Dongjiabo Site

　　The Dongjiabo Site is situated on a highland about 300 meters southeast of Dongjiabo Village, approximately 3 kilometers east of Wenshang County. The site is around 300 meters long from east to west, about 50 meters wide from north to south, covering a total area of roughly 15,000 square meters. It was discovered during a cultural relics survey in 1986, and from spring 1989 to spring 1990, the Shandong Team of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, organized excavations.

　　Two rounds of excavation uncovered an area of 1,000 square meters, revealing more than 10 house foundations, over a dozen ash pits, and 19 cleared tombs. The house foundations were either gourd-shaped or circular, all semi-subterranean structures. Each house covered an area of 8 to 20 square meters. The tombs were relatively densely distributed, mostly at depths of less than 30 centimeters below the surface, predominantly featuring supine burials with straight limbs. In addition to single burials, there were also group burials of three people, displaced burials, and secondary burials, reflecting characteristics of a matrilineal clan society with exogamous pairings.

　　Over 100 artifacts were unearthed, including pottery, stone, bone, and horn objects. Among them, the pottery items included bowls, plates, basins, cups, and small-necked double-handled jars; the stone tools comprised grinding plates, grinding rods, stone axes, and adzes; the bone artifacts included bone needles, bone awls, and hair-binding devices. The pottery was all handmade, with slightly soft clay, mainly sandy red-brown pottery, showing relatively primitive craftsmanship. The stone production tools were thick and heavy, still retaining traces of flaking, while the polished parts appeared coarse. More than 200 microliths were also collected from this site. These microliths included cores, flakes, scrapers, points, and engraving tools, most made of black flint and a small number directly chipped from quartzite.

　　Preliminary findings from the excavation indicate that the Dongjiabo Site is an early prehistoric cultural relic of the Beixin Culture type, dating back about 7,000 years. The Beixin Culture is the earliest discovered prehistoric culture in the lower reaches of the Yellow River to date, predating the Dawenkou Culture by more than 1,000 years, and represents a developmental stage of a matrilineal clan society. The tomb clusters unearthed here offer insights into the living customs of humans 7,000 years ago through the accompanying pottery, stone, and bone artifacts. The over 200 microliths collected here, dating back more than 10,000 years, were also the first such discovery in the plains of China. This finding refutes the notion that “microliths cannot exist in plains.” At the same time, it fills a gap in the microlith record of Jining City and provides new clues for tracing the origins of the Beixin Culture.