years. At this time there is still no trace of a Chinese realm; we find
instead on Chinese soil a considerable number of separate local
cultures, each developing on its own lines. The chief of these cultures,
acquaintance with which is essential to a knowledge of the whole later
development of the Far East, are as follows:

(a) _The north-east culture_, centred in the present provinces of Hopei
(in which Peking lies), Shantung, and southern Manchuria. The people of
this culture were ancestors of the Tunguses, probably mixed with an
element that is contained in the present-day Paleo-Siberian tribes.
These men were mainly hunters, but probably soon developed a little
primitive agriculture and made coarse, thick pottery with certain basic
forms which were long preserved in subsequent Chinese pottery (for
instance, a type of the so-called tripods). Later, pig-breeding became
typical of this culture.

(b) _The northern culture_ existed to the west of that culture, in the
region of the present Chinese province of Shansi and in the province of
Jehol in Inner Mongolia. These people had been hunters, but then became
pastoral nomads, depending mainly on cattle. The people of this culture
were the tribes later known as Mongols, the so-called proto-Mongols.
Anthropologically they belonged, like the Tunguses, to the Mongol race.

(c) The people of the culture farther west, the _north-west culture_,
were not Mongols. They, too, were originally hunters, and later became a
pastoral people, with a not inconsiderable agriculture (especially
growing wheat and millet). The typical animal of this group soon became
the horse. The horse seems to be the last of the great animals to be
domesticated, and the date of its first occurrence in domesticated form
in the Far East is not yet determined, but we can assume that by 2500