Settlement site of the Neolithic Age

Location: Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Period: 6,200- 5,400 BC

Excavated in 1983

Significance: The Xinglongwa Culture is named after the site. The find has supplied full and accurate materials to the study of the settlement patterns of the Neolithic Age in north China.

 Introduction

Cylindrical pottery jar: container (bottom-left, height 36.4 cm); Jue, a jade ring from which a segment has been cut: ornament (up-right, diameter 2.8 cm); Jue, a jade ring from which a segment has been cut: ornament (up-left, diameter 2.9 cm); Joint burial of man and pig: (bottom-right, the mouth of the grave is 2.5 m in length, and 0.97 m in width)

The earliest Neolithic culture in the Inner Mongolia region -- the Xinglongwa Cultures -- was identified during the 1980s. Xinglongwa Site covers 20,000 square meters. The excavations yielded the earliest evidence in the area known so far for permanent habitation in villages, ceramic production, and the domestication and cultivation of plants and animals. 

So far we have recovered Xinglongwa ceramics in 16 different collection units in 14 spatially discrete small sites. The largest of these sites covers less than 3 hectares. These are presumably the remains of small economically self-sufficient egalitarian villages. The unearthed relics include bone and stone artifacts, pottery and jade. The earliest jade in China's existing history was found in this site. Xinglongwa Site is by far the earliest and best-preserved settlement site of the Neolithic Age.

Further survey will be required to determine whether this occupation is relatively evenly spread throughout the region or tends to concentrate in certain sectors based on resource distribution or other factors. Further site excavation and comparative study of features and artifact assemblages at the household scale will be required to delineate possible patterns of social or economic differentiation, productive specialization, etc. Faunal and botanical remains reported to date demonstrate the presence of domesticated species, but quantitative study will be required to evaluate their relative importance as well as that of wild plants and animals, and thus the completeness of reliance on agriculture and herding.