Shijiahe Cultural Site

Shijiahe Cultural Site

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

A Neolithic site. Located in the northern part of Shihetown, Tianmen City, Hubei Province, at the junction of the southern foothills of the Dahong Mountain and the Jianghan Plain. Central geographic coordinates: 113°03′35″ east longitude, 30°46′12″ north latitude. The area covers approximately 8 million square meters. This is the naming site of the "Shijiahe Culture" and serves as an important chronological benchmark for the development of prehistoric culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, as well as a representative of settlement formation and development.

Discovered during the 1954 cultural relics survey, it consists of dozens of ancient cultural sites distributed across Sanfangwan, Tanjialing, Dengjiawan, and other locations, forming a large primitive settlement group. Cultural remains span from the Daxi Culture phase, through the Qujialing Culture, to the Shijiahe Culture, forming a largely continuous developmental process.

Years of excavation have revealed that the central part of the site cluster is the Shijiahe city ruins, built during the Qujialing Culture period. It consists of city walls, a moat, and surrounding terraces. The layout is quadrilateral, approximately 1,200 meters long from north to south and about 1,100 meters wide from east to west. The city walls were built by piling earth, with a base width of about 50 meters, a top width of 4–5 meters, and a remaining height of about 6 meters. The western and southern walls are relatively well-preserved, with a gap of about 400 meters wide on the eastern part of the southern wall. The moat still exists, with a perimeter of about 4,800 meters and a width of about 80–100 meters. Within the city are distributed sites such as Sanfangwan, Tanjialing, Dengjiawan, Xushuling, Huangjinling, and Yangjiawan. Among them, the Sanfangwan site, located in the southwestern part of the city, is an irregular terrace covering about 180,000 square meters, with a cultural layer 1.1–2 meters thick. The terrace surface is scattered with tens of thousands of red pottery cup fragments, possibly indicating a workshop site. The Dengjiawan site, located in the northwest corner of the city, is an irregular oval terrace covering about 60,000 square meters, with a cultural layer 1.5–2.5 meters thick. It has revealed 104 earthen pit tombs, 37 urn coffins, 118 ash pits, and a large number of interconnected red pottery jars, likely serving as a ritual site at the time. The Tanjialing site, located in the central part of the city, is a strip-shaped terrace covering about 200,000 square meters, with a cultural layer about 4 meters thick. It has yielded house foundations, ash pits, and fired earth remains, likely representing the central activity area of the city and the location of large public buildings.

The Shijiahe city was the largest ancient city in the late Neolithic period. Excavated artifacts include a large number of pottery daily utensils, dozens of types of inscribed pottery jars, over a hundred exquisite items such as jade figurines, jade dragons, jade eagles, and jade cicadas, as well as tens of thousands of pottery sculptures of humans and animals, representing the highest level of prehistoric development in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. It has become an important area for studying the origins of Chinese cities and civilization.

In 1996, it was designated as part of the fourth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units by the State Council.

Shihetown: A town under the jurisdiction of Tianmen City. Established as the Shihedistrict in 1955 and upgraded to a town in 1987. Located in the northern part of the city, 13 kilometers from the urban area. It covers an area of 106 square kilometers and has a population of 59,000. The town has two rivers, the East River (referred to as the Jin River in "Commentary on the Water Classic" and locally as Shijiahe) and the West River (referred to as the Yang River in "Commentary on the Water Classic" and locally as Maxi River), and the Tianmen-Xianchang Highway runs through it. It administers the following areas: East River, Pailing, Tangli, Xiaxin, Hudang, Luling, Longwang, Jiepai, West River, Shihexi, Zhusi, Wuwan, Yangling, Hua’an, Wu’liu, Yao’ling, Shimiao, Sunchong, Zhangxiang, Zhuge, Li... More detailed information about Shihetown++

Further reading:

· First Batch of Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Fourth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units