Jump to content

Yangshao culture

Coordinates: 36°18′N 109°06′E / 36.300°N 109.100°E / 36.300; 109.100
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yangshao culture
Geographical rangeMiddle reaches of Yellow River
PeriodNeolithic
Datesc. 5000 – c. 3000 BC
Major sitesShuanghuaishu, Banpo, Jiangzhai
Preceded byPeiligang culture, Baijia culture, Dadiwan culture, Cishan culture
Followed byMajiayao (3300–2000 BCE)
Longshan culture (3000-1900 BCE)
Chinese name
Chinese仰韶文化
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinYǎngsháo wénhuà

The Yangshao culture (Chinese: 仰韶文化; pinyin: Yǎngsháo wénhuà) was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC. The culture is named after the Yangshao site, the first excavated site of this culture, which was discovered in 1921 in the town of Yangshao in western Henan by the Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874–1960).[1] The culture flourished mainly in Henan, as well as the neighboring provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi.

Recent research indicates a common origin and spread of the Sino-Tibetan languages with the Cishan, Yangshao and/or Majiayao cultures.[2][3][4][5]

Phases

[edit]

The Yangshao culture is conventionally divided into three phases:

  • The Early Yangshao period or Banpo phase (c. 5000–4000 BC) is represented by the Banpo, Jiangzhai, Beishouling and Dadiwan sites in the Wei River valley in Shaanxi.[6]
  • The Middle Yangshao period or Miaodigou phase (c. 4000–3500 BC) saw an expansion of the culture in all directions, and the development of hierarchies of settlements in some areas, such as western Henan.[7]
  • The Late Yangshao period (c. 3500–3000 BC) saw a greater spread of settlement hierarchies. The first wall of rammed earth in China was built around the settlement of Xishan (25 ha) in central Henan (near modern Zhengzhou).[8]

The Majiayao culture (c. 3300 – c. 2000 BC) to the west is now considered a separate culture that developed from the middle Yangshao culture through an intermediate Shilingxia phase.[9]

Red oval is the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures. After applying the linguistic comparative method to the database of comparative linguistic data developed by Laurent Sagart in 2019 to identify sound correspondences and establish cognates, phylogenetic methods are used to infer relationships among these languages and estimate the age of their origin and homeland.[5]

Economy

[edit]

Subsistence

[edit]

The main food of the Yangshao people was millet, with some sites using foxtail millet and others proso millet.[10] The Yangshao people cultivated and consumed rice, though to a lesser extent than millet.[11][12] The exact nature of Yangshao agriculture, small-scale slash-and-burn cultivation versus intensive agriculture in permanent fields, is currently a matter of debate. Once the soil was exhausted, residents picked up their belongings, moved to new lands, and constructed new villages.[10]

During the Yangshao period, advancements in farming techniques and crop cultivation led to significant improvements in agricultural productivity. Dryland agriculture was of great importance starting in the middle Yangshao culture period. The introduction of mixed farming across more sites played a crucial role in shifting subsistence practices away from gathering. As a result, agriculture became the dominant means of sustenance, ultimately laying the foundation for the development of an agricultural society in the Central Plain.[11]

Archaeological research indicates that beer brewing and communal feasting were integral aspects of Yangshao culture during the fourth millennium BC in the middle Yellow River region. Evidence suggests that Yangshao people produced beer primarily using common millet and rice, while foxtail millet was notably absent from the brewing process. These brewing practices, along with associated social gatherings, indicate that rice may have been a valuable resource to larger Yangshao settlements.[11]

The Yangshao people kept pigs and dogs. Sheep, goats, and cattle are found much more rarely.[13] Reared domestic pigs were the main source of meat for the Yangshao people, while a small amount of hunted animals were also included in their diet.[11] The Yangshao would hunt and fish with stone tools. Their stone tools were polished and highly specialized. They may also have practiced an early form of sericulture.[13]

The Yangshao people gradually introduced rice into young children's diets alongside foxtail millet and broomcorn millet. This practice was used for both weaning and post-weaning transitional foods, leading to variations in early childhood nutrition and distinct feeding practices among the Yangshao.[12]

Crafts

[edit]

The Yangshao culture crafted pottery: Yangshao artisans created fine white, red, and black painted pottery with human facial, animal, and geometric designs. Unlike the later Longshan culture, the Yangshao culture did not use pottery wheels in pottery-making. Excavations found that children were buried in painted pottery jars. Pottery style emerging from the Yangshao culture spread westward to the Majiayao culture, and then further to Xinjiang and Central Asia.[14]

The Yangshao culture produced silk to a small degree and wove hemp. Men wore loin clothes and tied their hair in a top knot. Women wrapped a length of cloth around themselves and tied their hair in a bun.

