Discovery and Early Research of Yangshao Culture

The Yangshao Culture represents one of the most important developmental stages of China’s Neolithic period. As the first Neolithic culture discovered and confirmed through field archaeology in China, it holds an exceptionally significant position in Chinese archaeological research.

The identification of Yangshao Culture is closely associated with Swedish scholar Johan Gunnar Andersson. In 1918, while serving as a mining advisor for the Beiyang government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, Andersson collected paleontological fossils in Yangshao Village, Mianchi County, Henan Province. In 1920, his assistant Liu Changshan gathered hundreds of stone tools in Yangshao Village, leading Andersson to conclude that a prehistoric site must exist in the area. He returned in April 1921 for further investigation, discovering ancient cultural deposits in the cliffs of village gullies where he collected stone tools and pottery shards, including painted pottery fragments with red or black designs. With Chinese government approval, Andersson conducted formal excavations at Yangshao Village site at year’s end, assisted by five staff from China’s Geological Survey. They excavated 17 locations, obtaining numerous cultural artifacts.

Andersson’s excavations at Yangshao Village represented China’s first academically-oriented formal excavation, marking a pioneering achievement for Chinese Neolithic archaeology and the development of modern field archaeology in China. Between 1921-1922, Andersson investigated and excavated several other sites in Mianchi County. Believing these discoveries represented late Neolithic remains of the same type, he proposed naming them “Yangshao Culture.” Since these remains were characterized by painted pottery, Andersson also called it “Painted Pottery Culture.” Thus, Yangshao Culture research became both an important symbol of modern Chinese archaeology’s origins and one of the central topics in Chinese prehistoric archaeology, influencing the development of modern Chinese archaeology.

In 1951, Chinese archaeologists conducted a second excavation at Yangshao Village, followed by larger-scale excavations in 1980-1981 that further clarified the site’s stratigraphic content, revealing not only Yangshao cultural remains but also Longshan period remains unknown to Andersson.

After decades of field surveys and excavations, thousands of Yangshao cultural sites or sites clearly influenced by Yangshao Culture have been discovered, centered in Shaanxi, Henan, and Shanxi, with influence reaching Gansu, Qinghai, Hubei, Hebei and Inner Mongolia’s border regions.

Cultural Characteristics and Regional Variations

Yangshao Culture, with Banpo, Miaodigou and Xiwangcun cultures as its main components, is referred to by some researchers as “Typical Yangshao Culture.” Its cultural characteristics are mainly manifested in artifacts.

Pottery was handmade, primarily using clay-coiling techniques. Early pottery consisted mainly of red and reddish-brown wares, with gray and black pottery gradually increasing. Main vessel forms included jars, urns, pointed-bottom bottles, bowls, basins and pots serving as cooking vessels, containers, water vessels and food vessels; later appearing in certain quantities were tripods, stoves and stemmed dishes, mainly used as cooking and eating utensils. Early pottery decorations included coarse and fine cord marks, bowstring patterns and awl-pricked designs, gradually developing into linear patterns, basket patterns and additional stacked patterns, with bowstring patterns decreasing and awl-pricked designs disappearing. Painted pottery appeared throughout, developing from single red or black colors to multi-colored designs on white or red slips, then reverting to single colors. Painted designs evolved from representational patterns and straight-edged geometric designs to predominantly curved geometric patterns, showing a progression from simple to complex then back to simplified compositions. Representative early painted designs included fish patterns, human-fish face patterns and straight-edged geometric patterns; the mid-period began with bird, petal and curved geometric patterns.

Among tools, stone and bone implements played major roles, along with some ceramic implements. Early chipped stone tools like discoid implements accounted for a certain proportion; main polished stone tool types included axes, adzes, spades, knives and spindle whorls. By the mid-period, chipped stone tools decreased, narrow perforated spades appeared, rectangular perforated stone knives increased noticeably, and numerous ceramic knives were found. Bone tools were mainly arrowheads, awls and needles – mostly pointed tools for hunting and handicrafts. Ornaments included bone beads, bone hairpins, ceramic hairpins and rings.

