Lungshan

a Neolithic culture of the first half of the second millennium B.C. in northern China. Replacing the Yangshao culture, the Lungshan culture initially encompassed the middle Huang Ho basin and subsequently spread eastward into what is now Shantung Province. It is characterized by thin gray and black glazed and unglazed pottery, some of which was made on the potter’s wheel; by fine, polished stone implements; by articles made of bone and shells; and by the practice of scapulomancy. With the Lungshan culture, new types of pottery, for example, the li vessel with three udder-shaped, hollow feet, appeared in China for the first time, as well as new species of grains (wheat, barley) and domestic animals (ox, goat, sheep). The bearers of the culture lived in a communal-clan system. The Lungshan culture was replaced by the Bronze Age Shang Yin culture in about the 16th century B.C.