Shimao

File:Plan of Shimao archaeological site (2300-1800 BCE).png

The city was surrounded by inner and outer stone walls, in contrast to the rammed earth walls typical of Longshan sites in the Central Plain and Shandong. The walls were 2.5 meters thick on average, with perimeters of approximately 4200 m and 5700 m respectively, and feature gates, turrets and watch towers. The earliest site, the "palace centre", was a large stepped pyramid based on a loess hill which had been reworked to make 11 platforms, with a height of 70m. Each of these was reinforced by stone buttresses. At the top of this pyramid palaces of rammed earth were built. The inner city contained a stone-walled platform, interpreted as a palatial complex, and densely packed residential zones, cemeteries and craft workshops. Unusual features include jade embedded in the city walls, possibly to provide spiritual protection, relief sculptures of serpents and monsters, and paintings of geometrical patterns on the inner walls. Approximately 80 human skulls were found under the city gate, mainly of young girls, suggesting ritual sacrifice.{{cite web | url = http://english.cntv.cn/program/cultureexpress/20130827/101799.shtml | title = Neolithic city ruins shed light on the dawn of Chinese civilization | publisher = China Central Television | date = 27 August 2013 | access-date = 9 April 2016}}{{cite web | url = http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1371141/shaanxi-skull-find-shows-women-were-sacrificed-ancient-china | title = Shaanxi skull find shows women were sacrificed in ancient China | website = South China Morning Post | date = 2 December 2013 | access-date = 9 April 2016}}

The complexity and size of Shimao's fortifications, with its stone walls, bastions and gateways, is unparalleled in contemporary China, in particular compared to the fortifications of the Central Plains which were only made of rammed earth, as in Taosi. This difference in sophistication suggests that several architectural ideas such as the wencheng and the mamian were transferred from Shimao to the Central Plains. Shimao fortifications are actually closer to those of West Asia at the time, suggesting contacts and exchanges with the cultures of the West.{{cite journal |last1=Guo |first1=Qinghua |last2=Sun |first2=Zhouyong |title=The East Gate of Shimao: An architectural interpretation |journal=Archaeological Research in Asia |date=June 2018 |volume=14 |pages=61–70 |doi=10.1016/j.ara.2017.05.001 |quote=Shimao's massive stone walls, bastions and gateways as a complex defensive system find no parallels in the Central Plain and other places in late prehistoric China. It is plausible that knowledge about construction of proto-wengcheng and forerunners of the mamian flowed from the Shimao region to the Central Plain further south as new ideas. From the viewpoint of monumental architecture and sophisticated planning, the fortification at Shimao on the loess plateau surpassed those in the Central Plain during the late Neolithic period. In general, Shimao shares its most distinctive features with some cities or towns in West Asia rather than the Central Plain. Therefore, it is possible that people at Shimao were engaged in local exchange of ideas with surrounding areas. It is also possible that there were contacts of some kind with cultures to the west during different eras about various architectural technologies. More research is needed to understand the nature of such interregional exchanges of ideas over the vast areas of Eurasia.}}

Various jade assemblages were found at Shimao, reflecting exchanges with areas south of the Ordos. Stone sculptures on the contrary tend to support a connection with the artistic traditions of the Altai to the north, as such artistic forms with similar styles were highly developped in northern cultures such as Okunev culture (c. 2400-1750 BCE) of the Tuva, Minusinsk, and Altai regions.{{cite book |last1=Li |first1=Min |title=Social Memory and State Formation in Early China |date=24 May 2018 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-59154-6 |pages=146-147 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iK1XDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA146 |language=en |quote=While the Shimao jade assemblage primarily originated from diverse sources south of Ordos, the incorporation of human statues into the Shimao ritual tradition highlights connections with Altai communities to the north (Gotlib and Podol'skii 2008; Guo 2013). During the third millennium BCE, stone carved human heads, engraved stone columns, and anthropomorphic statues were widely used among metalworking communities of herders and hunter-gatherers active in the vast regions from Altai to Lake Baikal. These ritual remains are frequently associated with the Okunev culture (c. 2400-1750 BCE) of the Tuva, Minusinsk, and Altai regions, which also produced petroglyphs in a similar style (Gotlib and Podol'skii 2008; Jacobson-Tepfer 2015).}}

In general, the stone figures of Shimao can be considered as the result of connections with the Eurasian steppes, as are some technologies such as bronze making and livestock. The sculpted human faces of Shimao are highly similar to those of northern cultures, such as the Okunev culture, the Karakol culture or the Chemurchek culture.{{cite book |last1=Han |first1=Jianye |title=The Making of the Chinese Civilization |date=3 February 2024 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-981-99-4213-8 |page=199 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Ej9EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA199 |language=en |quote=Some of the stone figures showing a human face, bronze ware and the remains of livestock such as sheep and cattle at Shimao, reflected its connection with the Eurasian steppes. Some of the stone figures showing a human face found at Shimao were similar to the human-faced stone carvings of the Okunev culture, Karakol culture and Chemurchek culture in the Altai region in the broad sense of the term. Similar figures showing a heart-shaped or “water-drop-shaped” human face were also commonly seen on the rock paintings of the Altai Mountains, Tianshan Mountain, Helan Mountain and Yinshan Mountain, suggesting possible broad cultural connections in those times between the northern region in its narrow sense, including Shimao, and the Eurasian steppes.}}

File:Animal face at the Shimao Neolithic Site in Shaanxi, China.jpg|Face at the Shimao Neolithic Site, 2300 BCE

Figure at the Shimao Neolithic Site in Shaanxi, China.jpg|Face at the Shimao Neolithic Site, 2300 BCE

File:Shimao humanoid sculpture (stone color).jpg|Shimao humanoid sculpture, 2300 BCE

Shimao column statue (circa 2000 BCE).png|Column statue at the Shimao Neolithic Site, 2300-1800 BCE

File:Bronze ornamental wheel bracelets (Karasuk, Shimao, Taosi).jpg, Shimao, Taosi).]]

