June
11
/ 2025
Before China's Neolithic Fujia community was arranging its deceased, it already possessed something unusual: a social structure organized not around fathers, but around mothers. Chinese researchers have now generated the first genomic evidence of a matrilineal prehistoric society in East Asia — a millet-cultivating, marine-based community that existed for 250 years, going about its business silently challenging the world's narrative of patriarchy. Matrilineal, Not Mythical The Fujia site in Shandong province and associated with the Dawenkou culture (around 2750–2500 BC) was previously researched for its ceramics, farming, and graves. But this new study, conducted by researchers from Peking University, the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and overseas partners, provides more than that: tangible biological proof of a
