Village and settlement pattern Yangshao The Yangshao settlements could first be found in the upper/Northern Yellow River, many other settlements followed the path of the Wei River and its tributaries, largely to the South of the Wei and North of the Qin Ling Mountain. They settled in villages that were divided into sections. There were areas for dwelling, making pottery by firing clay pieces in kilns and burying the dead. The burial schemes of Yangshao cemeteries were very complex like the segmented village structure, grave tended to be arranged in groupings with spaces between the groups. These villages covered ten to fourteen acres and were composed of houses erected around a central square. Their houses were semi-subterranean pounded earth houses which contained a single room and were built by digging a rounded rectangular pit a few feet deep. The pit was rammed, and a lattice of wattle was woven over it and plastered with mud. The floor was also rammed down, next a few short wattle poles would be placed around the top of the pit and more wattle would be woven to it. It was plastered with mud and a framework of poles would be placed to make cone shape for the roof. Poles would be added to support the roof; it was then thatched with millet stalks. Inside the house was little furniture, a shallow fire place in the middle with a stool, a bench along the wall and a bed of cloth. Food and items were placed or hanged against the walls. Outside they would build a pen for animals. Despite the construction of this houses they had to move frequently since the villagers practiced slash and burn agriculture. Once having exhausted the soil, residents picked up their belonging moved to lands and constructed new villages. Their villages were surrounded by a ditch which separated the village from the area in which the dead were buried.

(www.chinaspringtour.com) The archeological site of Banpo village near Xi’an is one of the best-known ditch enclosed settlement of the Yangshao culture and another major settlement was Jiangzhai. The Yangshao people mainly cultivated millet but some settlements grew rice that was grounded into flour to make cakes. Middle Yangshao settlement such as Jiangzhi contained raised floor buildings that may have been used for the storage of surplus grains Longshan The Longshan settlement first started in the Southern/lower Yellow River since this was the place where their culture began. Life during the Longshan