Page 58 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

kind of graphic notation. These marks, present on the pottery remains throughout a wide spec-
trum of Banpo sites, from Jiangzhai and Banpocun in eastern Shaanxi province, westward to
Dadiwan, are a further demonstration of the remarkable network of communications sustained
for many centuries over the entire geographic territory settled by this early culture. LF-H

1 In southern China, on the other hand, rice agriculture, at Dadiwan (Yangshao early phase) is followed at the
associated with an entirely different cultural system, beginning of the fourth millennium by the Miaodigou
centered in the Hanzhou Bay region, reaches back almost culture (Yangshao middle phase), and later by the
as far into the past. The Hemudu and Majiabang people of Shilingxia (Yangshao late phase) (Gansu 1983^ 22-30).
the south lived along the marshy shores of the bay in The site was occupied again during Longshan times.
wooden houses built on stilts, and their way of life was 6 Gansu 1983^ 15-19, 30. A second building (F 901), proba-
clearly very different from that of their contemporaries in bly constructed during the early Longshan period, con-
the north. sisted of a main room seventeen meters long at the front
2 While scholars generally agree that Yangshao comprises and eight across, flanked by additional rooms on the sides
several regional cultures and developmental stages the and at the back. A covered portico at the front was sup-
question of whether these represent discrete "cultures" or, ported by two rows of posts set on stone footings (Gansu
rather, phases of a single culture remains the subject of 1986, i -12; color pi. opposite page 16; pis. i - 2). The
debate (see the essay by Zhang Zhongpci, pages 519-525; anslysis of the excavated remains suggests that the Dadi-
Dai 1998, and Sun 1998). wan structures had hipped roofs and double eaves. These
3 Zhongguo 1963; Xi'an 1988; Zhongguo 1983^ traits, as well as the interior support structures, establish
4 Chang 1986,119. them as precedents for the remarkable public buildings at
5 Gansu 19833, i -13, color pi. i; pis. i - 3. The earliest, called the early Bronze Age sites of Erlitou and Panlongcheng,
"Dadiwan I" belongs to the same pre-Yangshao cultural which inaugurated the tradition of Chinese palace archi-
horizon found to underlie the Banpo strata at Beishoul- tecture (Gansu 1986,11).
ing. Among the objects from the Dadiwan I level, we find 7 Zhongguo 1983^ 119, fig. 100 (M 169); Gansu 19833, pi. 2:3.
again examples of the earliest vessels with painted decora- 8 Zhongguo 1963, pi. 160; Xi'an 1988, 273, fig. 198 (Jiangzhai
tion, bearing a single band of red paint around the rim Phase III); Zhongguo Shaanxi 1984, 481-487.
(Gansu 19833, i -13; color pi. i; pis. i - 3. The Banpo phase

57 YANGSHAO CULTURE! BANPO