improving technology. There was increasing use of ground and polished edges and of perforation. Regional variations of shape included oval-shaped axes in central and northwest China, square- and trapezoid-shaped axes in the east, and axes with stepped shoulders in the southeast. By the Late Neolithic a decrease in the proportion of stone axes to adzes suggests the increasing dominance of permanent agriculture and a reduction in the opening up of new land. The burial in high-status graves of finely polished, perforated stone and jade tools such as axes and adzes with no sign of edge wear indicates the symbolic role such emblems of work had come to play by the 4th and 3rd millennia.
Major cultures and sites
There was not one Chinese Neolithic but a mosaic of regional cultures whose scope and significance are still being determined. Their location in the area defined today as China does not necessarily mean that all the Neolithic cultures were Chinese or even proto-Chinese. Their contributions to the Bronze Age civilization of the Shang, which may be taken as unmistakably Chinese in both cultural as well as geographical terms, need to be assessed in each case. In addition, the presence of a particular ceramic ware does not necessarily define a cultural horizon; transitional phases, both chronological and geographical, are not discussed in detail in the following paragraphs.
Incipient Neolithic
Study of the historical reduction of the size of human teeth suggests that the first human beings to eat cooked food did so in southern China. The sites of Xianrendong in Jiangxi and Zengpiyan in Guangxi have yielded artifacts from the 10th to the 7th millennium bce that include low-fired, cord-marked shards with some incised decoration and mostly chipped stone tools; these pots may have been used for cooking and storage. Pottery and stone tools from shell middens in southern China also suggest Incipient Neolithic occupations. These early southern sites may have been related to the Neolithic Bac Son culture in Vietnam; connections to the subsequent Neolithic cultures of northwestern and northern China have yet to be demonstrated.
6th millennium bce
Two major cultures can be identified in the northwest: Laoguantai, in eastern and southern Shaanxi and northwestern Henan, and Dadiwan I—a development of Laoguantai culture—in eastern Gansu and western Shaanxi. The pots in both cultures were low-fired, sand-tempered, and mainly red in colour, and bowls with three stubby feet or ring feet were common. The painted bands of this pottery may represent the start of the Painted Pottery culture.
In northern China the people of Peiligang (north-central Henan) made less use of cord marking and painted design on their pots than did those at Dadiwan I; the variety of their stone tools, including sawtooth sickles, indicates the importance of agriculture. The Cishan potters (southern Hebei) employed more cord-marked decoration and made a greater variety of forms, including basins, cups, serving stands, and pot supports. The discovery of two pottery models of silkworm chrysalides and 70 shuttlelike objects at a 6th-millennium-bce site at Nanyangzhuang (southern Hebei) suggests the early production of silk, the characteristic Chinese textile.