Imperial China : foreign-policy conceptions and methods

The original country of the ancient Chinese was the basin of the Huanghe and the adjoining territories. This is where the three early Neolithic cultures-Qujialing, Majiayao and Yang shao which played a crucial part in the making of the Chinese as an ethnic body were discovered. The Qujialing culture flour ished in the basin of the Hanshui River, the Majiayao in the upper reaches of the Huanghe, and the Yangshao in the middle reaches of the Huanghe and along its chief tributary, the Weihe. Archaeological digs in the 1920s to 60s show that mattock farm ing had been the chief occupation of people in those times. The ancient Chinese grew an unpretentious crop: green bristle grass, which is a sort of millet. Grains of green bristle grass were found, among other places, in Yangshao settlements in the middle reaches of the Huanghe-Jingcun (Wanrong, Shenxi province), Baishouling (Baoji, Shenxi province), and Quanhucun (Huaxian, Shenxi province) and were also discovered in the homes and burial grounds of Neolithic settlements dug up in the western part of the Huanghe basin.

In the early Neolithic, that is, in the 4th to 3rd millennia B.C., the forebears of the Chinese also grew rice, which had not yet become the staple food. The most widespread domestic animals were dogs and pigs.