Dayi Mountain Site

Dayi Mountain Site

The Dayi Mountain Site is located on Qingfeng Ridge at the eastern foot of Dayi Mountain, 1.5 kilometers north of Guanyun County. It sits at an elevation of 8 meters. The southeastern part of the site was damaged in earlier years. The remaining area measures 70 meters from east to west, 45 meters from north to south, covering a total area of 3,150 square meters. In 1985 and 1986, the Nanjing Museum, the Lianyungang City Museum, and the Guanyun County Museum conducted two excavations.

The cultural layer at the site is relatively thin, ranging only from 0.65 to 1 meter in depth. The remaining area is identified as a cemetery of the Qingliangang Culture. A total of 62 stone coffin tombs have been unearthed, all aligned in the same direction and densely distributed. All tombs are single-coffin, face east, and consist of natural thin stone slabs pieced together without a base slab, topped with several flat stone slabs as lids. The stone coffins are wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, wider at the head end and narrower at the foot end. Most are adult burials, with a few children’s graves, all featuring single inhumations in a supine, extended position. Most tombs contain a small number of burial objects. Stone artifacts include axes, adzes, shovels, and whetstones, while pottery items include bowls, basins, cups, tripods, ding vessels, jars, pitchers, and tools such as pottery stamps and spinning wheels. The pottery is mostly red and reddish-brown, with distinctive features including ding vessels with wide-rimmed, conical feet, red-rimmed pottery bowls, and small-necked, globular jars with double handles. Some vessel bottoms are inscribed with symbols. Jade artifacts include huang pendants, ? (possibly a jade ornament), and earrings. Bone artifacts mainly consist of awls and wild boar teeth.

These tombs date back approximately 6,000 years, making them the earliest known stone coffin tombs discovered in China to date. The cemetery holds significant value for studying the characteristics, types, and social structure of the Qingliangang Culture. The site also contains a small number of later cultural remains as well as Western Han Dynasty tombs.