Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a 5,000-year-old tomb in the central Henan province that is providing startling new insights into the country’s neolithic past.

The burial site — which scholars say almost certainly belonged to an ancient monarch — is the largest and most richly furnished tomb ever discovered belonging to the Dawenkou culture, which ruled parts of modern-day central and eastern China from around 4,300 to 2,500 BC.

It is located inside a larger Dawenkou settlement found in a village named Wangzhuang, which contains more than 40 tombs. But this latest find is “unique” due to its sheer size and the large number of precious artifacts it contained, said Zhu Guanghua, an associate professor at Capital Normal University’s School of History, who is leading the excavation.

Archaeologists have already uncovered 300 items inside the tomb, which measures around 4.8 meters by 3.7 meters, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.

The burial artifacts include a range of pottery and jade ornaments, as well as pig jaw bones, a symbol of wealth during the period. For Zhu, there is “no doubt” that the owner of the tomb was an elite member of society, and was most likely a king who ruled during the mid to late Dawenkou period.

The opulence of the tomb, meanwhile, suggests that the Wangzhuang site was not an ordinary settlement, but the capital of a well-developed kingdom with a high level of social stratification.

“Through differences in the burial items, we found that the Dawenkou tombs could be categorized into three or four different levels,” Zhu told Sixth Tone.

The tomb also contains evidence suggesting that the Dawenkou traded widely with their neighbors. Many items found at the site can be traced back to cultures located far from the Dawenkou heartland along the eastern section of the Yellow River.

This includes objects from the Liangzhu culture, from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River; the Qujialing culture, from the middle Yangtze; and the Hongshan culture, from the Liao basin in northeastern China, among others.

“This discovery provides empirical evidence of early exchanges within Chinese civilization, and serves as an important reference point for studying the cultural integration of different regions during prehistoric times,” Li Xinwei, deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua.

The relics include several outstanding finds, including a jade burial mask that pushes the timeline for this type of ornament back by 2,000 years. Researchers have also found the earliest known gui, a ceremonial jade tablet used in rituals.

But the tomb also bears signs of conflict. The site appears to have been intentionally damaged, likely by enemy forces, who may have removed the body, Zhu said.

The site also provides the first evidence of reburial in the Dawenkou culture, in which later generations intentionally reopened graves and buried new individuals alongside their original occupants.

The tombs were initially discovered by villagers in Wangzhuang, who stumbled upon the jade, bones, and pottery while refurbishing a pond.

Excavations at the site began in March, the same month China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration named Wangzhuang a “Top 10 Archaeological Discovery of 2023.”

Work at the site is ongoing. So far, the team has excavated a few hundred square meters of the tombs, but the entire ancient settlement covers a total area of at least 630,000 square meters, Zhu said.

In the future, the researchers plan to explore the workshops where many of the artifacts were made, as well as the dwellings nestled around the site.

“(The excavations could take) more than a decade,” Zhu said. “This is a long-term project.”

Contributions: Wu Haiyun

(Header image: Xinhua, re-edit by Sixth Tone)