Yangshao culture was first discovered in Yangshao Village, Mianchi County, Henan Province in 192 1. Its distribution range is roughly as follows: Guanzhong area of Shaanxi, most areas of Henan, southern Shanxi, southern Hebei, as far as the junction of Gansu and Qinghai, Hetao area, northern Hebei, northwestern Hubei and other places. The age of C- 14 is about 7000-5000 years ago.

Through archaeological research on Banpo, Shanxi, Miaodigou, Shanxian, Henan and Dadiwan, Qin 'an, Gansu, the basic characteristics of Yangshao culture are clarified: operating primitive agriculture, mainly planting millet and raising livestock (pigs, dogs, etc.). ).

2. Analysis of various types of Yangshao culture.

① Types of Banpo, Miaodigou and Xiwang Village in Guanzhong, western Henan and southern Shanxi.

② Cultural types of Luoyang, Zhengzhou, Wang Wan and Dahe Village.

③ The types of Hougang and Dasi holes in northern Henan and southern Hebei.

④ Yangshao culture in Gansu.

3. Staging standard of Yangshao culture

Yangshao culture has experienced a sustained and stable development for two thousand years, and its painted pottery patterns are constantly changing. In order to accurately grasp this stage of development and change, the academic circles usually divide Yangshao culture into three stages, namely, early stage, middle stage and late stage.

The standard at this stage is mainly the change of pointed bottom bottle. Sharp-bottomed bottle is a kind of water container used from beginning to end in Yangshao culture. It often appears in various sites, is a common vessel, and can also be called a symbolic vessel of Yangshao culture. Its changes are sensitive, and the morphological differences in each stage are significant. The academic circles finally choose to divide it into different cultural periods with different pointed-bottomed bottles.

① There are two kinds of sharp-bottomed bottles in the early Yangshao period in Gansu. The sharp-bottomed bottles in Dongzhuang, Ning County, Qingyang and Gongjiachuan, Zhengning County are cup-shaped; The pointed bottom bottle unearthed in the second phase of Dadiwan and Shizhao Village is long and gourd-shaped. These two kinds of pointed-bottomed bottles have a pair of ring-shaped ears on the abdomen or lower part. The former is closer to Guanzhong area in Shaanxi, while the latter is unique. We define the remains of the unearthed bottle with a cup mouth gourd as the early stage;

② The medium-term pointed-bottom bottles are all double-lipped, generally without abdominal ears, so we determine that the remains of this kind of pointed-bottom bottles are medium-term;

(3) In the late stage, the shape of a pointed bottom bottle with flat lips (or flat lips) and no ears in the abdomen was the main shape (color figure 8), but in the later stage, a pointed bottom bottle with a small mouth and a pair of bridge-shaped ears in the abdomen appeared, and even a pointed bottom bottle with a whole body decoration was collected in Longxi. We call this kind of remains the late Yangshao period.

4. The representative works of Yangshao culture in the early, middle and late stages.

(1) Early pottery: pottery is mainly made of fine clay and red pottery with sand, and the types of pottery are mostly flat-bottomed and flat-bottomed, with a small number of pointed bottoms.

Typical utensils: bottom bowl, lip-folded or lip-rolled basin, pointed-bottom cup-shaped bottle, pointed-bottom gourd-shaped bottle, gourd bottle, thin-necked pot, extravagant pot with bulging mouth, shallow-bellied pot with crisscross lines, pointed-bottom pot with folded mouth, etc.

In Yangshao culture stage, painted pottery art gradually prospered, therefore, ancient and exquisite patterns were born. Among them,

The earliest and most commonly used pattern is fish pattern. The head-shaped sculpture jar is the masterpiece of Yangshao painted pottery in Dadiwan, and it is also one of the outstanding works of painted pottery, sculpture and plastic arts in prehistoric art in China.

(2) The middle period of Yangshao culture is a period of rapid development and expansion, and also a period of great influence on prehistoric culture in China. In just a few hundred years, its typical cultural factors, namely hook leaf, point, arc triangle, pointed-bottom double-lipped bottle, quickly spread throughout the vast areas in northern China, and even affected the Yangtze River basin.

"Huashan Rose" refers to the typical painted pottery pattern in the middle period of Yangshao in Guanzhong area.

The Henan-Shaanxi Border Region, represented by Miaodigou Site in Shaanxi County, Henan Province and Hu Quan Village Site in hua county, Shaanxi Province, is a common and vivid bird pattern in the middle period of Yangshao in eastern Guanzhong.

(3) The late Yangshao culture is about 5500-4900 years ago, which is the most brilliant historical stage of prehistoric culture in Gansu.

In Dadiwan, Shizhaocun, Xishanping and other places, there are horizontal cave pottery kilns with relatively uniform shapes, which are divided into two parts: rectangular pits and fire pits and round kiln rooms. The area of kiln chamber tends to increase, and it is more advanced to add pulse-shaped flame path and grate hole on kiln bed, and the firepower is more uniform, and the firing technology of pottery in the middle period is improved.

Late painted pottery can be divided into two categories. The first kind is not easy to fall off, which is what we often see, and now it is also called painted pottery; The second category appeared occasionally in the past, but there are a certain number in this issue, which are colored after pottery is fired, which is the painted pottery we mentioned earlier.