Dongguan Cuntou Site

Dongguan Cuntou Site

The Dongguan Cuntou Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Dongguan Cuntou Site is situated on the eastern bank of the Humen estuary of the Pearl River, in the southeastern part of the Pearl River Delta Plain, about 30 kilometers north of Dongguan City and 6 kilometers from Humen Town. The site is distributed on a terrace to the west of Cuntou Village, covering an area of approximately ten thousand square meters. Cuntou is a type of coastal shell mound site, spanning an area of 10,000 square meters. It was excavated twice, in 1989 and 1993, with a total excavated area of 3,375 square meters. The deposit is 1–3 meters thick and can be divided into early and late phases. The later phase represents a mid-to-late Ming Dynasty village site, while the earlier phase was a large settlement. Different functional remains are arranged in an orderly manner, including a waste area in the low-lying southern part and a residential area on the higher ground in the central-northern part. The northern part between these two areas, where public activity spaces remain unexcavated, may have been a burial ground. More than ten house foundations were cleared; all were built on flat ground and included circular and rounded-square shapes, as well as postholes, ash pits, and drainage ditches. Over a thousand stone and bone or horn implements were unearthed. The pottery, characterized by its shapes, production techniques, colors, materials, and decorative patterns, exemplifies the typical features of pottery assemblages from this period in the Pearl River Delta region’s archaeological culture. The site dates back to around 3,500 years ago.

The Cuntou Village Site was approved as a Provincial-Level Cultural Relics Protection Unit by the People’s Government of Guangdong Province in 1989. In 2019, the Dongguan Cuntou Site was included in the eighth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Humen Town: Located on the eastern bank of the Pearl River estuary, Humen covers an area of 178.5 square kilometers and governs 29 community resident committees, with a registered population of 124,000 and a permanent population exceeding 500,000. As a key town in southern China, Humen boasts highly developed transportation, with convenient access by water, land, and air: by water, the Hongye Container Terminal and the planned Shajiao Hezai Port, both approved by the State Council as Class I ports, provide shipping links to cities in South China such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong; by air, Humen is adjacent to Guangzhou Airport to the north, Shenzhen Airport to the south, and Zhuhai Airport to the west; by land, it is served by the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Zhuhai Expressway and Provincial Highway S256... More detailed information about Humen Town++

Further Reading:

· Third Batch of Guangdong Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Eighth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units