© XinhuaThe site of cave dwellings that date back to 3,500 BC at Yangguan Village in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.
Rows of two-room houses were built between 3,500 and 3,000 BC.Archaeologists in China have unearthed the earliest man-made cave houses and privately-owned pottery workshops which date back 5,500 years.
After four years of excavation, a row of 17 cave houses were found on a cliff along the Jinghe river in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Wang Weilin, deputy director of the Shaanxi Archaeology Institute and chief archaeologist of the excavation, told Xinhua.
They were built between 3,500 and 3,000 BC.
Mr. Wang said the row of houses were within a 16,000-sq.m. site which was being excavated.
The cave houses belonged to a late neolithic culture named Yangshao that originated in the middle reaches of the Yellow river and was considered a main origin of Chinese civilisation. Yangshao was best known for red pottery ware with painted patterns.