The Shendun Site in Liyang

The Shendun Site in Liyang

The Shendun Site in Liyang is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Jiangsu Province.

The Shendun Site is located in Kongcun Village, Shezhu Town, Liyang City. Though remote, this area serves as a key passageway between Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. After some searching, reporters finally caught sight of the true form of Shendun: an elongated earthen mound standing about 1 to 2 meters above the surrounding plain, stretching approximately 150 meters from east to west and around 200 meters from north to south, covering a total area of nearly 30,000 square meters.

On-site, Tian Mingli, an archaeologist from the Nanjing Museum, explained that the cultural layers at the Shendun Site average between 1.5 to 2 meters in thickness. The excavation revealed a relatively intact clan communal cemetery from the Majiabang Culture period of the Neolithic Age, dating back 7,000 to 6,000 years. A total of 252 graves, 16 infant jar burials, 10 house foundations, 102 ash pits, and one ditch were unearthed. Additionally, nine tombs from the Liangzhu Culture (5,300–5,000 years ago) and one ash ditch remnant from the late Xia to early Shang period (3,700–3,300 years ago) were discovered. A large number of artifacts were excavated, including pottery, stone tools, jade objects, bronze ware, as well as plant and animal specimens. These findings fill a gap in the ancient cultural history of western Taihu Lake and are of great significance for further research on the distribution, characteristics, interactions, and cultural influence across the Neolithic sites in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. They also provide extremely rich physical material for the study of prehistoric archaeology in China. In short, the Shendun Site is currently the earliest and best-preserved prehistoric site within Liyang, and also one of the oldest Neolithic sites in the Taihu Lake region.

On December 19, 2011, the People's Government of Jiangsu Province designated it as part of the seventh batch of provincial-level cultural heritage protection units.

Kongcun Village: Located south of Hexin Line. … More details about Kongcun Village++

Further Reading:

· Seventh Batch of Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Heritage Protection Units