Despite some regional limitations, Yangshao Culture’s distribution remained extensive, showing clear regional characteristics in certain cultural aspects. The three cultures of Banpo, Miaodigou and Xiwangcun, representing consecutive phases, basically reflected Yangshao Culture’s early, middle and late developmental stages, each possessing distinct individual characteristics.

Social Structure and Development

Yangshao Culture’s social organization underwent changes across its long timespan. Researchers have extensively explored transformations in clan society, marriage patterns and family models through settlement sites and cemeteries, thoroughly discussing Yangshao social structure and developmental stages.

From settlement layouts we can discern multi-level social structures. At Jiangzhai site, dwellings surrounded a central plaza, collectively forming five groups, each typically containing one large structure, several medium-sized ones and over ten small ones. The entire settlement presented a clear four-level structure: the whole village as first level; large and medium dwellings as second and third levels; small dwellings as fourth level. Some view Jiangzhai’s grouping as four rather than five, corresponding to four cemetery sections around the central plaza. Others argue for six residential groups matching six cemetery areas and kiln/workshop locations.

Small Jiangzhai dwellings under 20m² (some as small as 5m²) with hearths housed 2-4 people – independent small family units as minimal social units. Medium dwellings (20-40m²) also with hearths accommodated over ten people – higher-level social units controlling nearby storage pits, indicating this level managed food storage/distribution rather than individual families. Large dwellings (generally over 70m², some about 130m²) with hearths served as living spaces and gathering/ritual sites – second-level units below the whole village. Some large dwellings had adjacent livestock pens, showing this level managed animal husbandry. The whole village as first-level unit centered on the main plaza, with large structures facing this center, surrounded by common defensive ditches – an independent enclosed settlement. These levels likely represented family, extended family, clan and tribe, with clans maintaining communal economies – a typical Yangshao settlement.

Regarding marriage patterns, most researchers agree Banpo Culture’s early phase practiced matrilineal clan pairing marriages establishing uxorilocal pairing families. By late Banpo phase, this transformed noticeably; some researchers associate popular multiple burials with transition toward patrilineal clans, mainly establishing patrilineal extended families with virilocal pairing marriages. Others, based on Wangjiayinwa cemetery data, suggest coexisting polygyny and polyandry, indicating Yangshao marital diversity.

The appearance of partitioned structures in middle-late Yangshao and contemporaneous sites reveals changing family patterns. Miaodigou Culture began seeing uncommon but revealing partitioned dwellings. At Dahecun site, several multi-room structures were found – some four-room, others two-room. Structures 19-20 formed one building: #20 (west room, ~15m²) had central hearth; #19 (east room, 7.6m²) had northwest hearth. Four-room buildings clearly resulted from two-room expansions, indicating family differentiation. Same-building residents likely shared ancestry, while individual rooms housed independent small families with separate entrances and economies. Similar partitioned dwellings appeared at Hubei’s Zaoyang Diaolongbei and other sites.

Chinese prehistoric individual families are believed to have emerged around late Yangshao period – likely when private ownership appeared in China.

Artistic and Spiritual Expressions

Yangshao people employed diverse artistic methods including painting and sculpture, mainly on pottery vessels as painted pottery and ceramic sculpture.

The Loess Plateau’s clay has strong viscosity and pure hue, making it ideal for painted pottery. Around 7000 years ago, Wei River valley residents first applied color to pottery, making the Yellow River basin one of world’s painted pottery birthplaces. Painted pottery techniques appearing in pre-Yangshao period reached higher levels in Yangshao times. Yangshao painted pottery progressed through refinement, flourishing and decline. Early-mid Yangshao painted pottery used black-based designs of relatively complex patterns. Later, colors diversified with strongly decorative patterns predominating. By late period, painted pottery clearly declined, with only occasional single-color lines appearing.

Banpo and Miaodigou Culture painted pottery featured geometric patterns and representational designs with strongly symmetrical compositions. By mid-late Miaodigou, patterns diversified with some structural variations.

