The formative period (to c. 1600 bce) The earliest evidence for art in any form in ancient China consists of crude cord-marked pottery and artifacts decorated with geometric designs found in Mesolithic sites in northern China and in the Guangdong-Guangxi regions.

When did the Chinese start using porcelain?

Porcelain was first made in China—in a primitive form during the Tang dynasty (618–907) and in the form best known in the West during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). This true, or hard-paste, porcelain was made from petuntse, or china stone (a feldspathic rock), ground to powder and mixed with kaolin (white china clay).