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In my estimation, Shimao is the most important archeological site in the EEAH (Extended East Asian Heartland) from B.C. times, with enormous implications for the origins of Sinitic civilization.  Shimao is a recently discovered archeological site, brought to light roughly a dozen years ago, but still very much under excavation.  Its coordinates are 38.5657°N 110.3252°E, which put it on the mid-eastern edge of the Ordos Desert that lies within the great, rectangular bend of the Yellow River called the Ordos Loop in English or Hétào 河套 ("Yellow River Sheath") in Chinese.  I often think of the Ordos as the omphalos of the EEAH, ecologically a part of the Eastern Gobi desert steppe that has been lassoed ("lasso" is another meaning of tào 套) into the cultural orbit of the Yellow River Valley, which is the center of the East Asian Heartland (EAH) proper.

For the concept of East Asian Heartland (EAH) and Extended East Asian Heartland (EEAH), see Victor H. Mair, "The North(west)ern Peoples and the Recurrent Origins of the 'Chinese' State", in Joshua A. Fogel, The Teleology of the Modern Nation-State:  Japan and China (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 46-84.

Urbanus (2021):

It was originally thought that the ancient stone walls visible on the edge of the Mu Us Desert in the northern province of Shaanxi had once been part of the Great Wall. But, when archaeologists examined them intensively, they realized something much older and more complex was buried there. They had discovered the lost city of Shimao, which dates back to 2300 B.C. Over the past 10 years, excavators including Zhouyong Sun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology have uncovered a stone city with immense fortifications and sophisticated infrastructure, thousands of luxurious artifacts, and a 230-foot-high stepped pyramid that served as the residence for Shimao’s rulers and leading families. The site’s early date and peripheral location were surprising since Chinese civilization was thought to have first developed in the Central Plains around 500 years after Shimao’s founding. “The discovery really puzzled me and other archaeologists,” says Sun. “Shimao reveals a unique trajectory to urbanism in China. This once-powerful kingdom was completely unknown in ancient textual records.” (with a dramatic photograph showing the  vast extent of the site)

Recent excavations at the Shimao site have uncovered an elite sector:

Archaeologists discover noble-exclusive cemetery at ancient Shimao site in China
By QIN FENG and CHEN MEILING | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-12-14

—

A noble-exclusive cemetery with stone walls and rows of burials was discovered at the Shimao site in Shenmu city, Yulin, Shaanxi province, which is evidence of an early-stage country.  [VHM:  i.e., state formation]

The Shimao site is an important part of the project of tracing the origins of Chinese civilization. It is located in the northern part of the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi and on the southern edge of the Maowusu Desert.

In 2022, the corner relief discovered at the imperial city platform of the Shimao site provided crucial evidence for determining the age and architectural nature of the large stone carvings on the platform. Chronological studies focused on determining the age of the imperial city platform, inner city, and outer city, with preliminary evidence suggesting that the construction of the imperial city platform was likely not earlier than 2200 BC, and it was possibly abandoned as late as 1600 BC. The noble-exclusive cemetery was found about 200 meters west of the large stone carvings on the imperial city platform.

The Shimao site, dating back approximately 4,000 years, is primarily a stone city with an area of over 4 million square meters. It is currently the largest prehistoric city site discovered in China.

Compared to the previous tombs, the stone mound tombs found in the imperial city platform are larger and represent the highest level of stone mound culture discovered so far. They are confirmed to be a high-level noble cemetery, said archaeologists.

It demonstrated the degree of civilization in the Shimao society, providing important evidence that Shimao had entered an early state form and representing a significant achievement in the exploration of Chinese civilization in recent years.

This article is accompanied by eight large, clear photographs which give a good idea of the impressive nature of the site and its artifacts (reliefs; stone sculptures; fine pottery with impressed ornamentation; etc.).  If one clicks on the illustrations in this Wikipedia article, one will find additional visual materials concerning Shimao.  One item, a stone carving, shows a man shooting what is said to be a horse with a bow and arrow, which seems to underscore the fact that elsewhere at the site, so far as published evidence indicates, the Shimao people did not use horses for transportation.

Judging from its location, its date, and its culture, the Shimao site should not be considered directly a part of EAH dynastic tradition, though it may externally  have been contributory to the development of the early stages of Sinitic civilization.

Shimao comes before Xia (whether one believes in its historicity or not), Shang, and Zhou, the three earliest alleged Chinese dynasties, and there is no known textual evidence for it whatsoever.

Another iconographically atypical early site that comes before Shang and Zhou, but is emphatically bronze oriented, is located in the far southwest (Sichuan); that is Sanxingdui. It is approximately half a millennium after Shimao, but has been thought by some to share certain affinities with Shimao. N.B.: elephant tusks played a highly important ritualistic role at Sanxingdui (see the next paragraph).

Shimao displays features of its being an urban center in what is now desert steppe, before the retreat of the elephants and forests at the hands of the agricultural Han (Mark Elvin 2006).  Shimao possessed manifest qualities of monumentality, some of which it shares with Mayan civilization, however that may be explained.  It stands at the cusp of the Bronze Age and comes at the incipient equine era, though was not yet a part of it. 

For the last millennium, the Shimao site has lain within the ambit of Mongolian civilization. But the culture that originally constituted the society that built and occupied the Shimao site had been extinct for three millennia before that.  We have no idea what language they may have spoken.  Through their cultural practices and symbolism, however, we can glean a glimpse of what they were thinking, and we can compare it with what other societies near and far were thinking.

I salute the Language Log readers who, in their comments to the first installment of this series and elsewhere, have recognized the long distance relationships operative at Shimao.

 

Selected readings

• "Shimao, graphic arts, and long distance connections" (8/16/22)
• "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics, part 2" (5/11/20) — offers an introduction to the Shimao site
• Li Jaang, Zhouyong Sun, Jing Shao, and Min Li, "When peripheries were centres: a preliminary study of the Shimao-centred polity in the loess highland, China", Antiquity, 92.364 (August 22, 2018), 1008-1022.
• "King Carved In Stone Found at 4,200-Year-Old Chinese Pyramid Palace", by Sahir Pandey, Ancient Origins (8/11/22)
• "Neolithic City of Shimao", by Jason Urbanus, Archaeology (January/February 2021)
• "Siba culture" — Wikipedia
• Victor H. Mair, with contributions by E. Bruce Brooks, "Was There a Xià Dynasty?", Sino-Platonic Papers, 238 (May, 2013), 1-39.

[Thanks to James Fanell]

December 27, 2023 @ 6:18 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and archeology, Language and culture, Language and history

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