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One of the things-- great contributions of archaeology since,

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has been to push back the frontier of the Neolithic.

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We have here for example, these flutes made out of animal bones.

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Which in fact are from 9,000 years before the present.

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Clearly part of a Neolithic civilization, and we don't know how

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much further back it's going to go.

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Let me turn now, briefly, to an overview of some of the highlights of

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Chinese archaeology.

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We can begin with Peking Man at around 500,000 years before the present.

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Homo erectus, Peking Man is a hunter-gatherer cave dwelling, in this

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case living in North China.

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That's where the fossil remains have been found.

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Using stone tools, eating deer, eating, in fact, elephant too.

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Although the elephant most certainly no longer exists in eastern China, or
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perhaps anywhere in China today.

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The bones of Peking Man were packed up for safekeeping.

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Sent, I believe, by a platoon of Marines down to the wharves in

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November of 1941.

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And lost.

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And have never been recovered Still, the fossil remains from the Homo

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erectus period have been discovered, and that archaeology continues.

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Around 40,000 years before the present, Homo sapiens are present in

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the area we now call China.

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There's a thesis called the Out of Africa thesis.

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And we have included in this module a video of that thesis which shows

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humankind coming out of Africa in successive waves.

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The first waves of which are not successful, don't survive.

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But eventually the idea is that all Homo sapiens are coming out of Africa.

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And perhaps to some extent, for example in Europe, interbreeding with

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the Neanderthals.

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And we'll actually later have a chance to talk to Professor Rowan Flad, an

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archaeologist here at Harvard, and get some of his views on the early

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Neolithic and research on it.

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Around 16,000 years ago, we see an emigration to the Americas

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coming out of Asia.

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People have talked about the land bridge between Asia and North America.

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Seems that in fact, it's not really a land bridge.

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But there's a chain of islands that go around arcing from Northeast Asia down

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to Alaska, and is probably the case that people are

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moving in boats as fisherman.

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But in any case, the population of the first peoples of Canada and the

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Americas are in fact coming out of Asia.

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It would be pushing it to say that they were the first overseas Chinese,

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but you could think about it that way too.

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In around 11,000 BC now, as we understand it--

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which is the post-glacial peak, it's a period of--

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it's warm and wet.

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It's our weather today.

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It is continuous with what begins around 11,000 BC.

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We see the beginning of the Neolithic, of the Stone Age, in China.

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From there we find the Yangshao culture, of course the notion that the

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Yangshao culture has been pushed back.

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And they tried to figure out a series of cultural eras marked by artifacts,

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defined by artifacts--

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particularly by pottery artifacts --that could help us understand that

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linear development of civilization in China.

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One of the consequences of modern archaeology has been to change the way

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we view that beginning.
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And in fact, it has undermined in significant ways that whole idea that

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there's a single origin and there's linear development.

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Let me show you.

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This is a map which we have from the late K. C. Chang, Zhang Guangzhi, And

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it's showing in the early Yangshao period some of the findings of

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archaeologists.

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And what they've done basically, based on the artifacts, is they've been able

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to document a series of different cultural regions.

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The Yangshao is in this territory around the Yellow River and the

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bends-- where the Yellow River bends north to the western part of the North

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China Plain.

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Because the eastern part was still largely marsh, if

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not covered by water.

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In the southeast we have the Majlabang, the Hemudu cultures, the

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Dawenkou, these are all significant archaeological finds that were unknown
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80 years ago when Chinese archaeology began.

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Probably this map is good for around 5,000 BC, based on what archaeologists

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have found.

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And already at this point, what we see is a differentiation

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between north and south.

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That clear distinction between, for example, pit dwellings in the north,

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stilt dwellings in the south.

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Or the southeast, the wetter southeast, to keep the houses above

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the wetness.

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Millet being grown in the north, rice in the south, tangerines in the south,

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peaches in the north.

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Red beans in the south, soybeans in the north.

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So we see a differentiation between northern and southern cultures that

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will continue right into the present.

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Today if you go to eat in a Chinese restaurant, a rural restaurant, you'll

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find that in the north you're going to be eating wheat,

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sometimes barley millet.

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In the south, you'll be eating rice.

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This picture no longer allows us to think in terms of a single origin of

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Chinese civilization.

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There are many origins.

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But by the late Neolithic, the map has changed.

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Not only do we have more cultures developing, but now it becomes clear

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that we're seeing interaction between various cultures.

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And so the story has shifted from a notion of a single origin, single

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culture, to multiple origins which come together through interaction

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while maintaining their distinctiveness.

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This late Neolithic is often called the Longshan cultural period, marked

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by black pottery, by very thin pots, sometimes.

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Not thick things like this.

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Thrown on a wheel, a new technology.

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Makes it much more efficient to create pots.

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Jade.

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Jade is a very fine stone, but it has to be worked.

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It's very labor intensive.

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We have designs that we're seeing that seem to be religious, totemic perhaps.

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Animal designs with people riding--

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perhaps shamanism is involved, it's not clear.

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And later these will come to be called actually Taotie design.

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Whether that's what we're seeing now or not is not entirely clear, but

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clearly something is going on there.

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We see a new kind of defensive structure.

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An earthen wall built from rammed earth.

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In fact this technique continues on in rural China even today, during this
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age of concrete.

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Government has appeared.

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Technology has appeared.

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A new kind of technology.

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Organized government.

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Religion is on the scene.

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All the components of what will be necessary for the next stage, what

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we're going to call the Bronze Age in the Shang Dynasty.

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