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.
East Asia
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 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.
Homo sapiens settle the Korean peninsula for the first time
The earliest radiocarbon dates for the Paleolithic indicate the antiquity of occupation on the Korean peninsula is between 40,000 and 30,000 BP.
Humans settle in modern-day Japan for the first time
Japan was then connected to mainland Asia by at least one land bridge, and nomadic hunter-gatherers crossed to Japan.