Developments such as bronze working, wheat, barley, sheep, goats and cattle seem to appear here earlier than elsewhere in China, showing that its inhabitants were communicating with Eurasian Steppe peoples across extensive trade networks.{{Cite journal|last=Urbanus|first=James|date=May 2019|title=China's Hidden City|journal=Archaeology|pages=34–37}} Additionally, materials likely from Southern China, such as alligator skin drums, have been found, indicating a north–south commerce across what is now modern China. Thin curved bones discovered at Shimao are believed to be the earliest known evidence of the jaw harp, an instrument that has spread to over 100 different ethnic groups, suggesting possible Chinese origins.

File:Shimao Yazhang 石茆出土牙璋.jpg

The techniques deployed by the people at Shimao were multi-faceted: besides large-scale stone fortification, numerous tools and utensils have been found, such as bronze knives, arrowheads and ornaments similar to those of the northern steppes, as well as jade and Longshan-type pottery which tend to be connected to the Chinese Neolithic in the Central Plains.{{cite journal |last1=Rawson |first1=Jessica |title=Shimao and Erlitou: new perspectives on the origins of the bronze industry in central China |journal=Antiquity |date=2016 |page=1 |doi=10.15184/AQY.2016.234 |url=https://www.academia.edu/68375417/Shimao_and_Erlitou_new_perspectives_on_the_origins_of_the_bronze_industry_in_central_China |quote=Shimao’s significance is twofold. First of all, a previously unrecognised Neolithic community has been identified with many unusual practices, including, most notably, largescale stone fortifications—implying a competitive or even hostile social environment—and the presence of bronze knives, arrowheads and ornaments, comparable with those of similar periods in the steppe, alongside jade and Longshan-type pottery, with strong links to wider, central-Chinese Neolithic developments. Secondly, the site and the associated areas with similar stone fortified centres were evidently important links between the peoples of the steppe, in present-day Inner Mongolia and farther north, and the much better-known large sites at Taosi and Erlitou, regarded as the founding centres of China’s Bronze Age culture}}

Some of the artifacts and designs knwon from the Bronze Age civilisation of the Central Plains are though to have been originally created in the northern regions, such as the zhang jade sceptre, a Chinese symbol of political and religious power, which seems to have been created first at Shimao, before spreading to the rest of China, and as far south as Vietnam.{{cite journal |last1=Jaang |first1=Li |last2=Sun |first2=Zhouyong |last3=Shao |first3=Jing |last4=Li |first4=Min |title=When peripheries were centres: a preliminary study of the Shimao-centred polity in the loess highland, China |journal=Antiquity |date=August 2018 |volume=92 |issue=364 |page=1020 |doi=10.15184/aqy.2018.31 |quote=A series of core symbols associated with the Bronze Age civilisation of the Central Plains were, in fact, originally created in the loess highland (Li 2016, 2017). This is evident, for example, in the very important zhang jade sceptre —a core symbol of political and religious power—which was created at Shimao and soon adopted across a very large sphere stretching from the Central Plains to the east coast of China, the Sichuan Basin and the southern coast as far as northern Vietnam (Deng 1997; Sun 2008; Li 2017).}}

The prevailing hypothesis concerning the abandonment of Shimao is tied to a rapid shift to a cooler, drier climate on the Loess Plateau, from 2000 to 1700 BC. This environmental change likely led populations to shift to the Central Plain, leaving the site to be forgotten until the 21st century.

File:Haplogroup frequency of ancient populations of China.png

The populations inhabiting the Shimao site had close genetic connections with earlier populations from the Middle Neolithic Yangshao culture of northern Shaanxi province, indicating a largely local origin for the society. In addition, the Shimao populations had the closest maternal affinity with the contemporaneous Taosi populations from the Longshan culture among the populations in the Yellow River basin. The Shimao populations also shared more affinity with present-day northern Han Chinese than with the southern Han and ethnic minorities (such as Daur, Mongols, Dai, Miao, etc.) of China.{{Cite journal |last1=Xue |first1=Jiayang |last2=Wang |first2=Wenjun |last3=Shao |first3=Jing |last4=Dai |first4=Xiangming |last5=Sun |first5=Zhouyong |last6=Gardner |first6=Jacob D. |last7=Chen |first7=Liang |last8=Guo |first8=Xiaoning |last9=Di |first9=Nan |last10=Pei |first10=Xuesong |last11=Wu |first11=Xiaohong |last12=Zhang |first12=Ganyu |last13=Cui |first13=Can |last14=Cao |first14=Peng |last15=Liu |first15=Feng |date=2022 |title=Ancient Mitogenomes Reveal the Origins and Genetic Structure of the Neolithic Shimao Population in Northern China |journal=Frontiers in Genetics |volume=13 |pages=909267 |doi=10.3389/fgene.2022.909267 |doi-access=free |issn=1664-8021 |pmc=9185412 |pmid=35692842}}{{Creative Commons text attribution notice|cc=by4|from this source=yes}}

{{reflist}}

• {{citation

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| given2 = Roderick | surname2 = Campbell

| given3 = Gideon | surname3 = Shelach-Lavi

| title = Shimao and the Rise of States in China: Archaeology, Historiography, and Myth

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}}

{{Neolithic cultures of China}}

Category:Archaeological sites in China

Category:Former populated places in China

Category:Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shaanxi

Category:Yulin, Shaanxi

Category:23rd-century BC establishments