Yangzhuang Site

Yangzhuang Site

The Yangzhuang Site is a cultural heritage protection unit of Henan Province.

The Yangzhuang Site is located about 6 kilometers southwest of Zhumadian city center. It was discovered on August 13, 1983, during a cultural relics survey conducted by the municipal cultural relics survey team. In January 1985, it was identified as an ancient Neolithic cultural site. On May 31, 1985, the Zhumadian Municipal People's Government announced it as one of the first batch of municipal-level cultural heritage protection units. On September 25, 2000, it was designated as part of the third batch of cultural heritage protection units by the Henan Provincial People's Government. In May 1991, Song Yuqin, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Archaeology at Peking University, conducted a focused investigation of the site. In the autumn of 1992, the Department of Archaeology at Peking University and the Zhumadian Cultural Relics Protection and Management Office jointly excavated the site, covering an area of 486 square meters.

Geographically, the Yangzhuang Site is situated on the second terrace of the Lianjiang River, about 1–2 meters higher than the surrounding areas, with a total area of 40,000 square meters. The cultural layer of the site is generally 2–3 meters thick, with the thickest part reaching up to 4 meters. The lower layer belongs to the early Longshan-era Shijiahe culture, the middle part features a local culture that shares many similarities with the “Meishan type” from the mid-to-late Longshan era, and the upper layer is associated with the early Erlitou culture of the Xia Dynasty. Han Dynasty artifacts are limited to a single well. In addition to a large quantity of pottery, the site has yielded a significant number of stone tools. Based on the lithology of the stone materials, they mainly consist of hard rocks such as marble, quartzite, slightly metamorphosed quartz sandstone, black schist, slate, and black flint. Stone chisel: marble; whetstone: slightly metamorphosed light gray fine sandstone; stone sickle: slightly metamorphosed quartz sandstone; stone arrowhead: black schist and slate; stone adze: dark gray gneiss; stone knife: black flint; stone shovel: slate. The raw materials for these stone tools can all be found in the Precambrian bedrock (formed 600 million years ago) of Qianmiao Township, about ten kilometers southwest of the site.

Further reading:

· Third Batch of Henan Provincial Cultural Heritage Protection Units