Author: Roberts, J. A. G.

A History of China by J. A. G. Roberts










1 The Prehistory and Early History of China
PREHISTORIC AND PROTOHISTORIC CHINA
The physical origin of the Chinese people is a subject not yet fully understood.
550,000-300,000 Homo erectus
200,000-50,000 early Homo sapiens
mitochondrial DNA studies for African origin vs. palaeoanthropological evidence from East Asia is cited to demonstrate that continuity of hominid colonization rather than the arrival of a replacement model is characteristic of the area.1

1. Kwang-chih Chang, 'China on the eve of the historical period', in Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (eds), The Cambridge History of Ancient China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) pp. 37-73. See also Barry Sautman, 'Peking man and the politics of paleoanthropological nationalism in China', Journal of Asian Studies, 60.1 (2001) pp. 95-124.

best documented finds - Middle Cave Zhoukoudian radiocarbon date 16,922 BC see also Ordos region in northern Shaanxi

At the start of the Neolithic period, which in China dates approximately from 8000 to 2000 BC, the climate of East Asia was warm and moist. North China was covered by dense forests and the fauna included crocodiles and elephants. At one time it was supposed that Chinese Neolithic culture, marked by the cultivation of crops and the domestication of animals, had originated in one area of the North China Plain, but recent archaeological discoveries have revealed a more complex picture, and several regional cultures are now considered to have achieved the transition from food-gathering to food-production. These include

the Yangshao culture of the middle Yellow river,
***** northern Henan, first excavated in 1921 by J. Gunnar Andersson - most famous site is at Banpo, near Xi'an, which was occupied from about 4500 BC. Banpo was a village of some 45 houses. Its inhabitants cultivated millet and kept pigs and dogs. They produced pottery which was not only decorated but also occasionally bore incised markings. As similar markings have been found on pottery excavated at other sites within the region, it has been suggested that these are not simple potters' marks but an early stage in the development of Chinese characters, a suggestion which has been challenged.2
the Dawenkou culture in Shandong,
the Majiabang culture of the lower Yangzi river
***** which emerged in the sixth millennium BC, was characterized by the cultivation of rice and the use of pottery with incised motifs.
and the Dapenkeng culture along the south coast and on Taiwan.

2. William G. Boltz, 'Language and writing', in Loewe and Shaughnessy, CHOAC, pp. 74-123.

In 1928, not long after Andersson's discoveries at Yangshao, specimens of a different type of pottery, which became known as Longshan ware, were found at Chengziyai in north-west Shandong. Whereas Yangshao pottery was red and was sometimes painted with stylized renditions of birds and flowers, Longshan ware was unpainted, more finely made and usually elevated on a circular foot or on tripod legs. Because the first samples of Longshan ware had been found in Shandong, it was assumed to be the culture of eastern China, whereas Yangshao was regarded as the culture of the Central Plain, an interpretation which became known as the 'Neolithic hypothesis'. When the site at Miaodigou in Henan was excavated, Yangshao ware was found below Longshan finds, and this give rise to a second theory, that Longshan culture was later than, and derived from, Yangshao culture. However, the evidence to support a developmental theory has not been forthcoming: it now seems probable that the two cultures developed separately and that Longshan culture, which was widely distributed in eastern China, gradually spread to the Central Plain, where the painted pottery tradition was already dying out.