Bowl of the Banpo culture (first stage of the Yangshao culture), with geometrial human face motif and fish, 4500–3500 BC, Shaanxi.[15][16][17]

Structures

[edit]
Jiangzhai settlement model, Yangshao culture

During the early Yangshao culture, a variety of architectural styles emerged, reflecting advancements in construction techniques. Housing structures were categorized into five main types: small and medium round houses, small and medium square or rectangular houses, and large square dwellings. These buildings were constructed either as semi-subterranean homes, which provided insulation, or as ground-level structures. Based on evidence such as the presence of communal storage pits and the performance of shared tasks within public structures, it is likely that certain elements of production and distribution were managed collectively. These large public buildings may have served as hubs for community-based activities.

Middle Yangshao settlements such as Jiangzhi contain raised-floor buildings that may have been used for the storage of surplus grains. Grinding stones for making flour were also found.

In the late Yangshao period, architecture underwent significant changes. Square ground-level houses became the most common form, and longhouses with multiple rooms began to appear. Some homes featured floors covered with a layer of lime. Organizational features first seen in the middle Yangshao period persisted, including large settlements associated with public buildings resembling palaces. This period also saw the emergence of the first walled-town site in the Yellow River valley.[18]

Residential houses were typically built by digging a rounded rectangular pit around one meter deep. Then they were rammed, and a lattice of wattle was woven over it. Then it was plastered with mud. The floor was also rammed down.

A model of Jiangzhai, a Yangshao village

Next, a few short wattle poles would be placed around the top of the pit, and more wattle would be woven to it. It was plastered with mud, and a framework of poles would be placed to make a cone shape for the roof. Poles would be added to support the roof. It was then thatched with millet stalks. There was little furniture; a shallow fireplace in the middle with a stool, a bench along the wall, and a bed of cloth. Food and items were placed or hung against the walls. A pen would be built outside for animals.

Yangshao villages typically covered ten to fourteen acres and were composed of houses around a central square.[10]

Social structure

[edit]

Archaeological evidence suggests that the social organization of the Yangshao culture underwent significant changes over time. In the early Yangshao period, society was primarily structured around clans connected by blood ties. However, as private ownership emerged in the later Yangshao period, these clan-based communities gradually gave way to smaller, independent family units. The development of monogamous, self-sufficient households led to distinct economic practices, with each family managing its own production methods and resources.[12]

Although early reports suggested a matriarchal culture,[19] others argue that it was a society in transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, while still others believe it to have been patriarchal. The debate hinges on differing interpretations of burial practices.[20][21]

In the Yangshao culture, it was a common mortuary practice to place deceased children in funerary urns and bury them near the foundations of houses.[18]

The discovery of a Chinese dragon statue dating back to the fifth millennium BC in the Yangshao culture makes it the world's oldest known dragon depiction,.[22]

Archaeological sites

[edit]
class=notpageimage|
Yangshao culture and contemporary cultures and polities c. 5000 BC

Yangshao, in Mianchi County, Sanmenxia, western Henan, the place which gave the culture its name, has a museum next to the archaeological site.[23] The archaeological site of the village of Banpo near Xi'an is one of the best-known ditch-enclosed settlements of the Yangshao. Another major settlement called Jiangzhai was excavated out to its limits, and archaeologists found that it was completely surrounded by a ring-ditch. Both Banpo and Jiangzhai also yielded incised marks on pottery which a few have interpreted as numerals or perhaps precursors to Chinese characters,[24] but such interpretations are not widely accepted.[25]

Artifacts

[edit]

