Neolithic in China

The Neolithic in China corresponds, within the territory of present-day China, to an economic revolution during which populations learned to produce their food resources through the domestication of plants and animals. Around 9700 BCE, climate warming led to the development of wild food resources and a reduction in nomadism. Hunter-gatherers moved less; they began to store supplies, often stocks of acorns. Neolithization, which marks the transition to the Neolithic period, mainly occurred between 7000 and 5000 BCE. The appearance of pottery (c. 16000–12000 BCE) is separate from this process, as it occurred earlier, among populations of the Late Paleolithic. The Neolithic period began during a generally warm climatic phase called the Holocene. Among plant-based foods, wild rice appeared and was gradually domesticated in the Lower Yangtze region around 6000–5000 BCE; the same occurred in the Yellow River basin (Henan) with millet. Millet and rice, initially gathered and consumed in their wild forms, were progressively domesticated around 6000–5000 BCE. At first, they only made a minor contribution to the diet, competing with other wild plants and hunting resources. Underground silos were often used to store certain plant-based foods. Then, from around 5000 BCE, agriculture became a much more significant part of the diet of Chinese populations, with millet in the North and rice in the South.

By the Late Neolithic (c. 3300–2000 BCE) in Gansu, on the edge of the Hexi Corridor, exchanges with the North and West as well as the East and South made it possible to cultivate up to six cereals: wheat, barley, oats, rice, and two types of millet.^{[citation needed]}

The archaeological cultures that emerged in the Late Neolithic (c. 5000–2000 BCE) produced items unique to China^{[citation needed]}, such as jade artifacts, including those shaped like discs (bi) and tubes (cong). This material, difficult to work with, served as a marker of elite status, and this was the case in multiple regions, due to exchanges that sometimes occurred over very long distances.^{[citation needed]}

Chinese prehistoric cultures thus reveal a rich material culture. Pottery appeared particularly early and achieved a high level of refinement during this period. Jades followed, as did the first lacquered objects (Hemudu culture), which also appeared here. Neolithic artisans adopted glass technology through trade with the West, but this production remained very marginal. Few wooden objects have survived, but they generally indicate everyday use. In addition to these wooden objects, others made from natural fibers, basketry materials, and horns have survived locally. Many prestige objects show hybrid forms, and their creators produced a wide variety. This abundant production offers evidence of symbolic activity that would accompany the economic development of the Bronze Age in China.

While around 14000 BCE, China was a cold and dry environment, and the sea level was more than 100 meters below today's level, around 9700 BCE the Holocene began, marked by the warming of continental air masses and the influence of a stronger monsoon. During the Holocene climatic optimum, temperatures were 1 to 3 °C warmer than today, the monsoon was stronger, and lake levels were significantly higher. Northern and northwestern regions experienced heavy monsoon rains by around 7000 BCE, whereas today they are arid or semi-arid regions. These northward monsoon advances facilitated the first Neolithic settlements along the Liao River (Xinglongwa culture), the middle Yellow River (Peiligang and Cishan, Laoguantai / Baijia-Dadiwan I), and its lower course (Houli culture).

This southeast monsoon push later receded south of the Yangtze between 4000 and 1000 BCE, bringing about a cooler and drier period in the north and wetter conditions in the south. This forced some populations to abandon settlements, population density declined, and some cultures disappeared, such as the Hongshan culture, which collapsed around 3000 BCE, replaced by a form of extensive pastoralism, or the peaceful Yangshao culture, which gave way to the Longshan culture, marked by the gradual emergence of social hierarchies and the construction of defensive ditches.

Elsewhere, walls and ditches were built to control flooding, as excavations have revealed in the Daxi, Qujialing, Shijiahe, and Liangzhu cultures. In southeastern China and Taiwan, the same phenomenon is observed: the sea level reached approximately its current level around 5500 BCE, then reached a maximum between 4000 and 2500 BCE.

In the 2000s, several studies provided more precise information on these periods on a global scale: around 6200, 3200, and 2200 BCE. Each episode lasted several hundred years. In China, these fluctuations were detected, but their dating varies significantly from one author to another, which could result from a strong interaction between the specific effects of climate change on a global scale and the geographical and regional characteristics specific to China in its distinctly different regions. The aforementioned studies seem to demonstrate that these fluctuations were at the origin of millet cultivation and that elsewhere, the social response consisted in a strengthening of community cohesion and the collective appropriation of certain territories by these communities. These cold and dry periods alternated with others that were warmer and more humid.