5000 BC-AD 300 Prehistoric

In Korea, unlike elsewhere in the world, farming was not adopted at the beginning of the Neolithic period. Instead people continued to live by hunting and gathering food as they had done in earlier periods. However, in around 6000 BC people started making and using pottery. In particular, comb-patterned pottery was made during this time. By 2000-1000 BC people were beginning to produce food by farming, including the cultivation of rice. They buried their dead in cist graves (tombs lined with stone slabs) and people of higher rank beneath dolmens (tombs made from a large stone laid on upright ones).

Bronze is thought to have been introduced to Korea in around 1000 BC. During the Bronze Age people moved from living along river edges to living on hill sides and using the lower slopes for farming. The earliest surviving form of Korean figurative art dates from the late Bronze Age. Animals, fish, humans, boats and abstract patterns have been found engraved into large panels of rock around the Naktong river valley.

In around 300 BC contact with China increased, bringing new types of everyday and ritual objects, including iron, as well as new burial practices. The country was also starting to form into small separate chiefdoms which developed into larger states: Koguryo, Paekche, Kaya and Silla.