7000-1500 BC Neolithic

The period from about 7000 to 1500 BC is known as the Neolithic, or New Stone Age. During this time people made tools from stone and began to farm. In China, they mostly lived in river valleys and coastal areas, grew crops like millet and rice, and kept dogs, pigs, goats and sheep. They lived in thatched huts with ovens and made pottery containers for food. Stone spindles survive, showing that they produced cloth, and the cocoons of silkworms are evidence that they could make silk.

From about 5000 BC, two main cultures emerged in the north. The Yangshao culture developed around the Yellow and Wei Rivers. Famous for its painted pottery, it flourished first at Banpo (near Xi’an) about 4800-4300 BC, later spreading east along the Yellow River. The Longshan culture (about 3000-1700 BC) was centred on Shandong in the east. Here the people cultivated rice, lived in houses built on stilts, and produced fine jades and pottery. They made black, burnished pottery using the potter’s wheel, invented about 2900 BC.

By about 2205 BC, according to tradition and some later historians, the first ruling dynasty of China, the Xia, was founded. It was succeeded in about 1500 BC by the Shang dynasty. By then, the development of bronze metal working was bringing many changes to the Neolithic way of life.