Wudangang Site

　　The Wudangang Site is situated in Fengshou Village, Huoli Town, Ma'anshan, Anhui Province. It was unexpectedly discovered by local cultural heritage departments during a cultural relics census carried out in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is a well-known cultural site in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The site is adjacent to the famous Putan Scenic Area, and the surrounding terrain is diverse. The ancient site exhibits a distinct "Hushu" cultural style, bearing a typical southern temperament that differs from the Central Plains and Jianghuai cultures of the time.

　　The Wudangang Site covers a total area of 100,000 square meters. The settlement included multiple functional zones, where over 40 artifacts from the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties were discovered, along with a burial site spanning approximately 7,000 square meters. In 2002, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology led a rescue excavation of a 2,500-square-meter living area within the site. Nearly 400 cultural relics were unearthed, including production tools, daily utensils, and weapons, categorized into three main types: stone, pottery, bronze, proto-porcelain, and bone artifacts. These findings indicate that as early as 3,500 years ago, the area already had highly developed handicrafts, agriculture, and fishing industries, making it one of the central urban hubs on the land of China.

　　One of the major discoveries at the Wudangang Site is a well. The well has an opening diameter of about 13 to 14 meters and a bottom diameter of around 1.2 meters, both nearly circular. Apart from slight damage to the upper part, the rest of the well is very well preserved. At its center is a nearly circular stone ring, initially about 95 centimeters in diameter, gradually expanding downward. At a depth of 8 meters, the shaft diameter reaches about 1.2 meters, then narrows again to 85 centimeters until the bottom. A row of vertical footholds can be found on the southeastern outer wall of the well, likely created for climbing during its construction. Just over a hundred meters away from this ancient well lies what was once a moat. Why did the ancient inhabitants choose to dig a well instead of using the readily available river water? Professor Che Guangjin from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics explains that residents in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River at the time suffered long-term from schistosomiasis. To prevent the disease, they had no choice but to dig wells.

　　Cultural relics such as ploughshares, wood, bronze arrowheads, and animal bones were found in the backfill soil outside the well. Inside the well, a wealth of cultural artifacts was discovered, predominantly pottery. Based on the cleaning process, the fill soil inside the well originated from the cultural layers of the Wudangang Site and was manually transported. Artifacts unearthed—including divination bones, peach pits, deer antlers, and a broken bronze sword—indicate that the early period of the well’s use also coincided with its peak in water extraction. Moreover, the time period when the backfill soil was deposited in the well should not be later than the end of the Spring and Autumn period, suggesting that the settlement’s later residents no longer used this water source.

　　Wells of the same scale and type have never been seen in China before. The cultural relics unearthed from the well serve like a vivid encyclopedia, presenting a truthful depiction of social life during the Shang and Zhou periods. The pottery artifacts excavated from the well show clear stratification, providing a valuable cultural development sequence for future research on this settlement. In particular, some of the pottery is exquisitely crafted, such as high-necked jars and stamped hard pottery, indicating that pottery firing techniques had reached a highly advanced level at the time. Some of the stamped hard pottery pieces feature green glaze, especially the proto-porcelain, which has very fine body material, a hard texture, low water absorption, and uniformly applied glaze—proving that the ancestors in Ma’anshan had already mastered mature proto-porcelain firing techniques. Stamped hard pottery and proto-porcelain laid the foundation for the later development of mature porcelain in China. This excavation has yielded many intact related artifacts, offering significant research value. Notably, three divination bones unearthed at a depth of 13.3 meters in the well authentically reflect the cultural influence of the Central Plains spreading to the south.