China announces more evidence detailing origins of its 5,000-year-old civilization

Source
CGTN.COM
Editor
Ouyang
Time
2018-05-29


The Erlitou site in central China's Henan Province. /VCG Photo

The project, began in 2001, involves experts from some 70 scientific and archaeological institutions nationwide. The project was supported by national ministries and agencies including China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

On the basis of scientific summary of field archaeology achievements scored in China over the past 90 years, the research team carried out multidisciplinary studies ranging over social division of labor, class differentiation, central cities and compulsory power so as to present prominent features that define the dawn of a civilized society in ancient China, said Guan Qiang, deputy director of SACH.

In the ruins of Liangzhu, archaeologists found an inner city with an area of nearly three million square meters and a larger outer city dating back around 5,000 years.

City ruins with areas between 2.8 million square meters and four million square meters were found in the Taosi site and Shimao site which date back some 4,000 years. In these ancient cities, social stratification are clearly visible in the relics of buildings and graves, experts said.

"These societies were most likely to have had the form of a state," Wang said. "So we believe that the region where these states were located had entered the phase of primary civilization."

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