Page 55 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

THE YANGSHAO During the fifth millennium BCE, all across northern China, along the fertile loess terraces
bordering the Yellow and Wei Rivers and their tributaries, small Neolithic agricultural settle-
CULTURE: BANPO ments were coming into being. These settlements belong to the Banpo culture, which takes
its name from the site discovered in the early 19505 near the present-day city of Xi'an, in
eastern Shaanxi province.
The Banpo people were not the first agriculturalists in this area, nor the first to make pot-
tery. They were preceded in the sixth millennium by a cultural horizon of millet farmers who
produced a distinctive corded-ware pottery. Many of the Banpo villages were built in exactly the
same locations first occupied by their corded-ware predecessors, and there is sufficient similar-
ity between these two cultural groups to suggest a degree of continuity between them. 1
The Banpo culture belongs to a broad category of northern Neolithic cultures, called
the Yangshao horizon, conventionally defined by their use of pottery with painted decoration.
The Yangshao period lasted from the early fifth millennium until Longshan times, beginning
in the early fourth millennium, when the production of painted wares came virtually to an
end in north China. By the Longshan period, when undecorated gray wares were the ceramics

of choice, other important cultural changes had taken place. The population had increased
substantially beyond its level during Yangshao times, social organization had become more
complex and more highly stratified, and for the first time we see evidence of strife among the
settlements as they vied for more limited resources. Apart from Banpo, the Yangshao culture is
represented in the exhibition by Majiayao vessels (cats. 6-9), and by a single, atypical example
from the Dahecun phase in Henan (cat. 5). 2
The three Banpo sites known in greatest detail are Banpocun; Jiangzhai at Lintong,
3
not far from Xi'an; and Beishouling at Baoji in western Shaanxi province. All three sites were
occupied for long periods of time, and they must have been established landmarks, familiar to
generations of Banpo people in their travels from one location to another. These villages cov-
ered areas as large as 50,000 square meters, and the layout of each was essentially the same.
The main component was a dwelling area, usually surrounded by a ditch measuring about five
meters wide and five meters deep. The houses within this area faced an open common at the
center, where traces of animal pens have been discovered.
The houses themselves were either round or square in plan, and their foundations were con-
structed at ground level, or slightly below. The walls were of wattle and daub, and wooden posts
supported their thatched roofs. Many had covered ramps leading to the interior. Inside was a cen-
tral hearth, and in some cases banquettes made of clay were constructed along the inner walls. At
Jiangzhai the houses were arranged in five clusters, each made up of a single large dwelling, about

twenty meters square, surrounded by a number of smaller dwellings. According to K. C. Chang,
this layout indicates that the village was organized according to lineage affiliation. 4
The burial fields and the kilns were located outside the dwelling area, beyond the confines
of the ditch. In the Jiangzhai cemetery, the archaeologists discovered close to fifty burials from

54 | LATE P R E H I S T O R I C C H I N A