The earliest written language discovered has been on Yangshao culture pottery from Paa-t’o, found in 1962 near Xi’an in the Shaanxi province of China. This bears proto-characters for the numbers 5, 7 and 8 and has been dated to 5000—4000 BC.

Information taken from Archives (e.g.1993).

Submitted for use in Scholastic’s Modern Marvels.