Editing History of China (section)

===Neolithic===
{{See also|List of Neolithic cultures of China}}
{{Further|Yellow River civilization|Yangtze civilization|Liao civilization}}
{{Multiple image
| align =right
| perrow = 2/2/2
| total_width = 300
| caption_align = center
| title = Neolithic
| image1 = National Museum of China 2014.02.01 14-43-38.jpg
| caption1 = 10,000-year-old pottery, [[Xianren Cave]] culture (18,000–7000 BC)
| image2 = Bone Arrowheads, Jiahu site.jpg
| caption2 = Bone Arrowheads, [[Peiligang culture]] (7000–5000 BC)
| image3 = Butterfly-shaped ivory vessel with the pattern of two birds facing the sun(Neolithic) in Zhejiang Museum.JPG
| caption3 = Butterfly-shaped ivory vessel with the pattern of two birds facing the sun, [[Hemudu culture]] (5500–3300 BC)
| image4 = Hemudu Site Museum, 2017-08-12 36.jpg
| caption4 = Pottery artifacts from Hemudu culture (5500–3300 BC)
}}

The [[Neolithic Age]] in China is considered to have begun about 10,000 years ago.<ref name="neolithic period in china">{{cite web|title=Neolithic Period in China|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cneo/hd_cneo.htm|work=Timeline of Art History|publisher=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]| date= October 2004|access-date=10 February 2008}}</ref> Because the Neolithic is conventionally defined by the presence of agriculture, it follows that the Neolithic began at different times in the various regions of what is now China. Agriculture in China developed gradually, with initial domestication of a few grains and animals gradually expanding with the addition of many others over subsequent millennia.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Lander|first=Brian|title=The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire|date=2021|publisher=Yale University Press|language=en}}</ref> The earliest evidence of cultivated rice, found by the Yangtze River, was carbon-dated to 8,000 years ago.<ref name="Pringle"/> Early evidence for [[millet]] agriculture in the Yellow River valley was [[Radiocarbon dating|radiocarbon-dated]] to about 7000 BC.<ref>{{cite web|title=Rice and Early Agriculture in China|url=http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/legacy/banpo/banpo.html|work=Legacy of Human Civilizations|publisher=Mesa Community College|access-date=10 February 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090827184517/http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/legacy/banpo/banpo.html|archive-date=27 August 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[Jiahu]] site is one of the best preserved early agricultural villages (7000 to 5800 BC). At [[Damaidi]] in Ningxia, 3,172 [[Neolithic signs in China|cliff carvings]] dating to 6000–5000 BC have been discovered, "featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing", according to researcher Li Xiangshi. Written symbols, sometimes called [[proto-writing]], were found at the site of Jiahu, which is dated around 7000 BC,<ref name= "earliest writing">{{cite news |title='Earliest writing' found in China |first=Paul |last=Rincon |date=17 April 2003 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm |work=BBC News }}</ref> Damaidi around 6000 BC, [[Dadiwan culture|Dadiwan]] from 5800 BC to 5400 BC,<ref>[[Qiu Xigui]] (2000). ''Chinese Writing''. English translation of 文字學概論 by Gilbert L. Mattos and [[Jerry Norman (sinologist)|Jerry Norman]]. ''Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4.'' Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. {{ISBN|978-1-55729-071-7}}</ref> and [[Banpo]] dating from the 5th millennium BC. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators, which may have existed at late Neolithic sites like [[Taosi]] and the [[Liangzhu culture]] in the Yangtze delta.<ref name="Pringle">{{cite journal|last=Pringle |first=Heather |title=The Slow Birth of Agriculture |url=http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/images/neolithic_agriculture.htm |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |year=1998 |volume=282 |issue=5393 |page=1446 |doi=10.1126/science.282.5393.1446 |s2cid=128522781 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110101201656/http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/images/neolithic_agriculture.htm |archive-date=1 January 2011   |issn=0036-8075 }}</ref> The cultures of the middle and late Neolithic in the central Yellow River valley are known, respectively, as the [[Yangshao culture]] (5000 BC to 3000 BC) and the [[Longshan culture]] (3000 BC to 2000 BC). Pigs and dogs were the earliest-domesticated animals in the region, and after about 3000 BC domesticated cattle and sheep arrived from Western Asia. Wheat also arrived at this time but remained a minor crop. Fruit such as [[peaches]], [[cherries]] and [[Orange (fruit)|oranges]], as well as chickens and various vegetables, were also domesticated in Neolithic China.<ref name=":0"/>