Banpo painted pottery primarily used red backgrounds with black designs – straight lines, zigzags and triangles forming linear geometric patterns plus fish-based representational designs with relatively simple strokes and heavy color blocks, mainly painted on bowls, basins, pointed-bottom jars and globular jars, including some interior designs. Most painted pottery simply had a black band around the rim. Besides rim bands, basin rims sometimes had repeated geometric motifs or quartered sections with identical designs. Banpo representational designs included human faces, fish, deer, frogs and birds. Fish designs often appeared on basins, considered Banpo’s hallmark. Associated with Banpo ritual activities, fish were typically shown in profile, rarely frontally, including human faces with fish, single/double fish, variant fish and birds pecking fish designs. Early fish were more realistic; later some simplified into triangular and linear patterns. Some vessels integrated realistic fish/birds with triangles, dots and other geometrics into complex meaningful designs, like a painted bottle from Jiangzhai’s Ash Pit 467 combining fish and bird motifs. A painted basin from Hejiazhuang featured a large central human face surrounded by four smaller ones, resembling Banpo designs but lacking fish motifs. A pointed-bottom jar from Longgangsi displayed twelve exquisitely painted human faces in two rows around the belly – a rare masterpiece.

Miaodigou painted pottery was more advanced, representing Yangshao painted pottery’s peak. Besides black, it added red and white-slipped polychrome wares with brighter decorations. Painting appeared mainly on curved-belly basins, bowls and fine-clay jars, generally lacking interior designs. Miaodigou geometric designs used dots, curves and curved triangles as main elements, transforming Banpo’s simplicity into complex intricate patterns, especially distinctive “positive-negative patterns” where both painted and background areas formed complete designs. Geometric designs often appeared as floral motifs considered Miaodigou’s hallmark. Floral designs frequently repeated identical units forming continuous banded patterns. Representational designs included birds, toads and lizards, mostly birds shown both in profile and front view, undergoing realistic to abstract/simplified development, some gradually merging into flowing geometrics. Toads and lizards were usually shown from above, with Miaodigou toads resembling Banpo’s, densely spotted on backs.

Xiwangcun Culture saw painted pottery rapidly decline, with only sporadic simple linear designs appearing, though some areas like Dadiwan maintained relatively more complex painted pottery in greater proportions.

Hougang Culture had little painted pottery with simple designs – red/black bands, parallel lines, triangles and nets, later showing clear Miaodigou influence in dot and curved triangle combinations.

Dasikong painted pottery used mainly red designs with varied curved triangle combinations resulting from Dahecun influence.

Dahecun painted pottery was strongly Miaodigou-influenced but also had unique works, especially exquisite white-slipped pottery. The “Stork-Fish-Axe Diagram” on a pottery cylinder from Yan Village is among Dahecun’s most captivating discoveries. Painted on one side, this large composition used white and purple-brown pigments to depict a standing white stork holding a fish on the left, with a vertical axe on the right, its handle bearing a black cross symbol. This profoundly meaningful work seems to serve pictorial record-keeping functions, intriguing many researchers. As a funerary object, the scene may depict the deceased’s lifetime achievements, with some concluding the tomb belonged to a tribal leader.

Similar meaningful works appear elsewhere in central Henan. At Hongshanmiao, 136 cylinder vessels from one tomb were commonly painted with human figures, phalli, animals, plants, geometrics, celestial phenomena and implements. Some cylinders simultaneously depicted red suns and white moons; three bore phallus images, revealing Hongshanmiao spiritual concepts.

Xiawanggang painted pottery used mainly black designs with balanced triangles and petal motifs, the latter as background patterns showing Miaodigou influence.

Yangshao people also created ceramic sculptures, usually as vessel attachments rather than independent works. These included human and animal forms, with human images being most vivid. Human sculptures focused on heads and faces, often forming vessel mouths like human-headed bottles. A painted human-headed bottle from Dadiwan featured a fully-detailed head with curved triangular designs covering the body like clothing. A red clay human face from Beishouling had hollowed eyes/mouth, raised nose bridge and ink-drawn beard/eyebrows – a vivid male portrait. Animal sculptures included snakes, lizards, birds, dogs, sheep and eagles. A large-mouthed jar from Xi’an’s Nandian Village had two coiled snakes symmetrically placed, their heads peering over the rim in an engaging composition. Eagle-head sculptures from Huaxian Quanhucun and Taipingzhuang’s owl-shaped tripod represent other precious artworks.

