Ancient China

Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras in China

The first Homo erectus remains found in what is now China are of the famous Peking Man (H. erectus pekinensis). Estimated to be 230,000 to 500,000 years old, the remains of this ancient specimen were excavated in the 1920s and 1930s from a cave near the small village of Zhoukoudian, located southwest of Beijing (this cave is now a World Heritage Site). Unfortunately, many of the fossilized remains of Peking Man disappeared during the sevacuation of Beijing during World War II and have never been rediscovered.

In 1963, additional and more ancient Homo erectus fossils were found in Lantian County in Shaanxi Province. This discovery pushed the known date of human habitation in China back to more than one million years before the present day.

The latest (1999) fossil finds at Renzidong Cave in eastern China’s Anhui Province have yielded even older small tools that may have belonged to Homo erectus, along with the bones of slain animals. They suggest that Homo erectus was established in the area more than two million years ago.

Evidence of numerous Neolithic cultures has been found throughout China. Many of these archaeological sites are located near the Huang He (Yellow River) and the upper stretches of its tributary, the Wei He (Wei River). There are also several sites in the south, near the mouth of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River), in Zhejiang Province. Archaeologists believe that by the end of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. two socially stratified regional cultures had developed: the northern Longshan, centered along the lower and middle stretches of the Huang He, and the southern Liangzhu, located along the lower Chang Jiang.

Discoveries in the eastern Sichuan Pendi (Szechwan Basin) and the Three Gorges area have also established the existence of separate Late Neolithic cultures in this region: the Shijiahe to the west and the Baobun to the east.