Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, announced that a settlement site dating back to about 3,200 years ago has been excavated in Qingjian County.

According to Sun Zhanwei, a researcher with the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology, large-scale rammed-earth buildings, tombs, ash pits and pottery molds have been found at the Zhaigou site, which spans some 3 million square meters on the Loess Plateau.

A large number of bronze chariots and horses, jade ware, bone ware, lacquerware and tortoise shells were found in the tombs of the nobles at the site, he added.

The new discoveries reflect the close economic and cultural exchanges between the territory of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.) and the region of today’s northern Shaanxi as well as the strong influence of the Shang civilization on its surrounding areas.

Dun pointed out that these discoveries also show that there was a highly developed bronze civilization in northern Shaanxi in the late Shang Dynasty, marking a breakthrough in the archaeological study of the Shang Dynasty.

Source: Qatar News Agency