ious regions of the Far East are far
from being uniform; there are various separate cultures. In the
north-west of China there is a system of cattle-breeding combined with
agriculture, a distinguishing feature being the possession of finely
polished axes of rectangular section, with a cutting edge. Farther east,
in the north and reaching far to the south, is found a culture with axes
of round or oval section. In the south and in the coastal region from
Nanking to Tonking, Yuennan to Fukien, and reaching as far as the coasts
of Korea and Japan, is a culture with so-called shoulder-axes. Szechwan
and Yuennan represented a further independent culture.

All these cultures were at first independent. Later the shoulder-axe
culture penetrated as far as eastern India. Its people are known to
philological research as Austroasiatics, who formed the original stock
of the Australian aborigines; they survived in India as the Munda
tribes, in Indo-China as the Mon-Khmer, and also remained in pockets on
the islands of Indonesia and especially Melanesia. All these peoples had
migrated from southern China. The peoples with the oval-axe culture are
the so-called Papuan peoples in Melanesia; they, too, migrated from
southern China, probably before the others. Both groups influenced the
ancient Japanese culture. The rectangular-axe culture of north-west
China spread widely, and moved southward, where the Austronesian peoples
(from whom the Malays are descended) were its principal constituents,
spreading that culture also to Japan.

Thus we see here, in this period around 4000 B.C., an extensive mutual
penetration of the various cultures all over the Far East, including
Japan, which in the palaeolithic age was apparently without or almost
without settlers.

5 _The eight principal prehistoric cultures_

In the period roughly around 2500 B.C. the general historical view
becomes much clearer. Thanks to a special method of working, making use
of the ethnological sources available from later times together with the
archaeological sources, much new knowledge has been gained in recent
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_, centre