Yangshao

Yangshao villages could be quite large, housing several hundred people. Houses were dug down into the ground and then covered with a wooden superstructure covered with wattle and mud. There is evidence of social differentiation with some individuals being more “important” than others. They also appear to have been in the process of transitioning form a matriarchal society to a patriarchal one. The earliest copper artefacts found in China were associated with a Yangsho village now called Jiangzhai 姜寨, which represents the development of metallurgical technology.