On July 31, the first phase of archaeological excavations at the Jingtou Mountain site, 7 kilometers from the Hemudu site and 1.5 kilometers from the TianluoShan site, was completed in SanqiShi Village, Sanqi Town, Yuyao City, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. On June 1, 2020, Sun Guoping (left), a researcher at the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, introduced the excavated oyster shell to experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Jingtoushan site has unearthed a large number of various marine shellfish that were eaten by the ancestors and discarded. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
From September 2019 to July 2020, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with the Ningbo Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Hemudu Site Museum, conducted archaeological excavations at the Jingtou Mountain site. On the site with an area of 750 square meters, more than 400 exquisite pottery, stone tools, bone tools, wooden tools, shellware, woven fabrics and other cultural relics have been excavated, as well as rich animal and plant remains such as antlers and rice, as well as ash pits, food storage pits, burning mounds and tree roots with dense shell accumulation, as well as relics such as utensil processing and food processing sites. After the "carbon 14" dating, it was determined that the site was about 8,000 years old, and the highest could reach more than 8,300 years, more than 1,000 years before the famous Hemudu culture. The picture shows that on June 1, 2020, archaeologists at the Jingtou Mountain site are displaying the excavated conch shell with holes, which may be musical instruments or ornaments made from the conch shell. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
From the excavated cultural relics of the Jingtou Mountain site, the production, living conditions and natural environment characteristics of the ancestors in the southeast coastal area of China more than 8,000 years ago can be clearly restored. The archaeological achievements of the Jingtou Mountain site are a major breakthrough, which not only pushes forward the source of human history in Ningbo by more than 1,000 years, but also provides fully convincing scientific data for the study of China's ancient coastline changes, Holocene sea level rise and fall and paleoclimate change, as well as the origin of marine culture and the source of Austronesian language. In a temporary warehouse at the site on July 13, 2020, archaeologists number and classify the remains of animals unearthed. A large number of animal bones such as cow skulls, antlers, and shoulder blades have been excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
According to expert arguments, this is the deepest and earliest coastal shell mound site buried in the southeast coastal area of China so far, and it is also the first shell mound site in Zhejiang Province. On July 24, 2020, archaeologists analyze and study a well-preserved weave. The Site of Jingtou Mountain is covered by marine sediments of more than 6 meters, and is in a water-filled sealed environment, completely isolated from the surface air, so that many weaves can be preserved. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
The first to provide clues to the site of Jingtou Mountain to the archaeological agency were Wang Weiyao, a villager in Sanqi City, and Wang Weixin, a cousin. In October 2013, Brother Wang Weiyao and Wang Weixin saw that there were small sea shells, animal bones, pottery pieces, bone fragments and other relics in the mud core of the original factory area, so they sent the shells, antler fragments and other relics to the staff of the Provincial Archaeological Institute who were archaeologizing at the TianluoShan site. The picture shows the edge of the mouth of a red-clad clay pot excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site on June 18, 2020. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
After on-site investigation and verification by archaeologists, it was found that the mixed co-occurrence traits of pottery pieces and shells were special, and it was confirmed that the characteristics of pottery pieces were both similar and obviously different from those of Hemudu culture. Subsequently, it was excavated and manually drilled at the bottom of the 3.5-meter deep pit to explore the depth of cultural accumulation and burial of more than 7 meters, which preliminarily confirmed that the JingtouShan site was a prehistoric shell hill site that had never been found in Zhejiang archaeology. The picture shows that on June 23, 2020, the production process of pottery excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site is still relatively rough and simple, but there have been jomon patterns, shallow checks, carved patterns and other ornaments, as well as red, brown, black and other colors, of which the color of the cooker is mostly gray-black, and the pottery used for daily food has added bright and bright red. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
In 2017, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage approved excavations of the Jingtou Mountain site. The Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Zhejiang Province decided to learn from the practice of channel steel covering the underground site buried at a depth of more than 2 meters in Japanese archaeological excavations, and built an excavation pit surrounded by steel structures before archaeological excavations. The foundation pit was completed in August 2019. In September 2019, the archaeological excavation stage was officially transferred. The picture shows the representative wooden artifact "Family Portrait" excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site on June 1, 2020. These woods are very well preserved because they have been buried in the layers of intrusion sediment since 8,000 years ago. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
