The Huangshan Neolithic site in Nanyang, Henan

Abstract

The Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, in conjunction with the Nanyang Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, carried out excavations across an area of 2400m2 at the Huangshan site in Nanyang City from May 2018 to January 2022. The site spans various cultural periods, ranging from the Yangshao and Qujialing to Shijiahe cultures. The excavation uncovered a wide variety of structures and artifacts, including one dock, one section of a canal, 48 houses and stone/jade workshops, 157 tombs, eight sacrificial pits, and more than 140 urn burials. As many as 45,000 jade/stone artifacts was also unearthed. These findings confirm that Huangshan was a core settlement bounded by waterways and specialized in large-scale production of stone/jade objects. The excavation also revealed natural transportation waterways connecting the site to the well-known jade quarry of Dushan Mountain. This significant discovery fills a gap in current understandings of Neolithic jade production sites in the Central Plains and middle Yangtze River region.