Bilingual speaking Henan 丨Erlitou site newly discovered bone horn tool plus workshop

New archaeological discoveries at the Erlitou Site in Luoyang city of Henan province show that several pits with bone and horn remains have been discovered near the southwest corner of the site's imperial city area, believed to be the workshops for bone and horn implements during the late Erlitou Culture period (around 1735-1530 BC), even used until the early Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC), said a source from the archaeological team on December 9. Such findings consolidate not only the process and techniques of making bone and horn implements of the Erlitou Culture period, but also the layout and planning of the site.

On December 9, the reporter learned from the Erlitou Archaeological Team that there were new discoveries in the archaeology of the Erlitou site, and a number of aggregate and horn pits were cleared near the southwest corner of the miyaido area of the site, and archaeologists believe that this is the bone tool, horn tool plus workshop of the late Erlitou culture, and may continue to be used until the early Shang. This discovery provides important information for the study of the processing process, processing technology, urban layout, and planning concept of Erli skull bone and horn vessel.

To the east of these workshops lies a round pit with a large number of shells spread in it. Besides, animal limb bones, deer horns and some semi-finished items similar to hairpins, awls and arrowheads were found scattered around the pit. At the center and west of these workshops, archaeologists also excavated a large area of such remains, including different animals' limb bones, ribs, horns, teeth and some large pottery pieces.

It is understood that on the east side of the newly discovered bone ware, horn ware plus workshop area, there is a circular pit, the inner wall and bottom of the pit are covered with a large number of snail shells, and the limb bones, antlers and some bone tools and horn tools similar to bone hairpins, bone cones and bone cones are scattered around. In the middle and west of the bone-making workshop area, archaeologists have also cleared out a large piece of bone remains, and various animal limb bones, ribs, horn bones, tooth bones and some larger pottery pieces are scattered on the cultural layer of the site.

According to Zhao Haitao, head of the Erlitou archaeological team of the Archaeology Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a number of workshops for processing bones and horns had been identified over the past more than 6 decades, but the newly discovered workshops are debut to comprehensively display the processing of bones and horns at that time.

Zhao Haitao, leader of the Erlitou Task Force of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, introduced that for more than 60 years since the Erlitou site was discovered, it has been identified that some workshops for processing bone and horn tools have been identified, and the newly discovered workshop is the first time that the Erlitou site has comprehensively and in detail displayed the excavation site of processing bone tools and horn tools.

Source: Henan Daily Reporter: Guo Ge Wen Xiaojuan Compiler: Zhao Hanqing Broadcast: Wang Jiaqi Video: Wang Junyi Reviewer: Chen Xingjie

Editor-in-charge: Zhao Xichen Intern: Liu Mudi Review: Jiang Qiuxia