Neolithic pottery pregnant woman, Hongshan Culture, Liaoning, 1982

Niuheliang () is a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

archaeological site in

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmo ...

Province,

Northeast China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of ...

, along the middle and upper reaches of the Laoha River and the Yingjin River (presently on the border of Chaoyang and

Jianping County Jianping () is a county in the west of Liaoning province, China, bordering Inner Mongolia to the north, west, and northeast. It is under the administration of Chaoyang City, the urban centre of which is more than to the east. The population is ...

). Discovered in 1983, Niuheliang site belongs to the

Hongshan culture The Hongshan culture () was a Neolithic culture in the West Liao river basin in northeast China. Hongshan sites have been found in an area stretching from Inner Mongolia to Liaoning, and dated from about 4700 to 2900 BC. The culture is named aft ...

(4700–2900 BC). It includes evidence of religion, such as a temple, an altar and a

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...

Description

Niuheliang is a large burial site scattered over hill tops over a 50 square kilometer area. The altitude of Niuheliang ranges between 550 meters and 680 meters above sea level. Niuheliang dates to 3,500–3,000 BCE. It was a burial and sacrificial center in the late Hongshan period. No residential settlements have been discovered here so far.

Temple

The site features a unique

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

on a loam platform, with an

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in pagan ...

and

complex, covering an area of around 5 km². The altar at Niuheliang was made of stone platforms, supported by painted, clay cylinders. A north–south axis connects this temple complex with a central peak of the Zhushan (猪山) mountains, otherwise known as "Pig Mountain". The subterranean ritual complex was built on a ridge and decorated with painted walls, referred to by Chinese archaeologists as the ''Goddess Temple'', due to the discovery of a clay female head with jade inlaid eyes.

Pig dragon A pig dragon or ''zhūlóng'' () is a type of jade artifact from the Hongshan culture of neolithic China. Pig dragons are zoomorphic forms with a pig-like head and elongated limbless body coiled around to the head and described as "suggestively f ...

s and large, nude, clay figurines were also found at Niuheliang. Some of the figurines are up to three times the size of real-life humans; the interior of the figurines was structured from wood and straw. Six groups of cairns were discovered nearby, south and west of the temple site. The primary burial goods accompanying the graves were jade artifacts, although most of the excavated graves had already been looted.

Interpretation

According to the excavator of this site, Guo Dashun, there are in fact two varieties of animals represented in the jades. One is a boar with narrow eyes and flat snout; the other is a bear, represented by round eyes and short perky ears. He also found similar boar and bear symbolism in the vessels found at Xiaoheyan site. The bear has been widely worshipped in Northeast Asia, such as by the Ainu in northern Japan, and in Siberia. Thus, Guo Dashun sees this site in the wider Northeast Asian context. Some similarities with Xinglongwa culture (6200–5400 BC) of northeastern China have also been pointed out.

Pyramidal structure

One year after the temple-cairns complex was discovered nearby a pyramidal structure "disguised" as a hill known as Zhuanshanzi (), which was included during the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

(−206~220) in a section of the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against Eurasian noma ...

. Built with earth and imported stone, its structure is more elaborate than the cairns. This site contains some of the essential elements, temples, cairns and platforms, present in later ancestor worship of the Chinese such as the

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han pe ...

tombs 5000 years later.

Footnotes

References

* Allan, Sarah (ed), ''The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective'', * Nelson, Sarah Milledge (ed), ''The Archaeology of Northeast China: Beyond the Great Wall'',

External links

* {{Coord, 41.2708, 119.4525, display=title Archaeological sites in China National archaeological parks of China Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Liaoning Chinese pottery Neolithic China Populated places established in the 5th millennium BC