Shanxi Institute of Archaeology released a new archaeological discovery on the 8th. Local archaeologists found the cultural remains of prehistoric Longshan period at Bicun site on the banks of the Yellow River, and uncovered the changing context of prehistoric settlement forms on the banks of the Yellow River.
Longshan period generally refers to a kind of cultural relics in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in China in the late Neolithic period, which dates from about 4350 to 3950. These relics are distributed in Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.
Bicun site is located in the north of Bicun Village, Gaojia Village, Xing County, Luliang City, Shanxi Province, at the intersection of the Yellow River and its tributary Weifen River. From 2015 to 2018, Shanxi Institute of Archaeology, together with the Department of Archaeology of Shanxi University School of History and Culture (now Shanxi University Institute of Archaeology) and Xingxian Culture and Tourism Bureau, carried out continuous excavation work on Xiaoyuliang Terrace of Bicun Site, basically clarifying the overall layout of the terrace and the phased changes of its settlements.
According to the sorting out of the horizon relationship in the northwest of Xiaoyuliang platform, combined with the stone terraces and slope protection walls in the east of the middle of the platform, as well as the stone buildings and the north wall in the northeast, archaeologists have gradually made it clear that the settlement form of Xiaoyuliang platform has changed three times in the Longshan period.
According to Wang Xiaoyi, the leader of this archaeological excavation project, the human activities in the first phase of Xiaoyuliang platform are mainly distributed in the northwest of the platform, which belongs to ordinary settlements. The second stage is the white-grey-faced house site above the brown soil layer and below the stone house site. In this stage, the activities of the ancients were mainly in the central and eastern parts of the platform. Because no relics were unearthed, its settlement characteristics could not be determined for the time being. The construction and use of stone buildings in the third phase shows that the form of platform settlements has changed obviously in this phase, which reflects the architectural characteristics of high-grade settlements. (End)