A History of China Read Online Free PDF Page B

Longshan villages have been totally excavated, but the ones that have reveal significant changes from Yangshao villages. The pottery, for example, was principally black and gray, differing from the painted pottery of the Yangshao. Most vessels were relatively unadorned, although some were ­decorated with incisions and appliqués. The tripods, jars, and other shapes characteristic of Yangshao were also found in the Longshan ­assemblages, but new forms, such as steamers and cups with handles, were introduced in the Shandong cultural complex. Stone and bone implements and weapons in both cultures were similar, but the preponderance of ­arrowheads and ­spearheads in Longshan indicated a greater concern for defense from troublesome outsiders.
    The very concept of “outsiders” was a new formulation; it shaped some unique features of the Longshan and provided even sharper distinctions from the Yangshao. Defense against perceived or actual enemies heightened the Longshan villagers’ sense of identity and unity. They began to recognize that they shared certain beliefs, customs, practices, and institutions that clearly distinguished them from others. The most tangible manifestation of distinctiveness was the construction of walls around their villages, a practice that most Chinese cities would later follow. The Longshan village of Chengziya built the earliest known such wall, to an average height of about six meters. Defense was the paramount consideration for the villagers; yet the walls reflect an affinity of interests – familial, clan, and political – that required protection. The inhabitants of these walled villages sensed that they belonged together and were distinct from other groups.
    In addition to stamped-earth walls, Longshan culture exhibited other ­features that would be found in the earliest Chinese dynasty. Longshan appears thus to be a direct link between the Neolithic era and the origins of Chinese civilization. Not only did Longshan and the earliest Chinese civilization build walls around their villages but they also both used the practice of scapulimancy. Diviners or community leaders burned animal scapulae to generate cracks that they would then interpret to foretell the future. These so-called oracle bones, pervasive throughout the Longshan sites, constituted a step in the development of the Chinese written language and yield invaluable ­information about the Shang, the first attested dynasty. They also reveal an increasing concern for rituals, which is also shown in the unusual animal-mask decorations on the distinctive black pottery, tools, and other objects and in the markedly different burials from those found in Yangshao sites. The Longshan devoted considerable resources to ­burials, which is an indication of increasing attention to ceremonies concerning an afterlife and of a more stratified social structure. A few burials in the ­cemeteries consisted of sizable graves with wooden caskets and numerous furnishings; a slightly larger number had a few caskets and some scattered goods; and the largest number had no caskets and no furnishings. It appears that the more elaborate the burial, the higher the socials status of the deceased.
    Attention to rituals and ceremonies, together with walled villages and ­oracle bones, link Longshan to the earliest Chinese civilization; in addition, new materials for tools and weapons and clearer political and social distinctions relate this Neolithic culture to the first recognizable entity that can ­legitimately be called China. Objects made of copper and several bronze ­vessels, which were discovered in a number of Longshan sites, mark the ­transition from a stone-age to a metal-age culture. The Bronze Age dynasties were still at some remove, but the appearance of metal tools indicates technological advances on the path to the full-blown metallurgical centers of early Chinese civilization. Warfare and burial practices and other ceremonies point to demarcated