China Discovers 6,000 Years Old CultureChinese archeologists have unearthed a Neolithic site dating back to 6,000 years ago in northeast China's Liaoning province.The Xiaodongshan site, located in Chaoyang city, provides new evidence that Chinese civilization originated not only in the Yellow River valley but also in some remote areas. Archeologists have excavated three house sites and unearthed more than a dozen pottery and stone vessels inscribed with colorful patterns. The site belongs to the Hongshan Culture, which was named in 1935 after the finding of a 5,000-year-old site in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The culture developed advanced agriculture and showed some signs of the formation of a state, archeologists say. In 1979, archeologists excavated some temples, altars and tools near Chaoyang, all belonging to the same culture. For many years Chinese and Western anthropologists and historians had widely believed that Chinese civilization emanated in the Yellow River valley and its environs and then spread to other parts. However, recent excavations of some Neolithic sites in the Yangtze River valley as well as in the southern and the northeastern provinces have changed all this. |
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