The Western Zhou Yaoheyuan site in Pengyang County, Ningxia

Abstract

The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regional Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Pengyang County Commission for Preservation of Ancient Monuments conducted archaeological investigations, probing surveys, and excavations of the Yaoheyuan site from 2017 to 2020. They identified various features, including city walls, moats, a high-ranking burial, a cemetery of small-sized tombs, palatial foundations, a bronze foundry zone, as well as roads and a network of water channels. Retrieved artifacts include objects made of pottery, jade and stone, bone and antler, ivory, mussel, proto-porcelain, and inscribed oracle bone. The Yaoheyuan site, dating from the early through the late Western Zhou, is the capital city of the Huo state of the Western Zhou. This excavation provides invaluable new data for understanding Western Zhou political structure and the relationship between the Zhou royal house and the western frontier. It also sheds new light on the chronological framework and the trajectory of social complexity in the eastern Gansu region.