A group of researchers arrived at a mesa in a remote village one early March day in Maerkang County in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Southwest China's Sichuan Province. They began to dig squares, inch by inch, attracting attention from the local people.

The locals did not fuss about the broken pottery, stones with holes and animal bones unearthed from the site, however the researchers were ecstatic. They had stumbled upon the earliest prehistoric site ever discovered in the upper reaches of the Dadu River. Named as Haxiu Ruins, it is also one of the oldest New Stone Age ruins discovered in Sichuan and could be more than 6,000 years old.

The upper reaches of the Dadu River, the largest tributary of the Minjiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, was a natural corridor for exchanges of different ethnic cultures and migrations.

In 2000, 2003 and 2005, leading archaeologists found more than 10 ancient ruins ranging from the prehistoric period to the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BC-AD 220).

Further digs at Haxiu Ruins offered more for a deeper understanding of the New Stone Age, according to Chen Jian, deputy chief of the Second Department of Excavation and Research in the Chengdu Archaeological Institute.

The Haxiu Ruins cover nearly 100,000 square metres. Unearthed artefacts include a ceramic human face the earliest of its kind ever discovered, a two-hole stone tomahawk painted in red, a perforated saddle-backed stone knife and an almost intact ceramic vase with a small-mouth and sharp-bottom, Chen said.

Chen and his colleagues also found millet in ash pits and believed the pits once served as cellars for storing grain and other objects. They also unearthed animal bones, of deer, oxen, dogs, horses, roes, pigs and birds. Some of them must have been the bones of domestic animals, Chen said.

The researchers also found fine stone-wares and stone knives, used for cutting and processing animal skin, Chen said. These were one of the common tools for hunting and herding.

Chen said he and his colleagues surmised that the settlers at Haxiu Ruins lived on farming, with millet as their staple food. However, they also hunted to supplement their foods, he said.

Although no kilns were found at the small excavation site, researchers did identify a small number of sinters, which were found in ancient kilns. Their colour, shape, structure and rigidity is the same as that of the sinters found in the kiln sites of another New Stone Age ruins in the province.

"It indicates that there must be kilns of making ceramic at the Haxiu Ruins," Chen said.

The stone-wares and ceramic pieces were painted red because ancient habitants there worshipped the red colour, Chen said. Ore powder was put around the dead and animal teeth, stone beads and fish bones were painted red and buried together with the dead.

Humans had a very long history of worshipping red. The Upper-cave Man, found at Zhoukoudian in Beijing, lived about 18,000 years ago and also used red ore powder when burying the dead. It was more common to see stone wares painted with red, ceramic wares painted with cinnabar, a red, mercury-based powder, and human bones painted with red in tombs of the New Stone Age, he said.

In the more famous Sanxingdui and the Jinsha ruins in the Chengdu Plain which date back 3,500 and 3,200 years, cinnabar was found to have been painted on jade wares, eyes and mouth of stone statues of humans, stone tigers and snakes. Their custom of painting cinnabar might have been inherited from the settlers at the Haxiu or other sites of the same era, Chen said.

Along with discoveries of other New Stone Age sites in the province, Chen believed that civilized history of Sichuan could go back to 6,000 years ago.

These findings also highlight the fact that the valley of the Minjiang River, one of the major tributaries of the Yangtze River in northwestern part of Sichuan, has had a long history of human settlement and exchanges.

According to both legends and historical records, ancestors of the Shu people migrated from the valley southeastward to the Chengdu Plain.

Sichuan was called Shu in ancient times. The ancient Shu culture is best exemplified by the galaxy of valuable bronze wares found at Sanxingdui Ruins, in the city of Guanghan, which is about 40 kilometres from Chengdu.

"There had been almost no excavation of ancient cultural ruins, those dating back to the New Stone Age in particular, in the upper reaches of the Minjiang, until our recent digs," Chen said.

(China Daily October 12, 2006)