The Taosi Site is located at the western foot of Ta’er Mountain, about 7.5 kilometers northeast of Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province.
The site is about 2,000 meters long from east to west and 1,500 meters wide from south to north, covering an area of about three million square meters. Excavations were carried out between 1978 and 1983 over an area of about 6,000 square meters. Over 1,000 tombs, ash pits, pottery kilns and houses were unearthed at the site, including a large number of production tools, daily utensils and decorations like pottery, stone, bone and jade ware. According to scientific studies, the site dates back to 2500-1900BC and plays a key role in exploring Chinese ancient class divisions, the country’s origin and history and the cultural development of the Xia Dynasty (21st-17th century BC).
The Taosi Site was divided into an early period and a later period. The main cultural feature of the early period was the thick-based, hand-made pottery pieces. The thickness of the pottery wall is uneven and its surface is multicolored. Such items were often decorated with rope patterns and had a flat bottom. Most of the early pieces include cauldrons and kitchen ranges, while later ware was thinner; the evenly baked pottery was made into regular shapes. Most ware was made of gray pottery and polished black pottery, which required a high heating temperature. The decorative patterns mainly included strips and rope shapes. Cooking utensils mainly consisted of the tripod, bi, and the round-mouthed and three-legged wine cup.
Early Taosi culture developed from the MiaodigouⅡCulture, and the later culture combined some elements from the Longshan Culture of Henan Province, including some of its own typical features.
(Source: chinaculture.org)