So far, the excavation of the exploration party in the pit has been completed, laying a solid foundation for the next stage of data collation. Experts believe that in addition to its own major historical and academic value, the excavation process of the Jingtou Mountain site is also of considerable academic value. The picture shows that on July 24, 2020, Sun Guoping, a researcher at the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, fished out a long wooden tool from the water and embedded an angular stone tool into an oval hole in the wood, which became a sharp weapon that can cut down trees and process wood - stone axes. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
This archaeological excavation is a successful application of the steel structure enclosure pit project to the archaeological excavation of the super-large buried deep underground site, and the method of archaeological excavation of the deep buried site has been effectively explored. The excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site, together with the excavation of the No. 1 shipwreck in the South China Sea and the excavation of the Zhangxianzhong Shenyin site in Jiangkou, Sichuan, have become three classic examples of archaeological excavations of special objects for different environmental conditions in China, and have pioneering significance in the archaeology of prehistoric sites along the coast of China. Pictured on July 24, 2020, a small amount of pots are glued to an excavated pottery pot fragment, which proves that the ancestors of Jingtou Mountain 8,000 years ago not only ate rice, but also cooked with fired pottery. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On July 29, 2020, archaeologists were deeply attracted by the newly excavated wooden bowls at the Jingtou Mountain site. On July 17, archaeologists accidentally found the wooden bowl while cleaning up the landslide caused by plum rain at the T410 exploration side of the Jingtou Mountain site. In the Hemudu site, a wooden tire vermilion lacquer bowl was excavated, dating back more than 6,000 years, and this time the wooden bowl excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site was finely processed, simple in shape and dexterous, dating more than 8,000 years, which may be the earliest wooden bowl excavated in China and even in the world. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 3, 2020, the Jingtoushan site contained a cultural accumulation profile of dense shells. These cultural layers are formed at different stages, and the arabic numerals pasted indicate the stage of formation, and the approximate age of the cultural layer can be judged from the excavated relics. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 1, 2020, archaeologists are protecting a well-preserved wooden paddle in the formation. The formation of this wooden oar is buried at a depth of 10 meters from the ground, more than 8,000 years ago, and is the earliest and most advanced nautical oar in China. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 3, 2020, archaeologists are cleaning and on-site protection of newly excavated weft vessels. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 3, 2020, archaeologists are carefully cleaning up the newly discovered acorn storage pit at the Jingtou Mountain site. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 1, 2020, the weather was hot, and archaeologists sprayed water to moisturize the wood and other relics that had not yet been extracted in the foundation pit of the Jingtou Mountain site. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 2, 2020, Sun Yingju, a villager in Erliu City, Sanqi Town, was cleaning the silt that had just been excavated. More than 40 villagers from villages near the Jingtou Mountain site participated in the archaeological excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 3, 2020, a steel structure enclosure foundation pit was built as a safety guarantee before the excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site, which is the first time in the archaeological excavation of a prehistoric site with a large burial depth in China. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On July 8, 2020, archaeologists were excavating a foundation pit to clear the collapse of the east wall of T409. Affected by the plum rain belt, there was continuous heavy rainfall in Yuyao, resulting in different degrees of landslides in the excavation pits of the Jingtou Mountain site. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 18, 2020, the soil of the cultural layer of the Jingtou Mountain site, which contains a large amount of shellfish, was classified and stacked. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On July 17, 2020, technicians were working in the Jingtou Mountain Archaeological Foundation Pit before the unveiling of the thin layer specimen of the formation profile, and the specimen removal needed to be completed by brushing resin, gauze, peeling, washing, surface treatment and other steps. The purpose of the excavation is to record, preserve, study and display archaeological excavation data more precisely. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 3, 2020, Dr. Zheng Yunfei of the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Zhejiang Province conducted a study on the remains of small plants excavated from Jingtou Mountain and found that 8,000 years ago, in addition to eating seafood and wild fruits, the ancestors had begun to grow rice and eat rice in small quantities. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)
On June 1, 2020, drone aerial photographs of excavation pits (blue part) at the Jingtou Mountain site. The Jingtou Mountain ruins are located at the southern foot of Jingtou Mountain at an altitude of 72 meters, 7 kilometers away from the Hemudu ruins and only 1.5 kilometers from the Tianluo Mountain ruins. (Photo by Chen Binrong/Guangming Photo)