E
ast Asia is a vast area, varied in both topography and climate. Dominated by the huge land mass of
China, the region also encompasses the peninsula of Korea and the islands of Japan (MAP7-1). The
early arts of China and Korea are discussed in this chapter, and early Japanese art and architecture are
treated in Chapter 8. Chapters 27 and 28 examine later developments in China and Korea and in Japan.China
China’s landscape includes sandy plains, mighty rivers, towering mountains, and fertile farmlands. Its
political and cultural boundaries have varied over the millennia, and at times its territory has grown to
about twice the area of the United States, encompassing Tibet, Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang), Mongolia,
Manchuria, and parts of Korea. China boasts the world’s largest population and is ethnically diverse. The
spoken language varies so much that speakers of different dialects do not understand one another. How-
ever, the written language, which employs characters (signs that record spoken words, even if those words
are spoken differently in the various dialects), has made possible a shared Chinese literary, philosophic,
and religious tradition.Neolithic Age through Shang Dynasty
China is the only continuing civilization that originated in the ancient world. The Chinese archaeological
record, extraordinarily rich, begins in Neolithic times. Discoveries in recent years have expanded the early
record enormously and have provided evidence of settled village life as far back as the seventh or early
sixth millennium BCE. Excavators have uncovered sites with large multifamily houses constructed of wood,
bamboo, wattle, daub, and mud plaster and equipped with hearths. These early villages also had pens for
domesticated animals, kilns for pottery production, pits for storage and refuse, and cemeteries for the
dead. Chinese Neolithic artisans produced impressive artworks, especially from jade and clay.
YANGSHAO POTTERYMastery of the art of pottery occurred at a very early date in China. The
potters of the Yangshao Culture, which arose along the Yellow River in northeastern China, produced fine7