Shells unearthed from the Jingtoushan site Photo:CHINA DAILY

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The first-phase archaeological excavation of the Jingtoushan site has  breakthrough results, according to a recent press conference held in Yuyao. Archaeologists have concluded that the site was built 7,800 to 8,300 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the city’s Hemudu Culture ruins, which was considered the first human settlement in Ningbo. Their findings have provided evidence for other studies, such as research on environmental evolution and research on the modes of production and ways of living that helped people adapt to and benefit from the ocean in ancient times. It is of great academic value for research on China’s prehistoric coastal culture.

A carbon-14 dating test has concluded that the Jingtoushan site is more than 8,000 years old. To date, it is the earliest and the most deeply buried shell mound site in the coastal area of southeast China. It is also the first shell mound site found in Zhejiang Province. Archaeologists discovered a dozen remains of household activities, hundreds of relics, numerous shells, as well as animal and plant remains such as antlers and rice.

 

Ancient mode of production
In late 2013, during a construction survey of a factory, workers accidentally found marine shells, animal bones, pottery pieces and bone remnants. Thus, Jingtoushan site was discovered. Staff from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Hemudu Culture Ruins Museum arrived at the site and started excavation, unveiling the 8,000-square-meter cultural deposit buried between 5 and 10 meters underground.

“We have confirmed, the Jingtoushan site is so far the largest and the most deeply buried in China’s coastal area. It is an academic breakthrough in understanding the chronology and geographical distribution of the prehistoric sites in the southeastern coastal area, and the principles of distribution. It is a shell mound as most unearthed relics are marine shells and pottery pieces. It is the only prehistoric shell mound discovered so far in Zhejiang Province,” said Liu Bin, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

In September 2019, the institute, together with the Ningbo Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Hemudu Culture Ruins Museum, carried out the first phase excavation covering 800 square meters at the Jingtoushan site. To date, experts have found more than 10 remains of household activities, including ash pits, food storage pits, burnt clay mounds, utensil processing sites and food processing sites. These remains can reflect the characteristics of the natural environment and people’s production patterns and living styles there 8,000 years ago.
 

Archaeologists have sorted out the unearthed relics in the temporary warehouse built near the site. Of the animal remains, there are sika deer antlers, dog skulls and pig mandibles. The most striking discovery is the hundreds of baskets of various shells, including cockles, spiral shells, razor clams, clams, oysters and other kinds, demonstrating that the ancestors in Ningbo had started to enjoy an abundant seafood diet 8,000 years ago. Remains of early cultivated rice serve as evidence that the people of the time had begun to plant and eat rice.

These ancestors were diet experts, and they also knew how to make treasure out of waste. They polished leftover shells into shell ware and used them as living utensils and production tools. Apart from shells, unearthed relics include a small number of wares made of pottery, stone, wood and bone. Archaeologists have found that some tools display advanced manufacturing processes, such as a kitchen knife-shaped wooden handle for making a stone ax, and a “7”-shaped wooden handle for making a stone adze. Multiple relics and remains indicate that the ancestors’ way of life at Jingtoushan largely depended on marine fishing, supplemented by gathering, hunting and early rice farming.

 

First humans in Ningbo
Peking University’s carbon-14 laboratory and other domestic and foreign scientific research institutions ran the dating tests. The results show that the Jingtoushan site was inhabited by humans between 8,300 and 7,800 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the formation of Hemudu culture.

Hemudu culture is of immense significance in the Yangtze River Basin and even the entire South China region. It is believed to be the origin of wetland rice cultivation in the Jiangnan area and the source of the compound mode of life and production in which people grew wetland rice and engaged in traditional living patterns, such as hunting and gathering. In 1973, the Hemudu site was discovered in Hemudu Town, Yuyao. It gave form to a new historical concept in which the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin cradled Chinese civilization. Later, in the core area of Hemudu culture, important sites such as the Zishan site and the Tianluoshan site were excavated successively.
 

“The discovery and excavation of the Jingtoushan site is a breakthrough in the prehistoric archeological chronology of the Ningshao Plain, and it has also pushed back the origin of human settlement in the Ningbo area as far back as 1,000 years before Hemudu culture,” said Zhao Hui, a professor from the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University.

At the expert panel meeting on the archaeological achievements of the Jingtoushan site, Zhao and other experts agreed that the site provided new perspectives and rare cases for multiple studies regarding environmental changes since the Holocene, the timeline and development of transgression, and human cultural interactions in China’s coastal area during the Neolithic period. These discoveries establish precise space-time coordinates for observing the coastal environment and sea-level rise during the early and middle Holocene.

“This site is the most direct evidence of the sea level 8,000 years ago. Archaeology is more straightforward than marine environmental research and geological drilling research. Through archaeological excavations, we can tell the sea level at each period,” Lui said. Evidence shows traces of seawater here 8,000 years ago even though the site is more than 30 kilometers from the ocean. “The woodenware unearthed from the Jingtoushan site is well preserved. Only mud soaked with water can help protect relics so well,” Liu added.

It is worth mentioning that due to the site’s deep burial and the special geological conditions, the excavation adopted more advanced technology to ensure the safety of archaeologists and cultural relics. Before the excavation, the staff constructed a steel-framed foundation pit to shore up an area of 750 square meters. Its successful implementation marks a step forward in excavating deeply buried sites. Jingtoushan has become a pioneer in the archaeology of prehistoric sites in coastal areas.

 

Origin of Hemudu culture
The Jingtoushan site is only 1.5 kilometers away from the Tianluoshan site, the core area of Hemudu culture.

Expert panel members hold that the cultural features of the two adjacent sites have certain similarities and remarkable differences. For example, the pottery artifacts unearthed from the Jingtoushan site include many kettles and pots, some round-foot ware and no tripod ware. Apart from their similarities with Hemudu relics in terms of shape and decorations, they show greater differences from Hemudu relics.

“The cultural relics of the Jingtoushan site reflect the living conditions and production skills of the ancestors in the Yuyao area. The Jingtoushan people may be the ancestors of the Hemudu people,” said Sun Guobin, a research fellow from the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. The Hemudu site has always been the most authentic and comprehensive window reflecting the interaction between humans and the natural environment in China’s southeastern coastal area 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. Today, the Jingtoushan site has opened another window observing the earlier period.

The pedigree of southeastern Zhejiang before Hemudu culture has remained unknown due to a lack of clues. The excavation of the Jingtoushan site fills this cultural gap. “We have a new understanding of the origin of Hemudu culture and the distribution of the sites before Hemudu culture. It provides us with a new research direction,” Liu said.

 
This article was translated from Guangming Daily.

 

edited by MA YUHONG