Stunning Tomb Find Sheds New Light on Prehistoric China

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The 5,000-year-old burial site suggests that China’s neolithic kingdoms were more sophisticated than previously thought. 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, whic ………………………………