Fanchengdui () is an archaeological site located in

Zhangshu Zhangshu (), formerly Qingjiang County (Tsingkiang) (), is a county-level city under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Yichun, in the west-central part of Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is ...

city in the province of

Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It is located upstream on the secondary tributary of the

Gan River The Gan River (, Gan: Kōm-kong) runs north through the western part of Jiangxi before flowing into Lake Poyang and thus the Yangtze River. The Xiang-Gan uplands separate it from the Xiang River of neighboring eastern Hunan. Two similarly sized ...

. The Fanchengdui site is located about 23 km east of another archaeological site, Shinianshan. The river Meng flows through the south part of the Shinianshan site roughly from northwest to southeast, before entering a primary tributary of Gan, Yuanshui. Near Fanchengdui the two rivers and Xiaojiang meet, and together they enter Gan river. Underneath the site there is a salt mine. The site was discovered in 1975. Three consecutive excavations were done in 1977, 1978 and 1980. The site is a mound, 1~3 meters in height relative to the surrounding plain, 124 meters in length from north to south, 100 meters from east to west - an area of over 10 000 square meters. In 2006 it was designated as the sixth protected national cultural heritage site.

Excavation

Fanchengdui is a typical Bronze Age site of the area, which can be divided into seven cultural layers. The first layer is cultivated land, about 30 cm thick. The second layer belongs to

Wucheng culture The Wucheng culture (吳城文化) was a Bronze Age archaeological culture in Jiangxi, China. The initial site, spread out over , was discovered at Wucheng Township, Jiangxi. Located on the Gan River, the site was first excavated in 1973. The Wuche ...

. The remaining layers from third were recently designated as belonging to Fanchengdui culture. The site is not dated yet, but by comparison with the Shinianshan site, relics in the Fanchengdui site are of the same period as the third cultural level of the Shinianshan site, which would put their age at 4300~3700 years before present. The second layer of Fanchengdui site should then be around 3700~3000 years old. Among the unearthed relics are pottery kilns, housing construction, pits and tombs. Tomb styles are typical of the Shinianshan and Fanchengdui cultures, but there was also discovered an urn tomb typical of the

Shijiahe culture The Shijiahe culture (2500–2000 BC) was a late Neolithic culture centered on the middle Yangtze River region in Shijiahe Town, Tianmen, Hubei Province, China. It succeeded the Qujialing culture in the same region and inherited its unique artefa ...

. Among the unearthed tools there are axes, shovels and other tools of production; also cups, bowls, pots, and other daily appliances. In the fourth and fifth levels, a small amount of hard pottery demonstrates that the site belongs to the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

. Inside the tombs,

clay 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 porc ...

with black surface predominates. A large amount of sand- tempered

ding Ding may refer to: Bronze and ceramics * Ding (vessel), a bronze or ceramic cauldron used in ancient and early imperial China * Ding ware, ceramics produced in Dingzhou in medieval China People * Ding (surname) (丁), a Chinese surname and lis ...

shaped like shallow plates was unearthed from the site. Several scholars believe those tools were used in production of

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

References

{{Prehistoric cultures of China Archaeological sites in China Zhangshu History of Jiangxi 1975 archaeological discoveries Populated places established in the 5th millennium BC

Excavation

See also

References