[2] Two major floods caused the nearby Yaojiang River to change its course and inundated the soil with salt, forcing the people of Hemudu to abandon its settlements.

Recent excavations at the Hemudu period site of Tianluoshan has demonstrated rice was undergoing evolutionary changes recognized as domestication.

[11] The remains of various plants, including water caltrop, Nelumbo nucifera, acorns, melon, wild kiwifruit, blackberries, peach, the foxnut or Gorgon euryale and bottle gourd, were found at Hemudu and Tianluoshan.

[12] The Hemudu people likely domesticated pigs but practiced extensive hunting of deer and some wild water buffalo.

[13] The practices of fishing and hunting are evidenced by the remains of bone harpoons and bows and arrowheads.

Descent is thought to have been matrilineal and the social status of children and women comparatively high.

During that period, the social status of men rose and descent was passed through the male line.

[15] Fossilized amoeboids and pollen suggests Hemudu culture emerged and developed in the middle of the Holocene Climatic Optimum.