Yangshao Residential Village Architecture

Ryan Plowman

ARC 2031-01: Architecture History to 1400

October 12, 2021

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The Yangshao culture existed in the early periods of Chinese history, growing up in

northern China and the central and western Henan Province within 5000 - ~3000 BCE. These

early Chinese people were farmers that had grown from the Mid Neolithic period in the thousand

years previous. The farming and raising of crops was a central source of economical interactions

of the Yangshao people. Along with farming, early signs of the characteristically Chinese highly

family-oriented society found in tribal roots guided decisions throughout their culture’s

development, with their architecture included.

Climate and Geography

Climate and geography are factors that influence any form of architecture from any time,

and for farming societies like the Yangshao it affects nearly every aspect of their lives and

livelihood. The Henan Province has an overall range of rainfall from 550 - 800 millimeters and a

total temperature range of 12.7 to 14.6 degrees celsius. Found within this Henan climate are soils

ranging yellow-brown soil, brown soil, cinnamon soil, carbonate cinnamon soil, fluvio-aquic

soil, aquic cinnamon mountain meadow soil (Li, J. Zhang, X. Zhang, Zhao 2021, par. 10-13).

These conditions allow for a range of crops to be cultivated such as wheat and rice, with varying

conditions affecting growability based on geographical location. The range of terrain in the

province geographically includes mountains, hills, and river valleys ranging in size with the most

diverse and harvestable crop locations being those with proximity to rivers. Likely also

influenced by the geographical influence of rivers, is the inclusion of moats around settlements

found at many Yangshao age settlements (Sit 2010, 16). The range of the Yangshao civilizations’

settlements falls in a transition between warm-temperate and subtropical ecozones, which give it

a continental monsoon-prone climate (Li, J. Zhang, X. Zhang, Zhao 2021, par. 9).
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Society

The Yangshao culture generally falls under the tribal classification of societal

organization, living in what is described by archeologists as villages, existing still very early on

in human history. Used as a categorizing factor, historians examine the kinship of these society’s

families to place cultures like the Yangshao under a tribal label (Maisels 1987, 334). Interestingly

for the earlier Yangshao society is the seemingly equal distribution of wealth and power amongst

the villages’ people. With such close historical proximity still to more primitive neolithic

societies, it is likely that class divisions and favor of gender had yet to take hold in Yangshao

culture. The focus was still largely on that of survival. Graves found in Yangshao societies are

strikingly equal in size with little variation in the amount of treasures buried with them (Sit 2010,

16). Only female graves appeared to have slight occasional differences in grave content, actually

trending in more elaborate fashion, suggesting that the Yangshao may have been a more

matriarchal society in some aspects. This trend in equality among the villagers of these early

settlements does not stop at the way the dead were buried; additional evidence comes from the

constructions of homes themselves. Homes throughout a village, from edge to center, are almost

always identical in size and construction, with the only outlier being the “big houses” found in

the centers (Sit 2010, 16).

Village Construction

Yangshao villages in the mid to late age of the culture (3300-2800 BCE) bagan to have

fully constructed walls and as mentioned previously, moats surrounding these walls at a width of

eleven meters. The wall building technique was called an “advanced banzhu technique” that

incorporated wood planks with earth pounded between them to make them stand strong (Sun

2009, par. 12). These walls and moats surround these settlements in a nearly circular fashion,
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enclosing the homes of the villagers. Evidence of watchtowers at gates round out the defensive

structures of these residential settlements.

While there is no defining term for Yangshao residential structures, homes have a

common method of construction with similar shapes and material usage. The common hut

structure is a “subterranean half-pit” with some depth into the ground without fully sacrificing

wall usage (Sit 2010, 16, 21). Another feature shared by all homes in the Yangshao vernacular

and throughout nearly all architecture of Chinese lineage, is the use of wooden construction.

