In prehistory, the region was home to the
Yangshao and
Longshan cultures.
Peking Man was found near modern-day Beijing. The main agricultural lands of China lay in the area known as the
Central Plain, an area bordered by the
Yangtze River to its south and the
Yellow River to its north. Further north of the Yellow River lies the
Gobi Desert and steppe lands that extend west across
Eurasia. This region has long, harsh winters. It has relatively little in the way of water resources. Despite these challenges, some forms of agriculture have been successful in this region, especially
animal husbandry, certainly of horse and camel, and possibly other types of animals. The crops
Panicum Miliaceum and
Setaria Italica, both types of
millet grain, are believed to be indigenous to northern China.
Panicum Miliaceum is known from the
Cishan culture in
Hebei province, recovered as
Phytoliths from pits in
stratigraphic sections.
Sediments from the pits have radiocarbon dates from 8500 to 7500 BCE. Archaeological evidence of charred grains found in early
Holocene layers in Hebei province at
Nanzhuangtou and Cishan has led scholars to revise the earliest dates associated with millet by about two millennia. Millet sites are concentrated along the boundaries of the
Loess and
Mongolian Plateau, separated by a mountain chain from the
Huabei Plain and the
Dongbei Plain, North China's main
alluvial plains, located to the west. Millet cultivation was similarly situated relative to the
Qinling Mountains at Dadiwan, and the
Yitai Mountains at
Yuezhuang. Macrofossil evidence (charred grains of foxtail and broomcorn millet) has been recovered from
Xinglonggou in
Inner Mongolia,
Xinle in
Liaoning, Cishan in Hebei, and
Dadiwan in
Gansu, among other sites in Eastern and Central China. == Administrative divisions in the PRC ==