EASTERN ASIA — BISHOP 435 



THE CHINESE PAINTED POTTERY PHASE 



On various Late Neolithic sites along or near the great trans- 

 continental migration route already mentioned, we find pottery much 

 finer than the coarse variety named above. This is the now famous 

 Chinese painted ware." Whether this was ever turned on some form 

 of wheel or was entirely shaped by hand is still disputed ; but it boro 

 decoration in simple colors, chiefly red, black, and white. Designs, at 

 first geometrical in character, later (in northwestern China at least) 

 came to include naturalistic elements. With specimens of this latter 

 class occur small but increasing numbers of copper or bronze trinkets," 

 perhaps introduced by trade; these yield the first faint indications that 

 metal, already long used in the Near East, was beginning to be known 

 in eastern Asia also. 



This Chinese painted pottery seems not to have been accompanied 

 by any distinct culture of its own. It bears rather the aspect of an 

 individual culture trait, detached from its place of origin. Many 

 observers believe it related genetically to similar wares found in the 

 West, particularly in south Russia. As to its date, several inde- 

 pendent investigators ascribe it to the closing centuries of the third 

 millennium B. C. Others put it later; but in so doing, they hardly 

 allow time for what we know came later. 



THE CHINESE BLACK POTTERY CULTURE 



In northeastern China, not long after the Painted Pottery phase 

 of the Late Neolithic Period, we find a culture different and some- 

 what higher in type, though retaining many earlier elements. This 

 culture, still quite without metal so far as we know,^^ was charac- 

 terized by a smooth black earthenware of fine texture and high 

 finish. It had domestic cattle, sheep, and perhaps horses," and 

 displayed in addition several other features long known in the Near 

 East but new in China. Among these was the use of the potter's 

 wheel and the building of small towns encompassed by walls of 

 tamped earth (terre pisee). These and other traits foreshadow ele- 

 ments in the Chinese Bronze Age destined soon to appear. 



THE CHINESE BRONZE AGE 



There follows a "dark age," of unknown but certainly not long 

 duration. Then, quite suddenly, we find ourselves confronted by a 



^° This was first made known to the world in 1922 by Dr. J. G. Andersson, then of the 

 Geological Survey of China. 



" The exact composition of these has, so far as I am aware, never been made public, 

 welcome though such information would be. 



" Metal may, however, have begun to appear In northwestern China, at the eastern end 

 of the steppe corridor ; see footnote 11. 



" See, however, what has already been said in regard to the horse In prehistoric eastern 

 Asia. 



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