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The Neolithic Age in Northern China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2015

Carl Whiting Bishop
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Extract

Northern China forms an integral part of the north temperate zone of the Old World. It is, moreover, connected with western Asia and eastern Europe by a long but continuous belt of steppe presenting no transverse barriers to migration, whether faunal or human. It cannot, therefore, be treated as a region apart, save in a very limited and subordinate sense.

The surface consists in the main of mountains in the west and of plains in the east. Over much of it lie thick deposits of loess, extending from Chinese Turkistan right across eastern Asia, nearly to the Yellow Sea. These great accumulations of wind-borne soil were most probably formed during times roughly contemporary with the Riss-Wurm glaciation of Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 7 , Issue 28 , December 1933 , pp. 389 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1933

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References

1 On the extent of the loess in northern China, see Ting, V.K. Prof. Granet’s ‘La Civilisation Chinoise’ Chinese SOCa. nd Pol. Sci. Rev 1931 Google Scholar

2 Regarding the former existence of wooded areas in northern China, see Sowerby, A.de C. ‘The Natural History of China’ A Naturalist’s yourn. North China Branch R.A.S. 1922, 53 3;Google Scholar also his A Naturalist’s Note–Book in China (Shanghai, 1925) pp.12ff.Google Scholar

3 Concerning this development, see Nelson, N.C. ‘The Dune Dwellers of the Gobi’ Natural History 1926, 25, 251; also his Google Scholar ‘Archaeological Researches in Northern China, Amer. Anthropologist, 1927, 29, 197.Google Scholar

4 On this, see Black, Davidson ‘The human skeletal remains from the Sha Kuo T’un cave-deposit in comparison with those from Yang Shao and with recent NorthChina skeletal material’, Pulaeontol. Sinica, ser. D, vol. 1,fasc. 3 ‘Peking’ 1925, 98;Google Scholar also ‘A note on the physical characters of the prehistoric Kansu race, Mems. Geol. Survey of China,ser. A, no. 5 (Peking), 1925, passim Google Scholar

5 By this method,plots of ground are cleared,often by fire,and are then cultivated for two or three years, until their fertility has become exhausted, when they are abandoned.

6 On the caschrom, see Cecil Curwen, E. ‘Prehistoric Agriculture in Britain’ ANTIQUITY 1927 1, pp.261ff.Google Scholar

7 Compare the way in which the humbIe shepherd’s crook has developed into the bishop’s crozier.

8 The horse as a domestic animal may have appeared in the Occident just before the close of the Neolithic there.

* Compare the disc-shaped (but of courseunperforated) flint knivesof the British beakerfolk ; described by Clarkin, J.G.D. Proc. Preh. SOCE. ast Anglia, 1929–32,6, 41–54 Google Scholar

9 This was first made known to the world, slightly over a decade ago, by Dr J. G. Anderson, then connected with the Geological Survey of China.

10 Painted pottery of the Chinese group, in a Neolithic association, has recently been reported from the vicinity of Urumchi and Hami, in Chinese Turkistan, by Dr P. L. Yüan, of the Sino-Swedish Central Asiatic Expedition. It had previously not been known to occur west of Kansu.

11 By Dr Li Chi, of the Academia Sinica.

12 Although her proper designation may perhaps best be translated as ‘ Ruler of the Soil ’, in the early writings she is often called ‘Mother of All’

13 A classical instance is that of the Khonds of Orissa, with their Meriah sacrifices ; that similar practices once prevailed over great part of southern and eastern Asia is highly probable.

14 Animals, notably the gayal or mithan, are still sacrificed by clubbing to death in Farther India, and men were slain there in similar fashion not so very long ago ; the underlying motive appears to be the avoidance of any loss of blood, supposed to be of magical fertilizing efficacy.

15 Verbal communication from DrYuan, P.L. of 3 March 1933. Google Scholar

16 Regarding this dating, see Peake, Harold and Fleure, H.J.: The Steppe and the Sown (‘Corridors of Time ’ series), pp.40 and 44.Google Scholar

17 For a discussion of the evidence bearing upon the chronology of the Chinese Bronze Age, see Bishop, C.W. ‘The Chronology of Ancient China’, Journ. Amer. Oriental Soc. 1932, 52, 232 – 47.Google Scholar

18 It survived in Chinaitself until toward the close of the second millennium B.C. and possibly a good deal later ; in Manchuria varieties of it were being made apparently not long before the beginning of our Era.