Wubeiling Ruins offer glimpse into city's early human habitation

Shenzhen is a city with less than 50 years of history, but human activity here may date back more than 3,500 years, as evidenced by artifacts excavated from tomb ruins underneath the campus of Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Nanshan District.

The Wubeiling Ruins contain ancient tombs from the Shang and Zhou periods, spanning from 1600 B.C. to 256 B.C.

The ruins was discovered accidentally in 1999 when a staffer with Shenzhen Museum stumbled upon a small stone axe while taking photos on a hilltop in the Wubeiling area, prior to the establishment of SUSTech. The finding led to a further search in the area, uncovering numerous artifacts such as ancient pottery shards, stone arrowheads, and even a broken bronze sword. These artifacts had surfaced due to rainwater erosion and the digging of villagers to plant trees.

Ancient pottery works discovered at the Wubeiling site. File photos

Two years later, the city’s cultural relics administration carried out a trial excavation at the Wubeiling site, clearing more than 10 tombs and six ash pits. Most of the burial artifacts were later confirmed to date back to the Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C.-1046 B.C.), along with two tombs from the Eastern Zhou period (770 B.C.-256 B.C.) and one from Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Subsequently, a formal excavation was made, uncovering 81 tombs from the Shang Dynasty, and six from the Warring States Period (475 B.C.-221 B.C.), with over 200 artifacts recovered.

The discovery of Shang tombs at Wubeiling astonished the domestic archaeological and historical communities, with the site being hailed as one of China’s top 10 archaeological discoveries in 2001.

The artifacts from Wubeiling offered valuable insight into the everyday life of early inhabitants of Shenzhen.

According to research of the Cultural Heritage Research Center of SUSTech, the Wubeiling culture dates back 3,800 to 3,000 years, when people lived in small, scattered settlements in river valleys and hillside areas. This is detailed in the published paper “Shenzhen’s Shang period relics in Dasha River upstream and Wubeiling culture.”

Design elements on the artifacts shows cultural connections with inland regions and even the Central Plains. The paper suggests that the commonly found tall-handled goblets were likely influenced by the Wucheng culture of Jiangxi Province, while the finely crafted pottery vessels may be linked to the Shang culture from the Central Plains.

Interestingly, no human bones were found in the graves at the Wubeiling site, which aligned with funeral customs still practiced among southern Hakka communities.

Apart from Wubeiling, cultural relics dating from the Shang to the pre-Qin (221 B.C.-207 B.C.) periods have also been unearthed along the upper Dasha River and near today’s Xili Reseroir. These findings indicate continuous habitation in Shenzhen during those eras.