Excavations of the city of Shimao and its monuments

Location and excavation of ShimaoThe report is divided into three volumes and is the first part of the full publication of one of China's most important discoveries, the late Neolithic city (c.2300-1800 BC), known today as Shimao.It stands on the far north of the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi Province, a remote area bordering on today's Inner Mongolia, west of the Yellow River, some 700km north of the city of Xi'an and the same distance west of Beijing.The site is very unusual and in a remote area of China, far to the north of Central China (where China's early capitals were sited), near the great bend of the Yellow River.When the first full excavations began in 2012, the massive constructions surprised both the leaders of the excavation and the archaeological community.No one ever expected to find such a major urban development there.Its discovery and the whole Loess Plateau have changed our understanding of early China.There are many other large, rammed platforms on high hills and there were, we now know, many important settlements, not just Shimao.The usage of stone and its size make Shimao very unusual.From 2012 to 2024 the project was undertaken by the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology, the Yulin Cultural Relics and Archaeological Survey Team and the Shimao Site Management Team, Shenmu City under the direction of Zhouyong Sun, who is also the general editor of this report.Throughout a decade of continuous excavation, brief reports were published