List of Neolithic cultures of China

The Neolithic
↑ Mesolithic
Fertile Crescent Heavy Neolithic Shepherd Neolithic Trihedral Neolithic Pre-Pottery (A, B) Qaraoun culture Tahunian culture Yarmukian Culture Halaf culture Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period Ubaid culture Byblos Jericho Tell Aswad Çatalhöyük Jarmo Europe Boian culture Butmir culture Cernavodă culture Coțofeni culture Cucuteni-Trypillian culture Dudeşti culture Gorneşti culture Gumelniţa–Karanovo culture Hamangia culture Linear Pottery culture Malta Temples Petreşti culture Sesklo culture Tisza culture Tiszapolgár culture Usatovo culture Varna culture Vinča culture Vučedol culture Neolithic Transylvania Neolithic Southeastern Europe China Peiligang culture Pengtoushan culture Beixin culture Cishan culture Dadiwan culture Houli culture Xinglongwa culture Xinle culture Zhaobaogou culture Hemudu culture Daxi culture Majiabang culture Yangshao culture Hongshan culture Dawenkou culture Songze culture Liangzhu culture Majiayao culture Qujialing culture Longshan culture Baodun culture Shijiahe culture Yueshi culture Tibet South Asia Mehrgarh
farming, animal husbandry pottery, metallurgy, wheel circular ditches, henges, megaliths Neolithic religion
↓ Chalcolithic

This is a list of Neolithic cultures of China that have been discovered by archaeologists. They are sorted in chronological order from the earliest founding to the latest and are followed by a schematic visualization of these cultures.

It would seem that the definition of Neolithic in China is undergoing changes. The discovery in 2012 of pottery about 20,000 years BP indicates that this measure alone can no longer be used to define the period.^[1] It will fall to the more difficult task of determining when cereal domestication started.

The list

Dates (BC)	English name	Chinese name	Modern-day name and location
8500–7700	Nanzhuangtou culture	南莊頭遺址	Yellow River region in southern Hebei
7500–6100	Pengtoushan culture	彭頭山文化	central Yangtze region in northwestern Hunan
7000–5000	Peiligang culture	裴李崗文化	Yi-Luo river basin valley in Henan
6500–5500	Houli culture	后李文化	Shandong
6200–5400	Xinglongwa culture	興隆洼文化	Inner Mongolia-Liaoning border
6000–5500	Cishan culture	磁山文化	southern Hebei
5800–5400	Dadiwan culture	大地灣文化	Gansu and western Shaanxi
5500–4800	Xinle culture	新樂文化	lower Liao River on the Liaodong Peninsula
5400–4500	Zhaobaogou culture	趙宝溝文化	Luan River valley in Inner Mongolia and northern Hebei
5300–4100	Beixin culture	北辛文化	Shandong
5000–4500	Hemudu culture	河姆渡文化	Yuyao and Zhoushan, Zhejiang
5000–3000	Daxi culture	大溪文化	Three Gorges region
5000–3000	Majiabang culture	馬家浜文化	Lake Tai area and north of Hangzhou Bay
5000–3000	Yangshao culture	仰韶文化	Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi
4700–2900	Hongshan culture	紅山文化	Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Hebei
4100–2600	Dawenkou culture	大汶口文化	Shandong, Anhui, Henan, and Jiangsu
3800–3300	Songze culture	崧澤文化	Lake Tai area
3400–2250	Liangzhu culture	良渚文化	Yangtze River Delta
3100–2700	Majiayao culture	馬家窯文化	upper Yellow River region in Gansu and Qinghai
3100–2700	Qujialing culture	屈家嶺文化	middle Yangtze region in Hubei and Hunan
3000–2000	Longshan culture	龍山文化	central and lower Yellow River
2800–2000	Baodun culture	寶墩文化	Chengdu Plain
2500–2000	Shijiahe culture	石家河文化	middle Yangtze region in Hubei
1900–1500	Yueshi culture	岳石文化	lower Yellow River region in Shandong

Schematic outline

These cultures are brought together schematically for the period 8500 to 1500 BC. Neolithic cultures remain unmarked and Bronze Age cultures (from 2000 BC) are marked with *. There are many differences in opinion by dating these cultures, so the dates chosen here are tentative:

