Dalupu Site

Dalupu Site

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

The Dalupu Site is located in Tuku Village, Baisha Town, Yangxin County. The site is bordered by mountains on its northeastern, southeastern, and southwestern sides. It is an irregular rectangle, about 5 meters higher than the surrounding ground. It stretches approximately 400 meters from north to south and 200 meters from east to west, covering an area of 80,000 square meters.

The site was discovered in 1981, and excavations were conducted by the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in 1983, 1990, and 2003, with a total excavation area of 1,658.5 square meters. Various remains from different periods were cleared, including ash pits, pottery kilns, houses, ditches, wells, and tombs. Artifacts from the Neolithic Age mainly consist of pottery and stone tools. In addition to pottery and stone items, the Shang and Zhou Dynasty finds also include a large number of relics related to mining, smelting, and casting.

The Dalupu Site contains remains from the late Neolithic Age and the Shang and Zhou periods, with the latter representing an independent regional cultural type of the Shang and Zhou era in the Jianghan region. The abundance of mining and smelting-related relics indicates that it was a high-level settlement among ancient mining and smelting sites in southeastern Hubei at the time. It provides valuable material for studying the production of ancient mining and smelting, bronze casting, and their technological levels in southeastern Hubei. It is also of great significance for establishing the chronological framework of such cultural types in southeastern Hubei and adjacent areas (southwestern Anhui and northern Jiangxi).

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units