Humans of the Hemudu Culture in ancient China invent rowing oars
Wooden oars, with canoe-shaped pottery, dating from 5000-4500 B.C.E. have been discovered in a Hemudu culture site at Yuyao, Zhejiang, in modern China.
China
Humans domesticate chickens for the first time, possibly in modern-day China
Scholars agree that they were first domesticated from a wild form called red junglefowl, a bird that still runs wild in most of southeast Asia, most likely hybridized with the gray junglefowl.
Humans in northern China invent mead
Mead is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains, or hops.
Humans in ancient China invent lacquer
Radiating a serene luster, lacquer ware is an exquisite Chinese craft. As the earliest users, the Chinese have enjoyed its beauty since the Neolithic Age.
Peiligang culture begins in ancient China
The Peiligang culture is the name given by archaeologists to a group of Neolithic communities in the Yi-Luo river basin in Henan Province, China.
Rice begins to be domesticated in modern-day central China
By about 5,000 B.C.E., domesticated japonica is found throughout the Yangtse valley, including large amounts of rice kernels at such sites as TongZian Luojiajiao (7100 BP) and Hemuda (7000 BP).
The Jiahu symbols of the Peiligang culture in China are created
A 2003 report in Antiquity interpreted them “not as writing itself, but as features of a lengthy period of sign-use which led eventually to a fully-fledged system of writing.
Humans from the Indus Valley Civilization settle the Himalayas for the first time
Neolithic tools found in Bhutan indicate that people have been living in the Himalayan region for at least 11,000 years.
Humans invent pottery, perhaps in modern-day Jiangxi province in China
Xianrendong and Yuchanyan caves in northern China are the oldest of a growing number of sites which support the origins of pottery as having occurred not just in the Japanese island Jomon culture of 11,000-12,000 years ago, but earlier in the Russian Far East and South China some 18,000-20,000 years ago.