A team of archaeologists discovered an exclusive cemetery for nobles with stone walls and rows of burials at the Shimao site in central China's Shaanxi province, which some experts say is evidence of the existence of a primitive form of state .
Shimao is one of the largest Neolithic settlements known to date in the Asian country, 4,300 years old. The exclusive cemetery for nobles was found about 200 meters west of the large stone engravings on the platform of what is considered the ancient imperial city, local newspaper China Daily reported today.
Compared to the tombs discovered previously, the stone mound tombs found at the base of the imperial city are larger and have the highest technical level achieved by this ancient culture that we know of.
Archaeologists cited by China Daily confirmed that it is a cemetery for people at the top of the social hierarchy. Its discovery reflects the degree of civilization of the city's society, providing "important evidence that Shimao had entered a form of primitive state," according to experts.
The ancient stone city covers an area of more than 4 million square meters and is currently the largest site of a prehistoric settlement discovered in China.
The first ruins discovered in Shimao 37 years ago suggested that the area had been a small settlement in the Neolithic, but new finds in later decades showed that it was a large city.
It is estimated that the city was abandoned 300 years after its construction, still during the Xia dynasty, the first in China for which there are written records.
