Pottery was unearthed at the site. Courtesy of Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology
On February 13, the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology announced new archaeological discoveries in 2022 on the 13th, and local archaeologists found a Neolithic site more than 5,000 years ago in Yuncheng, Shanxi.
The ruins of Yuan Village, Xia County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province are located in Yuan Village, Peijie Town, Xia County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, in the north of Salt Lake. According to the investigation, the Yuancun site is an ancient settlement site with the remains of the Neolithic Age and the Xia and Shang Dynasties as the main body, with a total area of about 1.1 million square meters.
From 2006 to 2022, the National Museum of China, the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Jilin University and other cultural and museum institutions have carried out archaeological work on the Yuancun site and the surrounding area many times. Since July 2022, in order to cooperate with the construction of ASIMCO’s auto parts manufacturing base project, the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, the Yuncheng Cultural Relics Protection Center and the Xia County Culture and Tourism Bureau have conducted archaeological excavations at the site, and found a total of 58 ash pits, 4 house sites, 3 pottery kilns, 1 Han Dynasty tomb, 1 Ming and Qing Dynasty tomb, and unearthed a large number of pottery, bone tools, jade tools and animal bones.
According to Wang Xiaoyi, the person in charge of the excavation project and the president of the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, the main harvest of the excavation is the discovery of well-preserved important relics such as pottery kilns, house sites and ash pits in the late Yangshao period. These discoveries enrich the cultural connotation of the Yuancun site, and are of great significance for exploring the ancient cultural appearance and settlement evolution of the area.
Wang Xiaoyi said that this excavation is mainly the remains of the late Yangshao culture, and the relics found and a large number of pottery and stone tools have enriched the archaeological data of the late Yangshao culture in the southern Jinnan area. Through the archaeological work of the Yuancun site over the years, the cultural development sequence from the early to the late Yangshao culture is completely revealed, and the material data is provided for the study of the development, evolution and extinction of Yangshao culture in southern Jinnan. (Reporter Hu Jian)