History of Research, Chronology and Cultural Sequences

Research into the Neolithic Age of China was started by European scientists in the 1920s. The discovery of a prehistoric dwelling site near Yangshao village (Map 2.5.1a) in modern Henan Province in 1921 by Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874–1960) became a starting point. Results and interpretations first published in the periodicals of the Geological Survey of China and later in the United States and Sweden had a long-lasting effect on the development of prehistoric archaeology in China (Chen 1997). At the beginning Yangshao was exclusively used to name a Neolithic archaeological culture with painted pottery, located in the middle reaches of Huang He and along Wei He – the assumed cradle of Chinese civilisation.

Li Ji (1895–1979), educated in the United States, was the first Chinese scholar to excavate a Neolithic site in China in 1923. The publications of his junior colleague Liang Siyong (1904–54) on the site of Chengziya made known black pottery, which was different from the Yangshao type and soon became a chief characteristic of the Longshan Culture (Liang 1954), originally thought to be an eastern neighbour of the Yangshao Culture. However, already in 1931 the succession of the Yangshao Culture by the Longshan Culture was stratigraphically proved at the site of Hougang (Zhongguo 1986: 204; Chang 2001), which became a benchmark for establishing the chronology of Chinese prehistory. Since then, Yangshao has often been used as a synonym for the Middle Neolithic (c. 5000–2500 bce; calibrated years are consistently used throughout this chapter) and Longshan as a synonym for the Late Neolithic (c. 2500–1900 bce) in the cradle area of Chinese civilisation (Zhongguo 1984).