Alkaline Water Stone Shed Tomb Cluster

Alkaline Water Stone Shed Tomb Cluster

The Alkaline Water Stone Shed Tomb Cluster is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Huifa River is one of the main tributaries in the middle and upper reaches of the Second Songhua River basin, primarily flowing through southern Jilin Province and eastern Liaoning Province. In the upper reaches of the Huifa River, numerous stone shed tombs are distributed along the valleys of its two major tributaries—the Yitong River and the Santong River—currently under the administrative jurisdictions of Meihekou City and Liuhe County.

To date, more than 80 stone shed tombs have been discovered in this area. Most of these tombs are located on hilltops or ridges at elevations of 500 to 600 meters in the Hadaling Mountain Range, stretching from the northern valley of Alkaline Water at Xinkailing in the east to Ji’guan Lazi in the west. The tombs were constructed with three to four slab stones, half-buried and half-exposed, erected vertically to form the four walls of the burial chamber, topped with larger stone slabs as the cover, featuring wide overhanging eaves around the structure, and the chamber floor was paved with stone slabs. The stones used in constructing the tombs were mostly granite, processed into relatively regular rectangular or square shapes. The burial objects were all pottery items, including excavated artifacts such as pottery jars and pottery spinning whorls.

Investigations and trial excavations have revealed that some of the stone shed tombs contain human skeletal remains, while others show signs of having been burned.

The stone shed tomb clusters from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods in the upper reaches of the Songhua River represent one of the densest distributions of such tombs in China and even Northeast Asia, serving as one of the most valuable examples reflecting the ethnic relations and cultural integration in the region. The Alkaline Water Stone Shed Tomb Cluster has been designated as a provincial-level cultural heritage protection unit by Jilin Province and was recommended as a national key cultural heritage protection unit in 2006.