Yaohe site is located in Xianghua Town, Xichuan County, Henan Province. The site covers about 20,000 square meters. In Spring of 2012, salvage excavation of the site was conducted jointly by Department of Archaeology, School of History, Capital Normal University and Nanyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Excavated area is about 2600 square meters, exploring a large-sized housing remains (F1) from Song and Jin Dynasties with more or less 841 square meters. There are pottery and stone artifacts from Longshan period with their own characteristics being found from filling soil of building base.

The plane of F1 in Yaoheyuan Site

Large-sized building foundation from Song-Jin Periods

F1 is placed in the middle of the site, about 10-20cm underground. The plane is basically in the shape of character “凸”, facing north. Living floor of F1 was completely gone because of destruction of human activities in later period. Only foundation under living floor and about 30 post holes are left. Building foundation consists of main part and a platform, both of which are rectangular in plane. Main part is about 32.3m long and 23.6m wide. Platform is about 12.2m long and 6.45m wide in residue. Construction sequences of housing base is to dig a rectangular foundation trench first, then to fill it with earth and to ram earth into hard and even surface of foundation.

There are relatively many post holes being unearthed. Their lower parts are almost well-preserved. Considering distribution of post holes, it’s predicted that F1 is a multi-roomed building, east-west symmetry. Main room is placed in exactly middle of the building, facing the platform. Side rooms are put in both sides of main room. Post holes in the westward have square plane, the rest are all round in plane. There are only a few post holes having oval pillar foundation stone.

There are more cultural relics from different periods being unearthed from filling earth of F1’s housing base. Cultural relics from early period have pottery shards, stone artifacts and so on from Qujialing-Shijiahe Culture. Artifacts from late period contain pillar foundation stones, circular pottery shards, pan-tiles, semi-circular tiles and so on from Han Dynasty. From above analysis, it’s safe to say that before construction of the building, there was a site lasting from Neolithic period to Han Dynasty. Then it was broken by F1.

According to plane, size and architectural characteristics of building base, F1 is probably a large-sized gathering place, like sort of temple. As for time of F1, it might be no later than Song-Jin periods because there were more pottery and porcelain shards from Song-Jin periods being unearthed from trash pits which broke surface of housing base.

Stone tools from Yaoheyuan Site

Potteries and special tools of production from Neolithic period

Artifacts from Neolithic period are mainly uncovered from filling soil of F1, including pottery shards and stone artifacts and etc. from Qujialing-Shijiahe Culture. There are two kinds of pottery shards. One is made of clay, the other is sand-tempered. There are red, gray, yellowish brown potteries. Patterns on pottery range from rope pattern, basket pattern, additional decorations, check design, string pattern and so on. Recognizable shapes of pottery contain ding-cauldrons with ding-cauldrons with tile foot, jar-shaped ding-cauldrons, dou-serving vessels with short ring foot, cups with oblique belly, bowls with closing mouth, basins with flat base, urns, gui-vessels, stands and covers and etc. There are stone and pottery tools of production, including stone ax, stone shovel, stone knife, stone adze, pottery knife, pottery chisel, pottery spindle whirls and etc. Pottery producing tools have knife, chisel, spindle whirl and so on. Among them, pottery chisel and knife are the most peculiar, which are very rare in Neolithic sites.

Stone tools from Yaoheyuan Site 

Academic significance

First, there are plenty of cultural relics from Neolithic and Han Dynasty being mixed in rammed earth of foundation trench of F1 in Yaohe Site. There are circular and square pedestals rammed by burned earth and broken pottery shards being found in bottoms of post holes. These discoveries provide new materials for research on construction methods of housing base during Song-Jin periods in south area of Henan Province. Putting pottery shards, broken stones and burned earth into filling soil and then ramming them could efficiently improve robustness of rammed earth. Building techniques of housing base of F1 in Yaohe Site not only show inheritance and innovation of traditional architectural skills, but also reflect adaptability and change towards special environment, which obviously suggests improvement of architectural skills and enhancement of adaptability ability of habitants from Yaohe area.

Second, based on characteristics of potteries, there are obviously two kinds of cultural relics in Longshan cultural remains of Yaohe site. Ones belong to Meishan type of Longshan culture in Henan, such as jar-shaped ding-cauldrons with short feet, dou-vessels with shallow plate, urns with long neck, plates with ring foot and so on. The others are of Qujialing-Shijiehe culture in Jianghan Area, including pots with long neck, thick crocks with point base, flared red pottery cups, urns with small mouth, pottery birds and etc. According to analysis and research on Neolithic materials of Yaohe site, we can get a further understanding of questions in term of developmental sequences, features and nature of archaeological cultures in west and north areas of Henan Province.

Third, discovery of pottery knife from Neolithic period is of great academic values. This knife is basically the same with a stone knife uncovered in the site according to several aspects in terms of shape, drilling hole and edge. There is use wears on surface of pottery knife suggesting that it’s a daily-used tool which can take place of a stone knife for harvesting, gathering. Significance of pottery knife is lying in its production technique. Pottery knife was molded by clay. With very developed design idea, production techniques of massively produced pottery knife greatly improved quality and quantity of production. This kind of molded pottery knife found in Yaohe site was very rare in Neolithic sites. During Yangshao and Longshan cultural periods, although there were large quantities of pottery knives being unearthed, most of them were made of broken pottery shards and quite inferior when compared with molded pottery knife from Yaohe site. From this point of view, the discovery of molded pottery knife from Yaohe site suggests an start point of new trying in massive production of knife tools of production.(Translator Ma Huanhuan)