Mortise-and-tenon timber joinery (Hemudu)
Ensamblaje de caja y espiga en madera (Hemudu)
- Date
- c. 5000 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Hemudu, Yuyao, Zhejiang, China
- Credited to
- Hemudu culture
- Field
- Tools
What it is
The pile-dwelling houses of Hemudu preserve beams joined with mortises, tenons and tongues carved with stone and bone tools. It is the direct precursor of the nail-free joinery of Chinese architecture.
Similar joints appear independently in Neolithic wells in Europe (Germany, c. 5100 BCE).
What it led to
- timber-frame architecture with nail-free joints
- raised dwellings in wetland areas of the lower Yangtze
- joinery tradition culminating in the dougong system