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Comparative studies of the development of larger-scale social formation often promote our understanding of the internal dynamics of social change. Hongshan societies in northeastern China and Lingjiatan societies in the Yuxi valley of the lower reaches of Yangzi River represent the scopes and various forms that can be taken by early hierarchical societies. Similarities in the shape, function, and symbolic meaning of jade artifacts of Lingjiatan and Hongshan have long been discussed in comparative studies, but the communities and social dynamics of the two archaeological cultures within the larger regional areas they occupied have yet to be compared. The research reported here conducted comparative exploration of social trajectories across four regions—Yuxi in the lower reaches of the Yangzi River and Chifeng, Upper Daling, and Niuheliang in northeastern China—from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. Our comparison reveals the similarities and differences in patterns of settlement and demographies across the four regions and provides some insights into research questions that need to be answered in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A piece of human skull fossil with 10 cm in height, 11 cm in width, 0.6-2.2cm in thickness and 231.0g in weight was found in recent years in the site of Paleolithic and Neolithic times in northeast of China, which was deemed to be a part of the frontal bone of the skull in the age ranged from 1700 thousand years to 40 thousand years before. The ancient people of China carved pictures of human heads in different sizes on its double surfaces with the techniques of micro-carving and micro relief carving. The micro-carved figures had different posture and vivid expressions, and they were arranged in order, which was to tell their inner relationship properly. Surface information including figure and micro-figures and their expressions, wearings and posture left on the skull fossil was a clue to detect the era of the carvings in Neolithic times, and the state of the fossil may help to know the year of the owner of the skull in Paleolithic times or even earlier. A man wearing a crown was located on one surface, who was the main god or master, surrounded by hundreds of micro-carved man or woman, young or old, who was his offspring or liegemen; while on the other surface, a young man with a human face and a snake body was carved, together with his head bowed and his arms raised in the form of a strong man holding the sky, which might be connected with a mythologic story of Nvwa Patching Up the Heaven in ancient China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jade silkworms unearthed from the sites of the Hongshan culture reflect that the mulberry silkworms and tussah silkworms were recognized and utilized in the Liaoxi (west Liaohe River) valley from at least 5.5 to 5 thousand years ago. This not only makes the Yan Liao region (extending from the Yanshan Mountains to the Liaohe River valley), where the west Liaohe River valley is located, become another prehistoric center of silkworm resource utilization besides the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, but also traces the earliest time and the area of the utilization of tussah silkworms in China from Shandong Peninsula in the Han Dynasty to the west Liaohe River valley in the Hongshan period. Meanwhile, the quantitative superiority of jade tussah silkworms implies that wild silkworm resources were still the main source of silk for the Neolithic inhabitants. The understanding and expression means of 44taking jade as silkworm" and 41 turning silkworm into dragon" in the Hongshan culture coincide with those in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and are a vivid portrayal of the Hongshan culture as a direct root of the Chinese civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the East Asian Neolithic have been conducted for more than a century and many attempts have been made to interpret the functions of prehistoric pottery, particularly the earliest ceramics. The unsophisticated pottery discovered in the Weijiawopu site opens a window for the study of early ceramic function. We conducted plant residue analyses of ceramics from the Weijiawopu Neolithic site; the largest Hongshan Culture settlement in Inner Mongolia, China. The site is thought to belong to the early to middle period of the Hongshan Culture, approximately 6500-5500 cal BP. Based on evidence from starch grains, we identified four main plant resources: 1) cereal grains; 2) Dioscorea plant tubers; 3) beans; and 4) nuts. None of the individual starch grains exhibit surface damage, indicating they did not undergo extensive processing such as grinding or cooking. Hence, we conclude that the pottery samples analyzed derive from food storage containers, indicating one major function of early pottery at the site. Furthermore, wild plants are thought to have been an essential part of the Weijiawopu people's subsistence base, suggesting a mixed economic pattern based upon both domestication activities and hunting-gathering-foraging lifeways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014 to 2016, Liaoning Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Longcheng District Museum of Chaoyang City conducted rescue excavation to the Banlashan (Half Hill) Cemetery. This cemetery was carefully designed and constructed, on the ground of which earthen mounds were built up and the burials and sacrificial facilities were all arranged on these mounds. In the late stage of the use of this cemetery, functional zoning appeared: the burial zone was in the south of the cemetery and the sacrificial zone was in the north. In total, 78 burials, one sacrificial altar, one architectural foundation and 29 sacrificial pits were recovered, from which pottery wares, stone implements and jades were unearthed. The discovery of this cemetery, especially the concentrated discovery of sacrificial remains, gave us a brand-new understanding to the functions and structures of the cairn cemeteries of the Hongshan Culture and provided important evidences for the studies on the ancient funeral