Liangzhu site

The ruins of Liangzhu, in north-western Hangzhou in the Yangtze River Basin, reveal an early regional state of the Late Neolithic, about 3300-2300 BCE, with a unified belief system based on rice cultivation. In the 1930s jade was unearthed during construction of a highway between Nanjing and Hangzhou, and in 1936 Shi Xingeng of the West Lake Museum began small excavations here. In 1959 the archaeologist Xia Nai named the culture Liangzhu.

In 1986 more than 3,000 jade pieces were excavated at Fanshan, and in 1987 farmers began looting the Yaoshan graveyard until police and archaeologists intervened. In 2006 a team led by Liu Bin found a layer of stones 3 metres below the ground that proved to be a city wall. The city covered about 3 square kilometres, or 6.3 with its outer city, and a water management system to its north-west controlled nearly 100 square kilometres.

The property has four areas: the Yaoshan site, the high dam at the mouth of the valley, the low dam on the plain and the city site, together showing earthen monuments, urban planning, water management and a social hierarchy expressed in burials. The culture disappeared from the Lake Tai area after about 2300 BCE, and the ruins were inscribed on 6 July 2019.