The Neolithic: pottery and jade
The first farmers along the Yellow River and the Yangtze made painted pottery and ground jade with a precision that still astonishes.
In China agriculture began some 9,000 years ago, with millet in the north and rice in the south. Villagers of the Yangshao culture made red pottery painted with spirals, fish and faces in black and red.
Further east, the Longshan culture made thin-walled black pots on the potter's wheel – so thin that they are known as eggshell ware. In the Liangzhu culture at the mouth of the Yangtze, jade was ground into discs and tubes, bi and cong, which are thought to have had ritual significance.
Jade was hard to work: it cannot be carved but must be ground with sand. The objects reveal a social order with elites, rituals and specialised craftsmen long before writing.