Year (BC)	North- east China (1)	North- west China (2)	Middle Yellow River (Zhongyuan) (3)	Lower- Yellow River (4)	Lower- Yangtze (5)	Middle- Yangtze (6)	Sichuan (7)	Southeast China (8)	South- west China (9)
8500			Nanzhuangtou
			8500-7700
8000
7500
7000						Pengtoushan
						(including
						Chengbeixi
6500		Dadiwan	Peiligang	Houli		and Zaoshi)		Zengpiyan
	Xinglongwa	Laoguantai	Cishan	6500-5500		7000-5800		7000-5500
	6200-5400	= Baijia	Jiahu
6000		6500-5000	Lijiacun		Kuahuqiao
			6500-5000		6000-5000
5500
				Beixin
	Xinle			5300-4500
5000	5300-4800	Yangshao			Hemudu	Daxi		Dapenkeng
		5000-3000			5000-3400	5000-3300		Fuguodun
					Majiabang			5000-3000
4500	Zhaobaogou				5000-4000
	4500-4000			Dawenkou	Songze
				4300-2600	4000-3000
4000
3500						Qujialing
	Hongshan					3500-2600	Yingpanshan
	(incl. Fuhe)	Majiayao			Liangzhu		ca 3100?
3000	3400-2300	3300-2700			3200-1800			Tanishan
		Banshan	*Henan-			Shijiahe	Baodun	Shixia
		2700-2400	Longshan	*Shandong-		2500-2000	2800-2000	Nianyuzhuan
2500		Machang	2800-2000	Longshan		Qinglongquan		Qinglongquan
		2400-2000		2600-2000		= (Hubei-		Hedang	Baiyangcun
		*Qijia				Longshan)		3000-....	2200-2100
2000	*Xiajiadian	2300-1800				2400-2000			Dalongtan
	2000-300		*Erlitou	*Yueshi					2100-2000
		*Siba	1900-1500	1900-1500	*Maqiao
1500		1950-1500			1800-1200	*Chang Jiang (Sanxingdui)	from 1500

For this schematic outline of its neolithic cultures China has been divided into the following nine parts:

1. Northeast China: Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.
2. Northwest China (Upper Yellow River): Gansu, Qinghai and western part of Shaanxi.
3. North-central China (Middle Yellow River): Shanxi, Hebei, western part of Henan and eastern part of Shaanxi. This is called the North China Plain, until recently seen as where Chinese civilization originated from and spread out along the country.
4. Eastern China (lower Yellow River): Shandong, Anhui, northern part of Jiangsu and eastern part Henan.
5. East-south-eastern China (lower Yangtze): Zhejiang and biggest part of Jiangsu.
6. South-central China (middle Yangtze): Hubei and northern part of Hunan.
7. Sichuan and upper Yangtze.
8. Southeast China: Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi, southern part of Hunan, lower Red River in the northern part of Vietnam and the island of Taiwan.
9. Southwest China: Yunnan and Guizhou.

Map of the Chinese Neolithic

See also

• History of China
• List of Bronze Age sites in China
• List of Palaeolithic sites in China
• Prehistoric Asia
• Prehistoric Beifudi site
• Neolithic signs in China
• Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors

References

1. Xiaohong Wu, Chi Zhang, Paul Goldberg, David Cohen, Yan Pan, Trina Arpin, Ofer Bar-Yosef (2012). Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China. Science, 336, 1696-1700.

Literature

• Chang Kwang-chih, The Archaeology of Ancient China, Yale University Press: New Haven, 1986 (Fourth Edition Revised and Enlarged), ISBN 0-300-03784-8.
• Loewe, Michael en Edward L. Shaughnessy (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China. From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1999, ISBN 0-521-47030-7.
• He, Zhonghu, and Alain P.A. Bonjean, Cereals in China, The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, 2010, ISBN 978-970-648-177-1
• Higham, Charles, The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1996, ISBN 0-521-49660-8.
• Li Liu,The Chinese Neolithic. Trajectories to Early States, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-521-81184-8.
• Maisels, Charles Keith, Early Civilizations of the Old World. The Formative Histories of Egypt, The Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China, Routledge: Londen 1999, ISBN 0-415-10976-0.
• Scarre, Chris (ed.), The Human Past. World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies, Thames & Hudson: Londen 2005, ISBN 0-500-28531-4.

chapter 7, Higham, Charles, 'East Asian Agriculture and Its Impact', p.234-264.

chapter 15,Higham, Charles, 'Complex Societies of East and Southeast Asia', p.552-594