Beyond ceramics, Yangshao people created other sculptural masterpieces. A bone tube from Hejiazhuang was engraved with three linked human faces showing happy, angry and sad expressions – an exceptionally rare prehistoric artwork.

Yangshao artists also painted beyond pottery, occasionally using dwelling floors as canvases. At Dadiwan’s Structure 411, a black-painted floor composition depicted two standing cross-legged figures and two skeletal forms lying within rectangular frames. This rare floor painting has been interpreted as ancestral worship evidence, apotropaic shamanic art, or hunting scenes.

Yangshao painted pottery, sculpture and other artworks genuinely reflect that era’s spirituality. Patterns weren’t simple life reproductions, nor sculptures mere object representations – all underwent abstract thinking and artistic refinement, reflecting aesthetic concepts and primal religious beliefs with profound cultural significance.

Yangshao pottery also bore various incised symbols on bowl and basin rims/bases. Banpo yielded over 110 inscribed objects with 20+ symbol types – nearly half being simple vertical strokes, many with hooked ends. Jiangzhai had 130 inscribed objects, some resembling Banpo’s, others more complex with pictographic features. Banpo Culture pottery inscriptions exceed 50 types. Tongchuan Lijiagou had 8 types on 22 objects, including 14 single vertical strokes. Wangjiayinwa’s 10 painted bowls had 5 symbol types, mostly single strokes. These marks may relate to pottery-making records, ownership marks, or even proto-writing. Yangshao people clearly had numerical concepts, using division methods for painted designs. Some dotted patterns suggest decimal system knowledge, while simple incisions resemble later oracle bone numerals.

Yangshao music also developed, producing important instruments like ceramic ocarinas and horns. Banpo and Jiangzhai yielded 5 Banpo Culture ocarinas – peach or oval-shaped (largest 5.87cm long), blown at one end, some with 1-2 holes. Tests show single-hole ocarinas could produce two tones, double-hole ones at least four, indicating mastery of four-tone scales. A Miaodigou Culture ceramic horn from Huaxian Jingjiabao imitated an ox horn – 42cm long.

Legacy and Modern Significance

The Yangshao Culture’s enduring legacy continues to shape our understanding of China’s prehistoric past. As the first systematically studied Neolithic culture in China, it established fundamental archaeological methodologies that still guide research today. The culture’s extensive chronological span and wide geographical distribution provide crucial insights into the transition from mobile hunter-gatherer societies to settled agricultural communities in East Asia.

Modern research continues to reveal the Yangshao people’s sophisticated understanding of their environment. Their agricultural practices, combining millet cultivation with animal husbandry, laid the foundation for sustainable farming systems in the Yellow River valley. The culture’s artistic achievements, particularly in painted pottery, demonstrate an early flowering of Chinese aesthetic traditions that would influence later Bronze Age designs.

Contemporary scholars increasingly recognize Yangshao Culture’s role in early cultural exchanges across Eurasia. The spread of painted pottery techniques and motifs suggests possible interactions with cultures as far west as Central Asia, though the nature of these connections remains debated. The culture’s social organization, particularly evidence for early clan structures, provides valuable comparative material for studies of human social evolution worldwide.

Perhaps most significantly, Yangshao Culture represents the roots of Chinese civilization along the Yellow River, showing the gradual development of technologies, social structures and belief systems that would characterize later Chinese societies. The culture’s emphasis on ancestral veneration, community organization and harmonious relationship with the natural environment prefigures important aspects of traditional Chinese thought.

As archaeological methods advance, ongoing research at Yangshao sites continues to yield new discoveries. Recent geophysical surveys, DNA analysis of human remains, and sophisticated dating techniques promise to further illuminate this foundational culture’s complexities. The Yangshao legacy endures not only in museums and academic studies, but in the continuing story of Chinese civilization itself, whose earliest chapters were written by these Neolithic pioneers along the Yellow River.