Discovery of the yangtze river civilization in China

Abstract

All of the birthplaces of ancient major civilizations in Eurasia, i.e., Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indus Valley, and Yellow River, belonged to dry to semi-arid climates having annual rainfall of 500 mm or less, and were inhabited by people who mainly sustained themselves by cultivating wheat/barley and millet and by pastoral farming. On the other hand, people living in the wet climate and forested monsoon Asia, who sustained themselves by cultivating rice and fishing, developed a civilization that predated these ancient four great civilizations. This chapter shows the existence of an ancient civilization in the wet and forested monsoon Asia, the Yangtze River Civilization, mainly based on the excavation of the Chengtoushan site in Hunan Province, China.