The Dawenkou Culture in the Lower Yellow River and Huai River Basin Areas

Abstract

There are abundant remains from the Dawenkou culture in lower Yellow river and Huai river basin areas that provide valuable information about subsistence practices, social organization, and beliefs. There were diverse subsistence strategies that varied by area. Pottery production was the most important type of craft production, and it is likely that there were craft specialists. Pottery vessels were used for both practical and ritual purposes. There were significant changes in pottery production during the Dawenkou period such as the development of the fast pottery wheel and greater control over the firing process. Although the Dawenkou culture is well known for its burials indicative of social ranking, recent fieldwork has provided valuable information about internal settlement organization and regional settlement hierarchies. Finally, the intriguing picture characters from late Dawenkou culture sites suggest a shared understanding of their meaning and significance, providing another source of information about inter-community social relationships.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 16 citations exist upstream.