Yangtze River History – Culture of Yangtze River

Yangtze River basin is one of the districts where people lived here longest. In Anhui Province, there found the fossils of Homo erectus, and several relics of human. Although the political centers of China in history almost were in North China and Yellow River Basin, Yangtze River was meaningful for the kingdoms in history because of its agriculture potential. The Grant Canal was built to transport the food grain of Yangtze River Basin to the big cities in northern.

Culture Relics in Yangtze River History – Midstream

The New Stone Age relics in the midstream of Yangtze River covered Jianghan area, especially dense in Jianghan Plain. Just in Hubei, there found over 450 New Stone Age relics, including 60 relics which have been unearthed, and most of them located on the Jianghan Plain which is the junction of Hanjiang River and the Yangtze River. In Qujialing culture, which includes the features of early, middle and late period, found large amount of relics of paddy rice and animal remains. It proved that the stockbreeding also got development at this area. With the increase of breeding types, there appeared fishing industry. The effect of this culture was very wide.

The relics of ten thousands years Xianren (Immortal) Cave and the Bucket Ring which located in midstream of the Yangtze River are with complete and clear accumulation of strata from late Old Stone Age to New Stone Age. In 1990s, the Chinese and American Cooperation Agriculture Archeology activity found the paddy rice silex about 10,000 year ago in the New Stone Age relics. This bring forward the paddy rice history for thousands years, and where is one of the origin place of paddy rice as we already known. At the same time, scientists also found large amount of ancient pottery shard which was 17000 years ago in this stratum. It is the earliest pottery source in the world among which have been found.

Culture Relics in Yangtze River History - Downstream

The representatives of New Stone Age Culture in the downstream of the Yangtze River were Hemudu Culture, Majiahong Culture and Liangzhu Culture. The Hemudu Culture Relics, which located in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, was first found in 1973. It was unearthed for twice and found 7000 pieces precious cultural relics, including remains of paddy rice and rice hull, bone plowshare which proved that people at that time have use bone plowshare to turn the soil, wooden buildings.

In 1950s, there found a series of Yinshang Culture relics in Yangtze River Basin. The unearthed cultural relics which were found in Sichuan Province proved the intimate cultural communication between Shu and Yinshang, which settled foundation for the later scientific investigation.

These rich culture relics in Yangtze River Basin will add more wonderful elements to your Yangtze Cruise tourist.