Prehistoric Jade Cultures of China

China's jade tradition is the oldest continuous craft tradition in the world. The Hongshan culture of Inner Mongolia (c. 4700–2900 BC) produced C-shaped jade dragons, cloud-form pendants, and ritual bi discs thousands of years before the Shang Dynasty invented writing. Simultaneously, the Liangzhu culture of the Yangtze Delta (c. 3300–2300 BC) created monumental jade cong tubes and bi discs deposited in elite tombs — objects so laboriously made (up to years of grinding with sand abrasives) that they implied a stratified society with dedicated specialist workshops. These two Neolithic jade cultures — one northern, one southern — established jade as China's supreme ritual material. When the Bronze Age arrived, jade did not disappear: it was incorporated into every subsequent dynasty's court ritual, burial practice, and philosophical system. The Confucian equation of jade with virtue ('a gentleman's morality is like jade') merely codified what Neolithic shamans had practiced for millennia.