Related items excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site. Photo by Li Dian
Ningbo, May 30 (Trainee reporter Li Dian) "The Jingtou Mountain site is the site with the largest burial depth in the known coastal area of China, which breaks through the previous understanding of the spatial-temporal framework and law of the distribution of prehistoric sites in the southeast coastal areas of China. On May 30, Zheng Jianhua, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, said at a press conference on the archaeological achievements of the Jingtou Mountain site.
The Jingtou Mountain Ruins are located in Sanqi City, Sanqi Town, Yuyao City, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, 1.5 kilometers east of the Tianluo Mountain Ruins. In 2013, shells and other items were found in the area due to the construction of the factory. Subsequently, the test excavation by professionals initially confirmed that the site was a prehistoric shell hill site that had never been found in Zhejiang archaeology.
The site of Jingtou Mountain in Yuyao, Ningbo, Zhejiang. Photo by Li Dian
The site is buried about 8 meters under the current surface, the foundation pit is a total of 750 square meters, most of the excavation work of the main exploration party in the foundation pit has been completed, and more than 10 relics such as ash pits, acorn storage pit treatment pits, burning mounds, burning earth pits, utensils processing and food processing points have been found, and hundreds of various registerable relics have been excavated. Among them, the remains mainly include a large number of various marine shellfish (cockles, snails, oysters, clams, clams, oysters, etc.), artefacts (pottery, stone tools, bone tools, wood tools, shellware, woven fabrics) and animal bones.
"The JingtouShan site is the only prehistoric shell hill site found so far in Zhejiang Province, and the cultural appearance and connotation characteristics are obviously different from the Hemudu culture, and are closely related to the source of the Hemudu culture." Zhao Hui, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University, introduced that the relics excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site have distinct cultural characteristics.
Jingtou Mountain Ruins. Photo by Li Dian
For example, the main types of pottery are mainly kettles, pots, and circular bottoms, and a small number of circle foot vessels, not three-legged vessels, which have certain similarities with Hemudu culture pottery in terms of basic instrument shape and small ear shape, chicken crown ear wrench and other detailed decorations, but the difference between the two is more obvious.
According to the determination of many laboratories such as the Carbon 14 Laboratory of the School of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University, the age of the Jingtou Mountain site is between 7800 and 8300 years ago. Its modus operandi was dominated by seafood fishing, both gathering and hunting, as well as early rice farming. "This has high academic value for the study of prehistoric culture in coastal areas." Zhao Hui said.
In the view of Lü Houyuan, a researcher at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Jingtoushan site typically reflects the clear process of environmental change in the early and middle Holocene and the origin and development of human activities on the ancient coastline; its discovery and excavation also provide a new perspective and rare case for the study of the human-land relationship between environmental change, transgression time and process of coastal invasion and the interaction of Neolithic human culture in coastal areas. (End)