2016 Annual Excavation Briefing of the Eastern City Wall at the Sanxingdui Site

From October 2016 to May 2017, Sichuan Province Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated the eastern city wall of the Sanxingdui site. In addition to the dissection of the eastern city wall, an ash pit, 6 ash ditches and 2 special pits from the Shang-Zhou period were newly discovered. The excavation revealed that the eastern city wall is in the overall shape of "几", including the main city wall and the secondary city wall, constructed during the late stage of the third phase of Sanxingdui site, which is roughly equivalent to the late Erlitou period and early Shang period. Unfortunately, this excavation did not involve the trenches on the outside of the eastern city wall, therefore the deposits in the trenches and whether their use and abandonment correspond to the construction and use of the city wall remain unclear. However, it is worth mentioning that under the east city wall, no obvious remains belonging to the first phase of Sanxingdui, i.e., the late Neolithic period, were found, except for a few pieces of pottery sherds, which seemed to indicate that the activity range of Sanxingdui people did not cover the southeastern part of Sanxingdui site at this time. There were more traces of human activities in the third phase of the Sanxingdui site, and the construction of the city wall began after this period, till then this area was included in the city.​​​​​​​