In the summer of 1973, the Hemudu Site was
discovered accidentally by farmers of Hemudu Village when they built drainage
facilities in the northeast of the village. The renowned Hemudu site, covering
an area of about 40,000 square meters, is an important village site in the New
Stone Age, with cultural relics of about 4 meters thick. The site has four
cultural layers overlapped. According the measurement of C14, the fourth layer
dates back to 6,000 and 7,000 years ago.
Rows of wooden poles and board stakes were
orderly arranged along the small hill. This was a railing-style construction,
with large stake of 23 meters long and 7 meters deep and the front porch about
1.3 meters deep. Most of these wooden poles had mortises and tenons, the
earliest ones that have ever been found in China, indicating that such kind of
techniques were adopted then.
A large amount of rice was unearthed in the
site. The well-preserved rice, including indica rice and japonica rice, was
proved to be cultivated rice. The large amount of well-preserved rice with a
wide distribution area made the Hemudu Site a rare Neolithic site in China and
wrote a new page in the archaeological history of the Neolithic Age with the
first-time discovery of indica rice. Other objects unearthed included tools used
in agricultural production and processing, such as spade-like bone plough,
wooden box, bone sickle, and timber. These proved that agricultural production
had become a main sector in local area 6,000 and 7,000 years ago. The discovery
of rice in the Hemudu Site has another significant meaning. People originally
believed that India was the origin of Asian rice, while the discovery in Hemudu
proved that rice unearthed there was over 3000 years older than that discovered
in India.
Also unearthed in the Hemudu Site was a
large amount of animal bones, including man-feed pig, dog, buffalo, wild deer,
red elk, river deer and bear as well as some extinct species such as elephant
and rhinoceros. These bones provided important data to the study of weather
changes in ancient times and the beginning of primitive stockbreeding.
The Hemudu Culture had a colorful primitive
art. Pottery wares were decorated with animal and plant patterns. Other relics
included pig, sheep and human head figures made of pottery, and bone-enchased
and ivory-enchased objects. The unearthed bone whistle can still make
sounds.
The discovery of the Hemudu Site bears proof
that as early as 6,000 and 7,000 years ago, there appeared quite developed
primitive culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River that is believed to
be one of the cradles of the ancient Chinese
civilization.