See also

[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yangshao culture.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Yangshao Culture Museum". Archived from the original on 2018-04-13. Retrieved 2018-04-13.
  2. ^ Zhang, Menghan; Yan, Shi; Pan, Wuyun; Jin, Li (24 April 2019). "Phylogenetic evidence for Sino-Tibetan origin in northern China in the Late Neolithic". Nature. 569 (7754): 112–115. Bibcode:2019Natur.569..112Z. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1153-z. PMID 31019300. S2CID 129946000.
  3. ^ Bradley, David (27–28 October 2018). "Subgrouping of the Sino-Tibetan languages". 10th International Conference on Evolutionary Linguistics, Nanjing University.
  4. ^ LaPolla, Randy (2019). "The origin and spread of the Sino-Tibetan language family". Nature. 569 (7754): 45–47. Bibcode:2019Natur.569...45L. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01214-6. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 31036967.
  5. ^ a b Sagart et al. (2019), pp. 10319–10320.
  6. ^ Liu & Chen (2012), pp. 190–191.
  7. ^ Liu & Chen (2012), pp. 191–193.
  8. ^ Liu & Chen (2012), pp. 193–194.
  9. ^ Liu & Chen (2012), p. 232.
  10. ^ a b c Pollard, Elizabeth (2015). Worlds Together Worlds Apart. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 69–70. ISBN 978-0-393-91847-2.
  11. ^ a b c d Wang, Can, Houyuan Lu, Wanfa Gu, Naiqin Wu, Jianping Zhang, Xinxin Zuo, Fengjiang Li, et al. “The Development of Yangshao Agriculture and Its Interaction with Social Dynamics in the Middle Yellow River Region, China.” Holocene (Sevenoaks) 29, no. 1 (2019): 173–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683618804640.
  12. ^ a b c Lei, Shuai, Wanfa Gu, Qian Wu, Yingjun Xin, and Yi Guo. “Early Childhood Nurturing Strategies in Groups of the Yellow River’s Middle Reaches from the Late Yangshao Culture (3500–2800 BCE): A Stable Isotope Perspective.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 33, no. 5 (2023): 920–37. https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.3254.
  13. ^ a b Chang (1986), p. 113.
  14. ^ Zhang, Kai (4 February 2021). "The Spread and Integration of Painted pottery Art along the Silk Road". Region - Educational Research and Reviews. 3 (1): 18. doi:10.32629/RERR.V3I1.242. S2CID 234007445. The early cultural exchanges between the East and the West are mainly reflected in several aspects: first, in the late Neolithic period of painted pottery culture, the Yangshao culture (5000-3000 BC) from the Central Plains spreadwestward, which had a great impact on Majiayao culture (3000-2000 BC), and then continued to spread to Xinjiang and Central Asia through the transition of Hexi corridor
  15. ^ "Painted Pottery Basin with Fish and Human Face Design, National Museum of China". en.chnmuseum.cn. National Museum of China.
  16. ^ Valenstein, Suzanne G.; N.Y.), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York (1989). A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-8109-1170-3.
  17. ^ Major, John S.; Cook, Constance A. (22 September 2016). Ancient China: A History. Routledge. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-317-50365-1.
  18. ^ a b Liu, Li. The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489624.
  19. ^ Roy, Kartik C.; Tisdell, C. A.; Blomqvist, Hans C. (1999). Economic development and women in the world community. Greenwood. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-275-96631-7.
  20. ^ Linduff, Katheryn M.; Yan Sun (2004). Gender and Chinese Archaeology. AltaMira Press. pp. 16–19, 244. ISBN 978-0-7591-0409-9.
  21. ^ Jiao, Tianlong (2001). "Gender Studies in Chinese Neolithic Archaeology". In Arnold, Bettina; Wicker, Nancy L (eds.). Gender and the Archaeology of Death. AltaMira Press. pp. 53–55. ISBN 978-0-7591-0137-1.
  22. ^ Howard Giskin and Bettye S. Walsh (2001). An introduction to Chinese culture through the family. State University of New York Press. p. 126. ISBN 0-7914-5047-3.
  23. ^ 黄沛. "Yangshao Culture Museum". henan.chinadaily.com.cn. Archived from the original on 2018-04-13. Retrieved 2018-04-13.
  24. ^ Woon, Wee Lee (1987). Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution. Joint Publishing, Hong Kong.
  25. ^ Qiu Xigui (2000). Chinese Writing. Translation of 文字學概論 by Mattos and Jerry Norman. Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 978-1-55729-071-7.
  26. ^ "彩绘鹳鱼石斧图陶缸". The Chinese Cultural Heritage Protection Web Site. Archived from the original on 2019-09-07. Retrieved 2023-05-29.

36°18′N 109°06′E / 36.300°N 109.100°E / 36.300; 109.100

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yangshao_culture&oldid=1281733428"