Off the wire
• Spotlight: Xi steps up sport diplomacy with historic visit to IOC  • Chinese shares close lower Thursday  • Chinese envoy urges eliminating external interferences in solving Iran nuclear issue  • Across China: SW China villages work to break "curse" of poverty, isolation  • Nina at ninety: China's Russian babushka  • Seoul shares end higher  • S.Korean prosecutors to continue probe into conglomerates after rejection of Samsung heir's arrest  • Manufacturing sees solid annual growth in New Zealand  • DPRK can test-launch ICBM whenever its leadership decides: S. Korean military  • Closure of Seagate factory in China a "normal business decision": MOC  
You are here: 　 Home

6,000-year-old cemetery unearthed in NW China

Xinhua, January 19, 2017 Adjust font size:

A 6,000-year-old cemetery where an estimated 2,000-plus people were interred has been excavated in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, archaeologists said.

The cemetery, covering about 90,000 square meters, is located near the Yangguanzhai ruins, which belonged to a late Neolithic culture called the Yangshao that originated on the middle reaches of the Yellow River and is considered a main precursor of Chinese civilization.

It is the largest cemetery from the Yangshao Culture period, researcher Wang Weilin, who headed the excavation, said at an ongoing seminar on new archaeological findings in 2016.

The site has been excavated by archaeologists with the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology since 2015. By the end of 2016, 182 tombs had been found in an area of more than 1,900 square meters.

"Such a big 6,000-year-old public cemetery is quite rare," said Yang Lihua, an associate researcher with the institute. Endi