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11.
[[^120]]

discovered show that they are usually luxuerously covered.  The [[[underlined]]chuo[[/underlined]]-fragment is a beautiful example; besides a well-composed geometrical pattern, animal motive is also found.

The white pottery are however much [[strikethrough]] to occupy [[/strikethrough]] more common than the pure black group and in most cases they are the most profusedly decorated.  The designs are more gorgeous and animal motive are also much more frequently employed.  We shall analyze these patterns more at length in the chapter on art.  What is important to note here is that the types of patterns employed for decoration seem to follow classes.

8. A fragment of Painted shard. 

From certain point of view the most important discovery of the fall season of 1929 is a piece of painted pottery from an undisturbed inscribed bone stratum.  It seems to be a fragment of a bowl, the ground color being half covered with white slip, decorated in black and red.  The patterns consist of cross hatched lines, straight lines and concentrate rings(Plate ^[[XVII]]).  Both the technique and patterns of decoration seems to be so remotely related to the ceramic art of the Shang Dynasty and, so strikingly affiliated with the Yang-shao, that its significance becomes immediately obvious.

It must be recalled that althou many attempts have been made to fix a chronology of the Yan-shao culture, there are few reliable data to go on.  With the discovery of this shard in the Hsiao-t'un site, the lower limit for the Yang-shao culture may be dated at least as early as the Shang Dynasty.  In fact, it must have been much earlier for a variety of reasons: the most important of which is, the site of Yang-shao is so nearly adjacent to Hsiao-t'un, that if its culture were contemporaneous with the latter, it should