Several dumplings were found in a bronze pot excavated from a Spring and Autumn Period tomb in Shandong Province. When excavated, the shapes of the dumplings were still very prominent. Images of dumplings can also been found on some tomb figures.

According to written records, dumplings and hundun (wonton) can be traced back only as far as the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-581), but archeology advances the emergence of dumplings to an earlier period. Comparatively, complete dumplings were found in the City of Tulufan in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region due to the region's dry conditions. In Tang Dynasty (618-907) tombs, funerary objects also included crescent-shaped dumplings -- just like the dumplings Chinese eat today. Evidence also shows that dumplings were called hundun during the most ancient times and that their shapes were fixed during the Northern Qi Period (550-577) of the Northern Dynasty (386-581).