Shigu Relics Site

Shigu Relics Site

The Shigu Relics Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Shigu Relics Site is located on a terrace about 0.5 kilometers southeast of Laoshigu Village, Changge County, Xuchang City, Henan Province. The site dates back approximately 4,500 to 7,400 years and is another Peiligang culture site of significant academic value discovered after the Peiligang Site in Xinzheng.

Discovered in 1972, the site underwent four excavation phases between 1978 and 1980. Covering an area of about 100,000 square meters, it includes residential remains and tombs. Archaeological excavations covered approximately 1,500 square meters and revealed cultural remains from both the Peiligang and Yangshao periods, with the lower layer belonging to the Peiligang culture and the upper to the Yangshao culture. Seven housing foundations, 282 ash pits, and 96 tombs were found. More than 11,800 artifacts made of stone, pottery, bone, shell, and copper were unearthed. The Peiligang culture relics were the most abundant, including typical items such as stone grinding plates, stone grinding rods, stone axes, stone shovels, stone sickles, tubular bone tools, round-bottomed pots, flat-bottomed pots, false-ring-footed pots, three-legged pots, three-legged bowls, three-legged tripods, three-legged bowls with added coil and pit-pattern decorations, lidded bowls, flared-shoulder pots, and angular-handled jars. The uppermost layers of the Yangshao culture remains at the Shigu Relics Site, particularly the first and second phases, feature unique content and were found in the Central Plains region for the first time.

The clan cemetery at the site consists of individual vertical earthen pit tombs, with most burials in a supine straight-limb position. Scientific dating indicates that these remains are about 7,000 years old, providing new data for exploring the origin and development of mid-Neolithic cultures in the Central Plains.

The Shigu Relics Site is the earliest excavated site in Henan Province that demonstrates the stratigraphic relationship showing the Peiligang culture predating the Yangshao culture. With numerous housing foundations, ash pits, tombs, and rich artifacts from both the Peiligang and Yangshao cultures, it offers valuable information for studying the production and development levels of these two cultures, their social development stages and characteristics, physical anthropology, and ecological environments.

In May 2006, the Shigu Relics Site was designated as part of the sixth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units by the State Council.

Further Reading:

· Second Batch of Henan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Sixth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units