According to the latest news from the Ningbo Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage Management in Zhejiang Province on March 3, 2025, the institute discovered 25 new pre-Qin sites in the Fenghua River basin. More than 80% of these sites contain remains from the late Hemudu Culture.
These 25 sites largely share cultural similarities with previously excavated sites in the area, primarily dating to the late Hemudu Culture and the middle to late Liangzhu Culture. Bronze Age remains are rare, with only a few sites yielding stamped hard pottery fragments and sand-tempered red pottery tripod legs from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
The Ningbo Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage Management launched the archaeological survey and exploration project of pre-Qin sites in the Fenghua River basin in 2022. 2025 is the final year of this project. The Ningbo Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage Management has discovered 25 new pre-Qin sites along the banks of the Dongjiang and Xianjiang rivers, tributaries of the Fenghua River, bringing the total number of pre-Qin sites in the Fenghua River basin to 71. This strongly suggests that, besides the Yaojiang Valley, the Fenghua River basin is a core distribution area for pre-Qin sites in the Ningbo area.
The pre-Qin sites in the Fenghua River basin are mainly low-lying settlements in plains. For example, of the 25 newly discovered sites in 2025, except for four sites—Dongshantou, Zhijishan, Tingshan, and Zhujiazhuang—located on hillsides, platforms, or isolated hills, the other 21 are all located in plains areas at least 3 kilometers away from mountains.
Furthermore, more than half of the pre-Qin sites in this area consist of two or more small areas, spaced tens to hundreds of meters apart. The area of each site area is mostly between 1,000 and 5,000 square meters.
According to research findings in environmental archaeology, during the late Hemudu Culture period, the rivers and landforms of the Fenghua River basin gradually stabilized, increasing the habitable area. The population began to spread from the foothills to the plains, resulting in a surge in the number of settlements. Simultaneously, these settlements exhibited characteristics of becoming smaller and more dispersed. (End)
