Prehistory

Before writing was invented, people kept the past alive by telling it, from grandparents to children. Pangu opening the sky, Nüwa making people, Shennong tasting a hundred herbs, the Yellow Emperor battling Chiyou — the heroes of these very old tales lived on in the telling.

Underground lie even older "clues": stone tools, painted pottery, the village of Banpo, rice grains at Hemudu. They cannot speak, yet they show us how early people farmed, built houses, and lived together.

A legend is not the same as a fact — but legends keep the way those first people saw the world. Read the stories next to the objects, and prehistory comes alive.