THE FIRST PEOPLE AND THE FIRST STATES
Central China—fertile and several degrees warmer than it is today—was attractive to early humans. Considerable evidence of human activity more than 500,000 years ago has been found at a range of sites in China.
Hominid remains found at Yuanmou in Yunnan province in 1965 are among the earliest examples of Homo erectus and date from around 1.7 million years ago. Remains of about 45 specimens of Homo erectus, dating from between 600,000 years ago and 400,000 years ago, have also been found in a limestone cave at Zhoukoudian (Chou-k’ou-tien) in Yunnan. These early hominids are thought to have used fire and tools, but the evidence of hearths and artifacts was challenged by some archaeologists in the 1980s. These early hominids are now known collectively as Peking Man for their proximity to Beijing (Peking). In the 1960s, remains of an earlier hominid were found over 800 miles (over 1,280 km) to the west, near Xian (Hsi-an).
Discoveries of later hominids in China include numerous Neanderthals, who flourished between about 200,000 and 100,000 BCE, and Homo sapiens, which appeared in the region after about 100,000 BCE. By 25,000 BCE, humans who hunted, fished, and carved artifacts from shell and bone lived in the North China Plain region. There is no firm evidence that any of these groups had contact with each other, and it assumed that they lived in isolated pockets of population.
THE FIRST COMMUNITIES
The earliest communities emerged in the late Neolithic period, from about 5000 BCE, when humans congregated in the valley of the Huang He (Hwang Ho or Yellow River) to farm. They raised dogs and pigs, both for food, and they fished and hunted. These early communities grew millet and rice. Among the artifacts that have been found at sites in the region are arrows, fishhooks, knives, and needles. The most important archaeological remains, however, are ceramic pots, including the li, a round food container mounted on three hollow legs.
By the sixth millennium BCE, two distinct cultures emerged in northwest China in Shaanxi (Shensi), Henan (Honan), and Gansu (Kansu) provinces. Both cultures produced pots, which were mainly red in color (the region’s clay contained deposits of hematite, a rust-colored iron mineral). Some pots were decorated with painted bands. At about the same time in northern China, the Cishan (Tz’u-shan) people of Hebei (Hopei or Hopeh) were producing a wider range of pottery, including bowls and cups as well as pots and pot stands. Their work was decorated with cord markings, patterns produced by wrapping textiles around the clay while it was fired. During the fifth millennium BCE, other cultures that produced painted pottery flourished at various sites, including Bao-chi (Pei-shou-ling) and Banpo (Pan-p’o) in Shaanxi. The practice of making painted pottery may have spread or emerged separately.
YANGSHAO AND LONGSHAN CULTURES
In the Neolithic period, from around 5000 BCE through about 2500 BCE, a distinct culture emerged that has been named Yangshao (Yang-shao) for the village in Henan province where it was first identified in 1921. The Yangshao people were early agriculturalists who were compelled regularly to relocate to fresh fields when the soil where they had settled became exhausted. The remains of their artifacts and dwellings, left behind as they migrated, took on a homogeneous character across a broader area. Rectangular or round Yangshao houses were of an identifiably related type, built partly above ground and partly below the surface. Yangshao sites occur across extensive areas of central Shaanxi, southwestern Shanxi (Shansi), and western Henan.
Much of the red pottery of the Yangshao period is inscribed with geometric designs in black, and some artifacts bear a sign that may be a precursor, or even an example, of the earliest Chinese script. A plain coarse pottery was used everyday, and it is thought that the better-quality red pottery was intended for particular occasions and more important people.
The second period of Chinese Neolithic culture, from about 2500 to 1000 BCE, is known as the Longshan (Lungshan) period. Farmers settled permanently, a sign that they had developed techniques of regenerating soil, and their culture spread throughout eastern and southern China and northeast into Manchuria. Like the Yangshao people, the Longshan culture had two types of pottery, a coarse everyday style and superior black pottery. Longshan black pottery is typically unpainted and mounted on circular feet or tripods. It is technically superior to any that preceded it because it was produced on potters’ wheels rather than by hand.
The Longshan people were the first in China known to have worshipped their ancestors, a practice that later became established throughout dynastic China. Offerings of drinks and food were left by the graves of ancestors (a custom that continued to modern times). Bodies were often oriented in a particular direction. Some Longshan people practiced collective burial, which involved stripping the flesh from the corpses of as many as 80 bodies and then burying them together, probably in family or clan groupings.
There is evidence of divination (prophecy) and of earth fortifications at some Longshan sites. Longshan people made arrowheads and small tools from animal bones as well as axes and knives made from polished stone.
THE XIA
The Xia (Hsia) dynasty is part of ancient Chinese oral history, but there is no accepted archaeological evidence for its existence. However, excavations at Erlitou near Yanshi in Henan in the late twentieth century uncovered the remains of an important city, including a large palace complex, that has been interpreted by some as a possible capital of the Xia. What is more certain is that after about 1800 BCE, the Yangshao and Longshan cultures coalesced into the first identifiably Chinese civilization, and around 1600 BCE, the Shang dynasty emerged. The Shang dynasty dominated the Henan region for around 600 years.
H. RUSSELL
