Chinese Neolithic Cultural Geography

From the viewpoint of historical cultural geography, a number of problems have been discussed in the paper, such as the geographic environment, culturaldevelopment (including the formation of Chinese civilisation) and their relations,etc, in the Neolithic Age of China. Natural geographic envronment has considerable influence on the appearance and development of man's eary culture. And thesuitable climate and particular geographic environment, such as topgraphic fea-tures, etc, in the Neolithic Age of China created favorable conditions for the earlydevelopment of Chinese culture. Due to the influence of natural conditions andbased on the succession of culture in the Paleolithic Age, the cultural characteristicsin the Neolithic Age of China was formed. On the basis of regional difference in culture and rigorous logic, the culture in the Paleolithic Age can be classified regionally. In the Neolithic Age, the Huanghe River valley and the Changjiang River Valleywere developed in Chinese culture. The cultural pattern formed by the late Neolithic Age had great impact on the later politics, economy, culture and ethnic distribution of China. Civilization is a product when culture has developed to a certainstage. Chinese civilization occurred in the time of Longshan Culture about 5000years ago. This early civi1ization was characterized by self-development, multivariate development and regional imbalance, and so on. Man's early civilization has many common features in geographic environment, reflected at least in five aspects.The influence of geographic environment on the cultural development in the Neolithic Age of China can be summarized in five aspects and the Chinese ancestors'exploitation and modification of enviromnent are displayed in seven aspects. Duringthat period, the interaction of men and land was relatively direct.