The reporter learned from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology that in November 2021, archaeologists found a 4,000-year-old Zhukaigou cultural site in Yijinholo Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and cleaned up and found a variety of cultural relics such as house sites and tombs. These new discoveries add new materials to explore the cultural connotations of Zhu Kaigou.
Bone artifacts excavated at the site of Sharitara.
This 4,000-year-old Zhukaigou cultural site, named Shari Tara Site, is located in Shari Tara Village, Yijin HoloQi, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with a site area of about 500,000 square meters.
In 2021, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted a rescue excavation of the Shari Tara site, excavating an area of 500 square meters, cleaning up and found 8 housing sites, 30 ash pits and ash ditches, 31 tombs, 2 road surfaces, 1 stove site, and more than 150 pieces of pottery, stone tools, jade, bone tools, and horn mussels.
Stone knives excavated from the site of Sharitara.
Most of the excavated sites are round, rounded, square, etc., which are semi-crypt structures and poorly preserved. Ash pits are mostly round, flat bottom or circular bottom, and some ash pits are buried with complete dog skeletons, which are of a sacrificial nature. The excavated tombs are all earthen pit vertical burrow tombs, mostly rounded corners or arc-edged rectangles, and the tombs have two kinds of adult burials and children's burials, most of which are single burials, and there are almost no burial tools.
According to archaeologists, a large number of jade and shell ornaments have been excavated from the site, but they are not endemic to the local area, but are exchanged from distant regions, indicating that the ancestors who lived here at that time had close cultural exchanges and the circulation of goods with other regions. Moreover, the bronzes collected on the surface and smelting sintering blocks also indicate that there is likely to be smelting and casting and using bronzes at the site.
The site also unearthed a large number of three-legged urns, jomon manes, single-handle manes and other pottery used for production and life; stone tools are mainly stone knives, and bone tools include cones, needles, barrels, hairpins, etc.; the bones are processed by using cattle or sheep shoulder blades, and the processing methods are hot, burning, drilling, etc.
Pottery pigs excavated from the Sharitara site.
Archaeologists believe that the Sharitara site provided valuable physical material for the study of settlements and social formations in the prehistoric Loop area.
Reporters: Beri Khan, Harina
Editors: Chu Hang, Luan Ruohui
Courtesy of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology