Prehistoric and Ancient History (1.7 million years ago-476 B.C.)

China's earliest primitive human discovered so far is known as "Yuanmou Man"(yuán móu rén 元谋人), a fossil anthropoid unearthed in Yuanmou (yuán móu 元谋) in Yunnan Province (yún nán shěng 云南省) who lived approximately 1.7 million years ago. The better-known "Peking Man"(běi jīng rén 北京人), discovered in the Zhoukoudian (zhōu kǒu diàn 周口店) area in the suburbs of Beijing, lived about 600,000 years ago. Peking Man was able to walk upright, make and use simple tools, and make fire. By the start of the Neolithic Age in China about 10,000 years ago, people were cultivating rice and millet with farming tools, something revealed by relics found in the ruins of Hemudu (hé mǔ dù  河姆渡) in Yuyao (yú yáo 余姚), Zhejiang Province (zhè jiāng shěng 浙江省), and Banpo (bàn pō  半坡), near Xi'an City (xī ān shì 西安市), Shaanxi Province (shǎn xī shěng 陕西省). The Hemudu site, about 7,000 years old, was one of the earliest New Stone Age locations along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River (cháng jiāng 长江).