The Xinzongji Site

　　The Xinzongji Site is situated in Xinzongji Village, Qinghe Subdistrict, Cao County. It is a provincial-level cultural heritage protection unit. The site spans 172 meters in length from north to south and 60 meters in width from east to west, covering a total area of 10,320 square meters. It contains cultural remains dating from the Neolithic Age to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Registered in 1963, the site underwent two trial excavations by the Heze Regional Cultural Relics Work Team in 1969 and 1976. Artifacts unearthed include items from the Longshan Culture period such as cups, jars, bowls, basins, and funnels, bone tools like awls and chisels, stone implements such as shovels and sickles, as well as a large number of fish bones and shell fragments. The cultural strata at this site are thickest in the Longshan Culture layer, with abundant unearthed relics that exhibit typical features of both Shandong Longshan Culture and Henan Longshan Culture. It represents another type of Longshan Culture remains that lie between these two cultural traditions. During the third national cultural relics survey, collected samples included pottery shards such as Shang Dynasty sandy red pottery cord-marked li tripods and gray clay plain-surfaced jars. The site provides detailed material for studying the distribution of Longshan, Shang, and Zhou cultures.

　　Source: Heze Municipal Office of Local Chronicles