Archaeological culture · c. 5500–3300 BCE

Hemudu culture

The Hemudu culture flourished south of Hangzhou Bay in Zhejiang and on the Zhoushan islands. Its people grew rice in wet fields with bone spades, lived in long wooden houses on stilts, and made black pottery and some of the earliest lacquered wood.

Waterlogged sites such as Hemudu and Tianluoshan preserved wood, seeds and bone in remarkable detail. Some scholars link it to the ancestors of Austronesian-speaking peoples.

See Hemudu culture on the map in 5500 BCE →

On the map

5500–3300 BCE