Shishou Zoumaling Site

Shishou Zoumaling Site

The Shishou Zoumaling Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Zoumaling Site is located at the border between Zoumaling Village in Jiaoshanhe Town and Tunzishan Village in Huajiadang Town, Shishou City, Hubei Province, and is a Neolithic Age site.

The core of the site is an irregularly rectangular ancient city site, with a maximum east-west length of 370 meters and a maximum north-south width of 300 meters. The city walls were built using layers of yellow, brown, and grayish-white clay. There are city gates located in the middle of the eastern wall and at both the northern and southern ends of the western wall. Within the city, large houses covering up to 100 square meters, medium-sized multi-roomed houses measuring 30–50 square meters, and small houses around 8 square meters have been discovered. Artifacts found within the earthen walls are mostly pottery fragments from the early Qujialing Culture, and the site is overlaid with late Qujialing Culture pits and tombs. Based on this, it is inferred that the city was initially built during the early Qujialing Culture period.

The Zoumaling Qujialing Culture ancient city is one of the earliest and largest confirmed late primitive society city sites in the Yangtze River basin to date. The discovery of the Zoumaling Site provides tangible material for the study of early cities and burial systems in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Stone artifacts unearthed at the site include axes, adzes, chisels, arrowheads, knives, and more; pottery is mainly gray-bodied clay, followed by red-bodied clay, with a small amount of black-bodied clay. Decorative patterns include string patterns, basket patterns, cord patterns, checkered patterns, and perforations. Vessel types include tripods, bean pots, ewers, jars, urns, and spinning whorls.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units