Carp Mouth Site

　　 The Carp Mouth Site is located under a rock shelter at the northeast of Dalongtan (Big Dragon Pond), on the southern foothills of Longshan (Dragon Mountain), within Dalongtan Park in the southern part of Liuzhou City, Guangxi. It is approximately 3 kilometers north of the Li River.

　　 The site covers an area of over 200 square meters. In early 1980, Luo Xiuying from the Liuzhou Museum and Tan Fasheng from the Guilin Cultural Relics Management Committee discovered the site while conducting a survey of cliff inscriptions around Dalongtan. They collected a small number of sand-tempered pottery shards. The Liuzhou Museum and the Cultural Relics Work Team of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region then excavated the site, covering a total area of 56 square meters. However, apart from a portion in the southern part of T1, most of the area was not excavated to its full depth. The excavation yielded relatively abundant remains and artifacts, including six tombs; and over a thousand pieces of pottery shards, stone tools, bone tools, shell tools, as well as a large number of aquatic and terrestrial animal remains (see Archaeology, No. 9, 1983). After the findings were published, they attracted academic attention, making the site an important one for studying the early Neolithic culture of Liuzhou, Guangxi, and even South China. From October to November 2003, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Cultural Relics Work Team of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Liuzhou Cultural Relics and Archaeology Team, and the Liuzhou Museum jointly carried out a second excavation of the Liuzhou Carp Mouth Rock Shelter Shell Mound Site in Guangxi. The excavation covered a total area of about 8 square meters and uncovered over a thousand pieces of pottery shards, stone tools, bone tools, as well as stone cores and waste flakes, achieving significant academic results.

　　 In 2006, the Carp Mouth Site, as an ancient site dating from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic period, was included in the sixth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level by the State Council.