Xiajiadian Settlement Site

Xiajiadian Settlement Site

The Xiajiadian Settlement Site is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Xiajiadian Settlement Site is located beneath a small hill near the riverbank on the north side of the Yinqin River, 15 kilometers east of Chifeng Street. It was first discovered in 1960 by the Inner Mongolia working team of the Archaeological Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences at the village of Xiajiadian. The site contains deposits of two distinct cultural types.

The remains of the "Lower Xiajiadian Culture" include: pottery, mainly sandy gray clay pottery, followed by fine clay gray pottery and sandy brown pottery, with small amounts of red and black pottery. The pottery is hard, fired at high temperatures, and the colors are relatively pure. The vessel forms include zun (wine vessels), bowls, jars, li (tripod cauldrons), basins, tripods, urns, ring-footed vessels, spinning whorls, and more.

Stone tools include narrow-topped, wide-bladed stone hoes made by percussion, as well as polished rectangular stone shovels, stone knives, stone pestles, and stone balls. Other items include bone arrowheads, bone daggers, bone needles, bone awls, oracle bones, bone tubes, and shell ornaments. There are also animal bones from dogs, sheep, deer, and cattle.

The remains of the "Upper Xiajiadian Culture" include: pottery, which is loose and coarse in texture, fired at lower temperatures, with more red pottery and less brown pottery. The surfaces of the vessels were often polished to produce a sheen, and fewer vessels feature decorative patterns. The vessel forms include li, jars, pots, dou (bean-shaped vessels), bowls, spinning whorls, and pottery pendants, all handcrafted.

Stone tools are more numerous, most of which were initially shaped by percussion and then further polished. The forms are mostly production tools, including axes, hammers, stone knives, disc-shaped and ring-shaped implements, pestles, mortars, stone pendants, grinding stones, and stone molds.

Other artifacts include triangular cone-shaped bone arrowheads, bone awls, bone daggers, bone needles, needle tubes, perforated bone tools, bone beads, oracle bones, horn tools, and shell tools. There are also bones of dogs, pigs, sheep, cattle, horses, and chickens, with pigs and dogs being the most common.

The Xiajiadian Settlement Site is an important primitive cultural relic in northern China. Since these two cultures coexist within one site but display distinctly different characteristics, archaeologists have named them separately as the "Lower Xiajiadian Culture" and the "Upper Xiajiadian Culture."

The "Lower Xiajiadian Culture" represents the earliest Bronze Age civilization in the Chifeng region, dating back to the Xia and Shang dynasties through the middle period of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The "Upper Xiajiadian Culture" can also be referred to as the "Donghu Culture" in the Chifeng region. Its chronological range likely begins before the Spring and Autumn Period and ends before the arrival of the Warring States culture represented by the Yan and Qin states.

The site provides excellent relative stratigraphic and physical evidence for understanding the developmental sequence of various Neolithic cultural types in the Chifeng area.