customs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prototypes and evolutionary history of the Mesozoic basins in the eastern segment of the northern Qaidam Block are controversial, and the stress field is unclear with temporal and spatial variation. First, we divide the tectonic units systematically according to orogenesis, orogen stratigraphy, radioisotope geochemistry, petrology, and tectonics in the study area. The tectonic framework of 'two belts and two blocks' formed in the study area before the Jurassic. The intersection of the NW-trending and NE-trending basement-involved faults influences the formation of the Mesozoic prototype basins in the northern Qaidam Block. Second, we use a balanced cross-section restoration method to retrieve the Mesozoic evolutionary history and determine the prototypes of the Hongshan and Huobuxun sags. The two sags were pulled apart by transtension during the Early-Middle Jurassic, initiating the Mesozoic evolutionary stages. The Hongshan and Huobuxun sags were under different stress states at different tectonic evolutionary stages during the Mesozoic. The Hongshan Sag was controlled by transtension with the NE-directed extension ratio larger than the NW-directed one during the Early-Middle Jurassic. The relatively weak extension led to an initial depression during the Early Jurassic. With an intense extension, the subsequent faulted Hongshan Sag deepened during the Middle Jurassic. The tectonic reversal initiated at the beginning of the Late Jurassic, resulting in the formation of the compressive Hongshan Sag, with the NE-directed shortening ratio larger than the NW-directed one during the Late Jurassic. The Hongshan Sag was in a relatively weak compressive stress state during the Cretaceous. The initial depression of the Huobuxun Sag, also under transtension, began to develop into an extensional faulted basin at the beginning of the Middle Jurassic, with the NE-directed extension ratio much larger than the NW-directed one. The tectonic reversal led to the formation of the compressive Huobuxun Sag during the Late Jurassic, with the NE-directed shortening ratio much larger than the NW-directed one. The Hongshan Sag was under the stronger extension during the Early-Middle Jurassic and the stronger compression during the Late Jurassic than the Huobuxun Sag. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of a large sample of household artifact assemblages from residential zones dating to the Hongshan period (4500–3000 BCE) in northeastern China complements regional-scale settlement study and excavation of house structures, platforms, and tombs. Prestige differentiation between household units is recognizable but modest. Productive differentiation is also present, indicating a very small degree of economic interdependence between households involving the utilitarian goods of daily life. Exchange did transcend both local and regional-scale communities, but movement of goods seldom exceeded a few kilometers. Standards of living were similar across households, with no sign of wealth differentiation. Confirming what has previously been suggested about the role of belief systems in Hongshan social integration, the strongest differentiation detectable in the household evidence involved religious roles and ritual activities. The elaboration of ceremonial architecture and funerary ritual of the Hongshan core zone is thus seen not to correspond to larger regional-scale communities, greater projection of political power, a more specialized economy, larger-scale exchange of goods, or accumulation of wealth. These commonly imagined aspects of early complex society were strikingly underdeveloped in Hongshan society, given its complex ceremonial architecture, elaborate burial treatment of presumed ritual specialists, and famous jade carvings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explored a time series of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) variability during the transition period from the middle to the late Holocene in the marginal Asian monsoon region. We used an absolutely dated 230Th record with only a ~20-year dating error, and oxygen isotope data with an 8-year average temporal resolution from the top 22-mm segment of stalagmite WXB07-4 from Wanxiang Cave, western Loess Plateau. The ASM intensity weakened gradually from 6420 to 4920 a BP, which was mainly characterized by three phases: (1) a strengthening phase with a higher precipitation amount between 6420 and 6170 a BP; (2) a smooth fluctuating interval during 6170-5700 a BP; and (3) a sudden extreme weakening period from 5700 to 4920 a BP. Interestingly, the extreme weakening interval of the ASM occurred during the period between 5700 and 4920 a BP, an abrupt change dated at 5430 a BP, which is known as the 5400 a BP, or 5.4 ka BP, event. The period included 290 years of gradual weakening, and 350 years of slow strengthening. This was synchronous with some cave records from the Asian monsoon region within dating errors. Comparing with Chinese archaeological archives over the past 7000 years, the early decline of the Yangshao Culture in the Yellow River Basin and the Hongshan Culture in the West Liao River Basin occurred during the period of gradual decrease of ASM precipitation. The dramatic decline in precipitation, caused by the extreme weakening of the ASM at 5400 a BP, may have been partly related to the decline of the Miaodigou Culture at the Yangguanzhai site in the Weihe River valley; the middle Yangshao Culture in western Henan in the Yellow River Basin; the early Dawenkou Culture on the lower reaches of the Yellow River; and the middle Hongshan Culture in the west of the Liaohe River valley. During the later period of the 5400 a BP event (5430-4920 a BP), a small amplitude increase and a subsequent sharp decrease of ASM precipitation may have also been linked to the contemporaneous prosperity and disappearance of the late Yangshao and Hongshan cultures; the disappearance of the late Yangshao Culture represented by the Yangguanzhai site in the Guanzhong basin on the Weihe River; the fourth phase of the late Yangshao Culture on the upstream Dadiwan site; the beginning of the middle Dawenkou Culture, the formation of its late stage, and the rise