4 pits at Sanxingdui Ruins dated to 3,000 years ago: archaeologists

(ECNS) -- The No. 3, No. 4, No. 7, and No. 8 sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwest China's Sichuan Province can be traced back to the late Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC), provincial archaeological authorities said Monday.

Archaeologists carried out carbon-14 dating on nearly 200 samples, whose burial ages were between 1,131 BC and 1,012 BC, said the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archeology Research Institute at a press conference.

The burial age of the No. 3, No. 4, No. 7, and No. 8 sacrificial pits were basically the same, while the No. 5 and No. 6 pits were older, according to provincial archaeological authorities.

With these findings, the dispute over the burial age of the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits that has been raging for over 30 years has been laid to rest. 

A total of 1,834 square meters of the sacrificial area have been evacuated from 2020 to 2022, confirming it to be mostly rectangular in the direction from northwest to southeast, covering nearly 13,000 square meters in total.

The newly discovered six pits from No. 3 to No. 8 have produced nearly 13,000 numbered cultural relics, of which 3,155 were relatively complete.