China, Incipient Neolithic

Study of the historical reduction of the size of human teeth suggests that the first human beings to eat cooked food did so in South China. The southern sites of Hsien-jen-tung in Kiangsi and Tseng-p'i-yen in Kwangsi have yielded artifacts from the 10th to the 7th millennium BC that include low-fired, cord-marked sherds with some incised decoration and mostly chipped stone