Qingliangshan Site

Qingliangshan Site is located about 500 metres northwest of Weizhuang Village, Matou Town, southwest of Xiayi County seat. It is a trapezoidal mound measuring 40 metres wide from north to south and 55 metres long from east to west, with a top area of roughly 2,300 square metres. It is a Neolithic cultural site. In September 2000, it was designated a Provincial Key Cultural Relic Protection Unit by the People's Government of Henan Province.

Originally, the mound rose more than 6 metres above the ground. A large-scale Qingliang Temple was built on the mound during the Ming Dynasty, hence the popular name "Qingliangshan (Cool Mountain)".

From 1974 to 1987, four successive investigations were carried out by the Henan Provincial Museum, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhengzhou University and the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

In the autumn of 1988, the Archaeology Department of Peking University, the History Department of Zhengzhou University and the Shangqiu Cultural Relics Management Commission conducted an on-site survey, and jointly excavated the site between September and November the same year. This excavation yielded a wealth of precious material evidence.

Besides relics of the Henan Longshan Culture and the Shang-Yin Culture, archaeologists also discovered the Yueshi Culture, which postdates the Henan Longshan Culture and predates the Upper Erligang Phase of the Shang Dynasty. The Yueshi layer is overlaid by the Upper Erligang Shang cultural stratum and rests upon the Longshan cultural deposits. Its chronological position falls between the Henan Longshan Culture and the Erligang Culture.

The discovery of the Yueshi cultural layer at Qingliangshan has filled a chronological gap in the regional cultural sequence. It has also raised new research questions regarding the origin of Shang culture and provided crucial physical evidence, triggering widespread attention among academic circles both at home and abroad