Excavation on the Ancient Cities in the Chang-jiang Basin

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The discovery of large walled sites from the middle Changiiang River valley during the last ten years has provided impetus for examining the development of complex societies. We have focused on the walled sites during the third millennium B. C. in the discussions about the origins of Chinese civilization, for that purpose we, Joint Archaeology Team of Jingzhou Museum, Hubei and Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, have excavated Yinxiangcheng site, one of the medium-sized walled sites, and simultaneously undertook archaeological surveys for the other walled sites.We have investigated seven large sites with walls in the middle Changjiang River valley. It appears that these walled sites were constructed during the Qujialing Culture. There is intriguing variation in size of walled enclosures. The site of Shijiahe is the largest walled site complex, now more than 40 settlements are known within/without the enclosed area. Except for some houses, storage pits, and burials, the major find at the site is a ritual structure. Among the ritual objects the big-mouth zun beaker with incised signs, which were typical of the Dawenkou Culture, is of the utmost significance. There can be no question that the Qujialing-Shijiahe Culture and the Dawenkou Culture had touched each other directly, and that Shijiahe site served as the ceremonial center and the central place for long distance exchanges within regional settlement hierarchies.