The excavation of the Taosi site, Shanxi Province in the spring of 2005

 In the spring of 2005, as a part of the project of “the origin and early development of Chinese civilization”, Shanxi Archaeological Team of the Institute of Archaeology in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology jointly conducted excavation at the Taosi site, revealing an area of 500 square meters. Major discoveries include a large structure (IIFJT1) of the Middle Period inside the small city, a structure foundation (IIFJT2), a cemetery of the Middle Period, and a rammed earth foundation on the northeast outside the middle period big city.

 Structure IIFJT1 is a sloping causeway ditch of about 5 meters wide which cut through the city wall (Q6). The pottery sherds from the rammed earth of the wall Q6 and of the causeway foundations are all in the Middle Period of the Taosi site. The rammed earth of the causeway ditch is impossible to differentiate from those of the wall foundations, indicating they are the same structure.

   Structure IIFJT2 is about 60 meters away to the northeast of Structure IIFJT1.  It is a circular feature, 9 meters in diameter, 0.4-4 meters deep, covering an area of 65 square meters. It is a foundation pit for a rammed earth structure. There are rammed earth blocks extending outside IITG9 on both the eastern and the western side of the pit, and these blocks originally are possibly the causeway foundation of the above circular rammed earth platforms. Human skeletons are found inside the upper layer rammed earths. The date of the construction and usage of the pit was in the middle period of the Taosi site.

Six burials were found at IIT7464, all in the middle period of the Taosi site. Four of them are medium-sized, and two of them are small. The medium-sized burials are about 3 meters long, 1.6-2 meters wide, and 2-4 meters deep. The small burials are 1.9 meters long, 0.5 meters wide, and 0.2 meters deep. All the burials were disturbed to different extents during the late period of the Taosi site, and mostly were emptied out. Scattered human skeletons, jades, stone tools and bronze bracelets were found in Layer 3 which was formed after the burials were disturbed.

 IVFJT1 are two rammed earth features to the northeast outside the middle period Taosi city, and they are in the early period of Taosi. The rammed earths of IVFJT1 inside IVTG2 can be divided into two zones, with the northern zone of 5 by 10 meters, and the southern zone of 5 by 8 meters. Its complete structure is unclear and needs further fieldwork.