Majiayao Culture: Painted Pottery of the Upper Yellow River

The Majiayao culture was a Late Neolithic culture of the upper Yellow River in north-western China, flourishing from about 3300 to 2000 BC in what are now Gansu and Qinghai provinces. Its farmers produced some of the most elaborate painted pottery of prehistoric China, decorated with swirling spirals, waves and human figures. A Majiayao site also yielded one of the earliest known bronze objects in China.

Origins and setting

The Majiayao culture developed from the Yangshao culture, the great painted-pottery tradition of the middle Yellow River. Around 3300 BC, as Yangshao influence spread westwards, communities in the upper Yellow River and its tributaries, such as the Tao and Huang rivers, developed a distinct style of their own.

This was a high, dry region of loess hills and river valleys on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. Majiayao farmers grew foxtail and broomcorn millet, kept pigs and dogs, and also hunted. Their villages had semi-subterranean houses, storage pits and kilns, similar to those of earlier Yangshao villages such as Banpo.

Discovery

The type site at Majiayao, in Lintao County, Gansu, was found in 1924 by the Swedish geologist and archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson, who had earlier identified the Yangshao culture. Andersson was struck by the similarity between Gansu painted pottery and the painted wares of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and he suggested that painted pottery had spread into China from the west.

Later research, especially radiocarbon dating from the 1970s onwards, showed that the Chinese painted-pottery traditions developed locally from earlier Yangshao roots. Andersson’s diffusion theory is now rejected, though contacts across Central Asia in the later 3rd millennium BC are well documented.

Three phases

Archaeologists usually divide the Majiayao culture into three phases, named after key sites:

• Majiayao phase (c. 3300–2500 BC): pottery painted in black on a red or buff surface, with flowing spirals, concentric lines, dots and wave patterns.
• Banshan phase (c. 2500–2300 BC): large, rounded jars with bold designs in black and red, including gourd shapes and serrated, saw-tooth bands. Many come from cemeteries in the Banshan hills of Gansu.
• Machang phase (c. 2300–2000 BC): more varied and sometimes simpler designs, including stylised human or frog-like figures, often called “anthropomorphic” motifs.

The dates are approximate and vary between regions. Cemeteries such as Liuwan in Ledu County, Qinghai, which contains more than 1,500 burials, mostly from the Banshan and Machang phases, show how the style changed over time.

The painted pottery

Majiayao potters shaped their vessels by hand, using coils of clay, and fired them in kilns at fairly high temperatures. Many vessels were made for burial, and large cemeteries have yielded thousands of complete pots. Some graves contained dozens of vessels, which suggests differences in wealth and status.

The most famous single object is the painted basin found in 1973 at Shangsunjiazhai in Datong County, Qinghai. On its inner wall three groups of five figures hold hands, apparently dancing, with what may be tails or ornaments hanging from their bodies. It is now in the National Museum of China in Beijing and is one of the best-known images of prehistoric Chinese life.

Early metal

Majiayao sites have produced some of the earliest metal objects in China. The most important is a bronze knife found at Linjia in Dongxiang County, Gansu, made of a copper and tin alloy and dated to around 3000 BC. Fragments of copper have also been found at other sites.

These finds are rare and small, and metal was not yet a major part of daily life. They nevertheless show that people in the north-west were experimenting with metal long before bronze became central to the Erlitou and Shang cultures of the Yellow River plain. Many archaeologists think this knowledge reached the region through contacts with Central Asia.

Legacy

The Majiayao culture was followed in the same region by the Qijia culture, from around 2200 BC, in which copper and bronze working became much more common. Majiayao communities also expanded into higher valleys on the margins of the Tibetan plateau, bringing millet farming to new areas. Some researchers have linked this expansion with the spread of early Sino-Tibetan languages, but this remains a hypothesis.

Majiayao painted pottery is admired today as some of the finest Neolithic ceramic art in the world and is displayed in museums in China, Europe and North America. Together with cultures of the east, such as Liangzhu, it shows the variety of regional traditions from which Chinese civilization developed.

Timeline

• c. 3300 BC: The Majiayao culture emerges in the upper Yellow River region.
• c. 3000 BC: A tin-bronze knife is made, later found at Linjia in Gansu.
• c. 2500 BC: The Banshan phase begins.
• c. 2300 BC: The Machang phase begins.
• c. 2000 BC: The Majiayao culture gives way to the Qijia culture.
• 1924: Johan Gunnar Andersson discovers the Majiayao type site.
• 1973: The painted dancing basin is found at Shangsunjiazhai, Qinghai.

Why it matters

The Majiayao culture produced some of the most accomplished painted pottery of the ancient world and some of China’s first metal objects. It shows that north-western China was an active centre of innovation and a bridge between the Yellow River and Central Asia in the centuries before the Bronze Age.