The Dolmens on the Upper Reaches of the Huifa River are a collection of more than 80 megalithic tombs found along two tributaries of the

Huifa River The Huifa River () is a 267.7-km-long tributary of the Second Songhua River in center Northeast China. The source of river is located in Qingyuan Manchu Autonomous County of Liaoning Province and flows generally from west to east across Meihekou、 ...

Overview

The

dolmens A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...

are located in the administrative divisions of

Liuhe County Liuhe () is a county of southwestern Jilin province, China, bordering Liaoning province to the southwest. It is under the administration of Tonghua City, with a population of 360,000 residing in an area of . Administrative divisions There are 11 t ...

and Meihekou City in

Tonghua Tonghua () is a prefecture-level city in the south of Jilin province, People's Republic of China. It borders North Korea's Chagang Province to the south and southeast, Baishan to the east, Jilin City to the north, Liaoyuan to the northwest, an ...

, Jilin. They are distributed throughout the drainage basins of the Yitong () and Santong () rivers, both tributaries of the

. Most were built on low-lying mountain ridges. More than 80 dolmens have been recorded. The majority were made using a worked

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

slab for the floor, three to four rectangular or square slabs as walls, and a large slab that was placed on the top to act as an overhanging roof. Most slabs measure over 1 metre, but the largest is approximately 2 metres. The deceased was sometimes interred inside the dolmen or in a pit below the monument. In the latter cases, the walls of the grave were either made from stone or

tamped earth Rammed earth is a technique for constructing foundations, floors, and walls using compacted natural raw materials such as earth, chalk, lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently as a sustainable building method. ...

. Excavations of the burials have discovered

human remains Human remains may refer to: A corpse or skeleton * A deceased human body ** A cadaver ** A Human skeleton, skeleton Music * Human Remains (band), an American grindcore band * Human Remains (Hell album), ''Human Remains'' (Hell album), 2011 * Huma ...

, stone

arrowheads An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as s ...

, and reddish-brown coarse

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

Dates

Based on a presumed relationship between the dolmens and other archaeological sites, Hong Feng suggested that they mainly date to the ninth century

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

, with some potentially being built into the fifth century BCE. Yu Xiaohui, however, has argued that the dolmens represent the northernmost point where Northern-style East Asian megaliths are found. As a result, they are probably later than similar structures on the Liaoning Peninsula and may date later to around the fifth century BCE.

Protection

The dolmens were listed as a

Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level A Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National LevelEnglish translation for "全国重点文物保护单位" varies, it includes Major Site (to Be) Protected for Its Historical and Cultural Value at the National Level, Major Histo ...

in 2006.

References

Notes

Works cited

* * {{Jilin topics Dolmens Tombs in China Archaeological sites in China 1st millennium BC in China Bronze Age cultures of Asia Cultural history of Korea Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Jilin Buildings and structures in Jilin Liuhe County