Compiled by State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office

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State Administration of Cultural Heritage People’s Republic of China

 

The Tudiwan site, a well-preserved Han period village-settlement, is located on the riverbank of the Xiangxi River. Only simple stratigraphyic context has been discovered. Consequently, no features and artifacts of other time periods have been excavated. Large amounts of artifacts have been excavated from the Han period layers 3-6. Archaeological features of house foundations, kilns, ash-pits, ash-ditches, and urn-burials have been primarily found in the northern and middle sections of the site. Numerous pottery, iron, bronze and stone artifacts have been excavated from this site.

       Lower lays contain 19 ash-pits, 1ditch, 10urn-burials;the so-called Cultural layer 10 is also included. Middle layers have been excavated with 3 house foundations, 3 kiln, 24 urn-burials, 8 ditches, 113ash-pits; the Cultural layer 5 is contained. Upper layers contain 44 ash-pits, 3 ditches, 10 urn-burials, and the Cultural layers 3 and 4. Construction components are primarily foundations, wall remains, doorways, living surfaces, and materials such as stone labs, clay clods, and so forth. Tiles, bricks and paths paved with cobbles have also been discovered. It can be surmised from the foundation remains that the houses in use were primarily built in irregular rectangular shapes and were generally small in size. House No.1 measures 7.5m in length and is ca. 5.8m wide. House No.3 remains 6.25m long and its north wall extends 4.45m long. Pottery, iron, bronze, animal bones have been excavated from the house foundation layers. Pottery finds are mainly urns, basins, jars, and weights. Other finds include iron blades, knives, daggers, pricks, bronze arrowheads, rings, wuzhu coins. The kiln is ca. 2m in radius; small limestone remains have been found scattered on charcoal layer, revealing that the kiln was possibly built for limestone production. Circular, oval, irregular, square, rectangular, oblong and gourd-shaped ash-pits, totaling 176, have been excavated. 12 ditches were primarily excavated with pottery, bronze and iron vessels and tools. Bio-archaeological finds include bones of dogs, horses, pigs, goats, caws, chickens, fish, etc. some of these bones are horns.

       Urn-burials are a very significant discovery of the Tudiwan site. 44 urn-burials are mostly distributed near the house foundations. They are generally 40-70cm in diameter and 18-40cm deep. Potsherds from basins, jars, pots, etc, are suitably put together to make the burials, which are mostly covered with potsherds, tiles, small cobbles, bricks and so forth. The dead inside are children and infants whose skeletons are rarely seen complete. They are sometimes buried with fish, turtles, or small cobbles. Excavators divide the pottery into three periods, late Western Han, Wang Mang’s Usurpation period, early Eastern Han.
       The Tudiwan site is of great significance in terms of exploring the local economic and cultural conditions. Urn-burials are prevailing during the Neolithic, and this for the first time has shown the extension for use of the urn-burials during Han periods in the Three Gorges Dam areas.