Taosi probably cradle of Chinese state: archeologist

Zhangjiagang (CNS) -- Taosi, a site of the Longshan culture located in Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province, was probably the earliest Chinese state, an archaeologist said at a seminar on May 22.

The archaeologist He Nu came to this conclusion based on materials found on the site.

It has been ten years since the Taosi site was uncovered in 2000. First built during the middle phase of the Taosi Longshan culture (2500-1900 BC), it is rammed earth walls are between seven and ten meters in width and form an elongated rectangle with rounded corners and an enclosed area of nearly 2.7 million square meters.

The site includes a very large cemetery (over 30,000 square meters) with thousands of graves. Most of the excavated graves were found to contain no grave goods, but six of them contained articles associated with elite classes, such as painted wooden coffins, jade, lacquer and ritual pottery sets, and musical instruments.

The ruins represented the emergence of a real city as we would define it today, with the wheel-and-spoke economic and social relations of the typical city state, said He.