(三星堆的秘密) 6 min read   About 70 kilometers north of Chengdu (成都), one of China’s largest metropolises, lie the ruins of Sanxingdui (三星堆). This Bronze Age culture (c. 1700–1150 BCE) flourished in what is now Sichuan Province (四川) for several centuries before mysteriously disappearing around the mid-12th century BCE.   Excavations over the past 50

(被遗忘了的良渚) 5 min read   Over half a dozen Neolithic cultures once dotted the vast expanse of what is now China, particularly along its two great river systems—the Yangtze (长江) and the Yellow (黄河) Rivers. The ruins of Liangzhu (良渚) were first identified in the 1930s, when jade artifacts were unearthed during road construction. In

(中国历史起源地—殷墟) 4 min read   As a latecomer, China’s Bronze Age began around 2000 BCE, when the Xia (夏) people learned to mine and smelt copper and tin to produce bronze tools and weapons along the Yellow River (黄河) valley in northern China. By that time, civilizations in Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia were already well

(在二里头探索中华文明的起源) 5 min read   The Erlitou Site Museum of the Xia Capital (二里头夏都遗址博物馆) was the highlight of my visit to Luoyang (洛阳). Erlitou rose to prominence in 1959, when archaeologists unearthed artifacts dating back nearly 4,000 years—traces of what may be China’s earliest dynasty. Originally a Neolithic settlement from the 4th millennium BCE, it