of the Longshan culture; and the rise of the Qujialing and Liangzhu cultures on the lower Yangtze River. Compared with the stalagmite precipitation records on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, the rise and expansion of the Majiayao Culture in the upper Yellow River valley at 5300 a BP may have also been connected to the more dramatic increase of the summer monsoon precipitation at higher, rather than lower, altitudes during the late 5400 a BP event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social division of labor is the prerequisite and foundation of social differentiation. In the middle and late period of Hongshan Culture, the groups of people who were specialized in agriculture, fishing and hunting, handi­craft processing and manufacturing, architectural planning and construction, religious rituals and social management had appeared. Meanwhile, various departments were organized in the field of manual manufacturing, showing an evident tend of the specialization of social division of labor. The difference in resources possession resulted in the monopoly of technology led to the generation of class and the phenomenon of social differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human activity during the Holocene in the Horqin region, northeastern China, has been widely documented. As an important proxy record of human activity, black carbon (BC) in sediments has been linked to climate change and human adaptation. A loess-paleosol section located in south Horqin was chosen for this study. Holocene climate change and human adaptation to the environment were discussed by analyzing BC, organic carbon (OC) and other proxies. The conclusions included: (1) before 3900 cal BP, human activity was closely related to the natural environment and cultural development was dominated by climate change. For example, the rapid decline of the agrarian Hongshan culture was caused by a slight decrease in temperature at ∼5000 cal BP; (2) during 3900-3200 cal BP, the heavy dependence of human societies on nature gradually lessened and the ability of those human societies to adapt to the environment was enhanced. However, the farming-dominated Lower Xiajiadian culture was nonetheless replaced by the pastoralist Upper Xiajiadian culture due to an extremely cooling event at ∼3200 cal BP; (3) during the late Holocene period, the marked influence of climate change on human activity might have lessened as a result of a clear improvement in human labor skills. After this, human living styles were influenced by cultural developments rather than climate change because humans had mastered more powerful means of productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores and critiques the creation of female origin myths in the archaeology of Neolithic China. The first example is the debate surrounding the gender relations in the Yangshao culture. The second half of the paper focuses on whether or not the possible goddess worship in the Hongshan culture can shed light on the understanding of women. It concludes by stating this kind of gynocentric archaeology does not provide an accurate picture of gender in Neolithic China, or propel the feminist agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hongshan societies of northeastern China are among East Asia's earliest complex societies. They have been known largely from elaborate burials with carved jades in ceremonial platforms. The most monumental remains are concentrated in a "core zone" in western Liaoning province. Residential remains are less well known and most investigations of them have been in peripheral regions outside the core zone. Recent regional settlement pattern research around the well known ceremonial site of Dongshanzui has begun to document the communities that built and used Hongshan core zone monuments and to assess their developmental dynamics. The core zone, like the Hongshan periphery, appears to have been organized into a series of small chiefly districts within which ceremonial activities were important integrative forces. Their estimated populations of less than 1,000 are not much larger than those of districts in the periphery, and the evidence does not suggest that these districts were integrated into any larger political entity. The greater elaboration of core zone monumental architecture is thus not attributable to demographically larger communities or to larger-scale political integration. Future research should focus on documenting the organizatiori'of statuses and economic activities within these core zone communities to assess potential differences from peripheral communities in these regards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hongshan is the name of a material culture straddling Inner Mongolia and the Liaoning provinces—the Liaoxi region—China, dating ca. 4500–3000 BCE. Known for enigmatically carved jades, Hongshan rose to popular prominence in the 1980s following the discovery of two significant ritual sites. Since then, some Chinese archaeologists have proposed Liaoxi as a source of either regional or greater Central Plain civilization. Heralding public knowledge in South Korea, meanwhile, Korean scholars active on the "inner fringe" of professional scholarship sought to contest Hongshan's "Chinese" identification, instead asserting it to be the origin of a civilization directly ancestral to the early polities of Korean history. Leading the popular discourse, they incorporated Hongshan into preexisting paradigms asserting continental origins of the Korean people and connected to aggrandizing schemes of Old Chosŏn (trad. 2333–108 BCE). From the latter half of the 2000s and against the context of national-level history disputes with China, a second generation of inner-fringe and unequivocal pseudohistorians has promoted Hongshan, establishing it as a seemingly core topic of "Korean" prehistory. Their emergence signals the "Hongshan turn" in Korean pseudohistory, a turn that has been further bolstered through Hongshan's incorporation into South Korean new religions. This article narrates the recent trajectory of the Hongshan discourse, critically analyzing its functions and framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]