The Songze Culture was a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

culture that existed between 3800 and 3300 BCE in the

Lake Tai Taihu (), also known as Lake Tai or Lake Taihu, is a lake in the Yangtze Delta and one of the largest freshwater lakes in China. The lake is in Jiangsu province and a significant part of its southern shore forms its border with Zhejiang. ...

area near

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

Dates

Three radiocarbon dates were taken from Songze culture layers at Jiangli near

. Two of the dates were obtained from charred rice grains, returning dates of 3360–3090 BCE and 3540–3370 BCE. The third date was taken from knotgrass and produced a date of 3660–3620 BCE. Although it is accepted to be the successor of the Majiabang culture, others have suggested that Songze was a successor phase to the

Hemudu culture The Hemudu culture (5500 BC to 3300 BC) was a Neolithic culture that flourished just south of the Hangzhou Bay in Jiangnan in modern Yuyao, Zhejiang, China. The culture may be divided into early and late phases, before and after 4000 BC respec ...

Sites

Songze

In 1957, archaeologists discovered a site north of Songze Village near Zhaoxiang Town in Shanghai's

Qingpu District Qingpu District, is a suburban district of Shanghai Municipality. Lake Dianshan is located in Qingpu. The population of Qingpu was counted at 1,081,000 people in the 2010 Census. It has an area of . Qingpu District is the westernmost distr ...

. Excavations have been conducted throughout 1961, 1974–1976, 1987, 1994–1995, and 2004. These revealed three cultural layers: the most recent had

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 ...

from the

Spring and Autumn period The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives fr ...

; the middle layer was a cemetery with 148 graves and numerous artefacts; the oldest layer belonged to a village of the Majiabang culture.

Nanhebang

92 graves have been excavated from a Songze cemetery at Nanhebang.

Pishan

The Pishan cemetery contained 61 burials.

Dongshan

Dongshan Village is located near Jingang Town 18 km west of Zhangjiagang. It was discovered in 1989 and has undergone excavations by the Suzhou Museum (1989–1990), followed by two large rescue excavations led by the

Nanjing Museum The Nanjing Museum () is located in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province in East China. With an area of , it is one of the largest museums in China. The museum has over 400,000 items in its permanent collection, making it one of the largest ...

in 2008–2009. The site is divided into three areas: area 1 was a small cemetery of 27 burials, all of which had different quantities of

grave goods Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods may be classed as a ...

, which has been used to suggest the existence of a

stratified society Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). A ...

; area 2 was a residential comprising five buildings in the centre of the site; area 3 was another burial ground in the site's west, with 10 tombs.

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{Neolithic cultures of China Neolithic cultures of China Yangtze River Delta History of Jiangsu History of Shanghai History of Zhejiang 4th-millennium BC establishments