Hemudu culture

Some scholars assert that the Hemudu culture co-existed with the Majiabang culture as two separate and distinct cultures, with cultural transmissions between the two.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}} Other scholars group Hemudu in with Majiabang subtraditions.{{sfnp|Wang|2001|p=209}} Two major floods caused the nearby Yaojiang River to change its course and inundated the soil with salt, forcing the people of Hemudu to abandon its settlements. The Hemudu people lived in long, stilt houses. Communal longhouses were also common in Hemudu sites, much like the ones found in modern-day Borneo.{{cite book|title=Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China|last=Maisel|first=Charles Keith|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-4151-0975-8|year=1999|page=288}}

The Hemudu culture was one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Recent excavations at the Hemudu period site of Tianluoshan has demonstrated rice was undergoing evolutionary changes recognized as domestication.{{cite journal |last1=Fuller |first1=Dorian Q |last2=Qin |first2=Ling |last3=Zheng |first3=Yunfei |last4=Zhao |first4=Zhijun |last5=Chen |first5=Xugao |last6=Hosoya |first6=Leo Aoi |last7=Sun |first7=Guo-Ping |title=The Domestication Process and Domestication Rate in Rice: Spikelet Bases from the Lower Yangtze |journal=Science |date=20 March 2009 |volume=323 |issue=5921 |pages=1607–1610 |doi=10.1126/science.1166605 |pmid= 19299619|url= |access-date= |language=en |issn=0036-8075 |pmc=}} Most of the artifacts discovered at Hemudu consist of animal bones, exemplified by hoes made of shoulder bones used for cultivating rice.

The culture also produced lacquer wood. A red lacquer wood bowl at the Zhejiang Museum is dated to 4000-5000 BC. It is believed to be the earliest such object in the world.[http://chinablog.cc/2009/12/red-lacquer-wood-bowl-the-origin-of-lacquerware/ Red Lacquer Wood Bowl: The Origin of Lacquerware (2009)]

The remains of various plants, including water caltrop, Nelumbo nucifera, acorns, melon, wild kiwifruit, blackberries, peach, the foxnut or Gorgon euryale and bottle gourd, were found at Hemudu and Tianluoshan.{{sfnp|Fuller|Qin|2010}} The Hemudu people likely domesticated pigs but practiced extensive hunting of deer and some wild water buffalo. Fishing was also carried out on a large scale, with a particular focus on crucian carp. {{cite journal |last1=Nakajima |first1=T. |last2=Nakajima |first2=M. |last3=Mizuno |first3=T. |last4=Sun |first4=G.-P. |last5=He |first5=S.-P. |last6=Liu |first6=H.-Z. |title=On the pharyngeal tooth remains of crucian and common carp from the neolithic Tianluoshan site, Zhejiang Province, China, with remarks on the relationship between freshwater fishing and rice cultivation in the Neolithic Age |journal=International Journal of Osteoarchaeology |date=May 2012 |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=294–304 |doi=10.1002/oa.1206 |access-date= |language=en |issn=1047-482X}} The practices of fishing and hunting are evidenced by the remains of bone harpoons and bows and arrowheads. Music instruments, such as bone whistles and wooden drums, were also found at Hemudu. Artifact design by Hemudu inhabitants bears many resemblances to those of Insular Southeast Asia.{{cite book|last1=Tarling|first1=Nicholas|title=The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia|date=1999|pages=102–103}}

The culture produced a thick, porous pottery. This distinctive pottery was typically black and made with charcoal powder. Plant and geometric designs were commonly painted onto the pottery; the pottery was sometimes also cord-marked. The culture also produced carved jade ornaments, carved ivory artifacts and small clay figurines.

File:Neolithic ivory phoenix.jpg

The early Hemudu period is considered the maternal clan phase. Descent is thought to have been matrilineal and the social status of children and women comparatively high. In the later periods, they gradually shifted into patrilineal clans. During that period, the social status of men rose and descent was passed through the male line.

Hemudu's inhabitants worshiped a sun spirit as well as a fertility spirit. They also enacted shamanistic rituals to the Sun and believed in bird totems. A belief in an afterlife and ghosts is thought to have been widespread as well. People were buried with their heads facing east or northeast and most had no burial objects. Infants were buried in urn-casket style burials, while children and adults received earth level burials. They did not have a definite communal burial ground, for the most part, but a clan communal burial ground has been found from the later period. Two groups in separate parts of this burial ground are thought to be two intermarrying clans. There were noticeably more burial goods in this communal burial ground.{{sfnp|Wang|2001|p=211}}

Fossilized amoeboids and pollen suggests Hemudu culture emerged and developed in the middle of the Holocene Climatic Optimum. A study of a sea-level highstand in the Ningshao Plain from 7000 to 5000 BP shows that there may have been stabilized lower sea levels at this time, followed by frequent flooding from 5000 to 3900 BP. The climate was said to be tropical to subtropical with high temperatures and much precipitation throughout the year.{{cite book|last1=Underhill|first1=Anne|title=A Companion To Chinese Archaeology|date=2013|page=561}}

{{commons category|Hemudu culture}}

• List of Neolithic cultures of China
• Liangzhu culture
• Majiabang culture
• Yangshao culture

{{reflist}}

• {{citation

| surname1 = Fuller | given1 = D.Q. | surname2 = Qin | given2 = Ling

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{{Neolithic cultures of China}}

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Category:Neolithic cultures of China

Category:History of Zhejiang

Category:6th-millennium BC establishments

Category:History of the Yangtze