Dating to about 5000 BCE, there is evidence of some of the earliest use of load bearing timber

frames (Steinhardt 2009, par. 3). These timber frames would have provided strong resistance to

potential earthquake damage as they do in structures today in a region of the world that is highly

prone to tremors in the earth. These timber frames provided support and structure for the

thatched roofs that existed in a peaked shape on top (Steinhardt 2009, par. 2) (Fig 1).

1
Smith, Claire. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. New York (N.Y.): Springer, 2014.
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These humble homes existed nearly universally throughout these Yangshao settlements in

the same manner of construction. The only exception to this rule occurs in the center of these

villages, with the only name assigned to it by historians being: the “big house” which serves as

the tribal center (Sit 2010, 16). Though even here, we can see that the slightly larger central

structures may have included space for ceremonies and other meetings including the tribal head,

explaining the need for size to change. Because outside of this size difference, there is little to no

difference in home contents. Internal structure, function, house wares, and utensils all exist in

equivalent quantities and styles, further implying a sense of equality and equity among the

heavily farming centered Yangshao society.

While these Yangshao homes stood as a humble residential typology meant for

hardworking farmers clustered together, they were also the sites of other signs of culture and life.

Works of art such as poetry have been common finds by archeologists, with ceramic works

appearing in many shapes and sizes and sometimes colored or formed red (Fig 2). Often found

were figurines of the animals these people domesticated, such as chickens, pigs, dogs, cattle, and

water buffalo (Sit 2010, 17). These works of art help us understand the evolution of these

ancient Chinese from a focus of necessity and survival towards the beginnings of a more artistic

society that can afford to spend time making these works of art. Evidence of kilns adjacent to

homes for communal use is also found in Yangshao villages. These homes also provided shelter

to other jobs that began to grow from the farming society’s beginnings, such as tool building

which helped their original occupations and paved the way for later generations of Yangshao’s

jobs.

These homes, following the circular shape of the settlement’s walled confines, clustered

together along that edge. Creating a sense of communal area and emphasis on tribal interaction,
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the homes all would face inward towards open space toward the center of the settlement;

typically near the “big house”, as it still stood central to the settlement as well (Sit 2010, 21).

Usually these central facing clusters would be made up of five cells of arrangement of the tribes

making up the settlement.

Conclusion

Yangshao people built in a way that served the needs of their people in the environment

they had. As a part of the origin story of Chinese architecture as we know it throughout history

and today, the Yangshao structures reflect the same characteristics of wooden construction and

centralized organization. It is easy to see how early configuration of homes and settlements as a

whole contributed to the development of the “four wall courtyard” backbone of building in

China. These homes in these villages are where the birth of the highly family-oriented societies

of China and other surrounding Asian countries took place, making the Yangshao a monumental

society in the maturation of Chinese architecture and civilization.

2
Chang, Kwang-Chih. The Archeology of Ancient China. London: Yale University Press, 1977.
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Bibliography

Chang, Kwang-Chih. The Archeology of Ancient China. London: Yale University Press, 1977.

Li, Yaping, Junna Zhang, Xiaohu Zhang, and Haitao Zhao. “Agriculture, the Environment, and
Social Complexity From the Early to Late Yangshao Periods (5000–3000 BC): Insights
From Macro-Botanical Remains in North-Central China.” Frontiers in Earth Science
(Lausanne) 9 (2021). doi:10.3389/feart.2021.662391.

Maisels, Charles Keith. “Models of Social Evolution: Trajectories from the Neolithic to the
State.” Man 22, no. 2 (1987): 331–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/2802868.

Sit, Victor F. S. Chinese City and Urbanism. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd, 2010.
doi:10.1142/7607.

Steinhardt, Nancy S. "Architecture." In Berkshire Encyclopedia of China: Modern and Historic

Views of the World's Newest and Oldest Global Power, 88-93. Vol. 1. Great Barrington,
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Smith, Claire. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. New York (N.Y.): Springer, 2014.

Sun, Yan. “Yangshao Culture.” Berkshire Encyclopedia of China: Modern and Historic
Coverage of the World's Newest and Oldest Global Power. Berkshire Publishing Group,
2009.