New archaeological discoveries push back Huangshi’s metallurgical civilization by 2,000 years

Huangshi Neolithic Site. (Photo/Courtesy of the Information Office of Huangshi People’s Government)

The previously considered "3000-year continuous flame" of Huangshi's metallurgy civilization in Central China's Hubei Province has been recently overturned, with new field archaeological survey results indicating that the civilization may trace back to more than 5,000 years ago, advancing the timeline by 2,000 years, according to the Information Office of Huangshi’s People’s Government. This new discovery will have a significant impact on the study of Huangshi's and even China's metallurgical civilization history.

Through this new special field-based archaeological survey, the prehistoric cultural development context of the Huangshi region has been preliminarily mapped out in terms of time and space. The study shows that the area was home to the Xuejiagang culture from around 5500 to 5300 years ago, and the Qujialing culture and Shijiahe culture from around 4100 to 5100 years ago, providing evidence of the long-standing history of the prehistoric culture in this region. More importantly, copper ores and other metallurgical artifacts were collected from a single Neolithic site, providing important clues that copper mining in this area can be traced back to over 5,000 years ago.

During the survey which lasted for half a year, 30 natural sections of the site were cleaned, and explorations were conducted at 7 locations, totaling 48 drill holes. A total of 425 artifacts were collected, including 60 metallurgical-related artifacts collected from 18 sites. Among these, about 50 metallurgical artifacts with a diameter of over 5 millimeters were found, accounting for 45 percent of the investigated artifacts. Additionally, a new Neolithic site was discovered.

Experts have confirmed that the special archaeological survey of Huangshi's metallurgical field has great potential, as it not only has more precisely clarified the cultural foundation and development process of metallurgical heritage, which further elucidating the historical context of the development of handicrafts and social productivity from prehistoric to Shang and Zhou Dynasty(c.1600BC-221BC), but also laid a material foundation for the heritage application work while enriching the connotation of the industrial civilization in the Yangtze River basin.

The next step in the research will be to conduct special archaeological excavations at several key heritage sites, aiming to achieve new breakthroughs in the dating, scale, and level of Neolithic smelting remains. This will further clarify the connections between Huangshi, southeastern Hubei Province and other regions in terms of mining, smelting, and transportation, adding new highlights to the Neolithic archaeology, according to the Information Office of Huangshi’s People’s Government.