Banpo The village of Banpo near Xi’an in China dates from about 4500 B.C.E. Archaeologists have concluded that a group of several hundred people built fifty or so houses there, along with kilns for making pottery and cellars for storage. They built each house by digging a shallow hole as a foundation, surrounding this with walls made of stakes interwoven with branches and twigs, and plastering this with mud, which dried to become wind and water resistant. They made the roof out of thatch made from millet and rice stalks, grains they raised that formed the main part of their diet. (JTB Photo/SuperStock)