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Never mind the mysterious carvings and click-bait 'human sacrifice' headlines - this is a well-done story about an important site ... a 4500-year-old city in n
by 8bitsrule 6y ago
Never mind the mysterious carvings and click-bait 'human sacrifice' headlines - this is a well-done story about an important site ... a 4500-year-old city in northern China (2000 years before the Great Wall) which was heavily fortified (6 miles of fortified walls 8 feet thick), which lasted 500 years and was apparently ended by climate change.
"Shimao is now the largest known Neolithic settlement in China—its 1,000-acre expanse is about 25 percent bigger than New York City’s Central Park—with art and technology that came from the northern steppe and would influence future Chinese dynasties.... Many artifacts found at Shimao could only have come from distant lands. "
- godelmachine 6y agoThere’s nothing click-bait about the “human sacrifice” title. Below excerpt taken from the article. They have even shared photographs of the skulls found of the sacrificed humans, along with with more vivid description of the ritual which is best if read directly from the article. >>Grisly discovery The most grisly discovery came underneath the city’s eastern wall: 80 human skulls clustered in six pits—with no skeletons attached. (The two pits closest to the East Gate, the city’s principal entrance, contained exactly 24 skulls each.) The skulls’ number and placement suggest a ritual beheading during the laying of the wall’s foundation—the earliest known example of human sacrifice in Chinese history. Forensic scientists determined that almost all of the victims were young girls, most likely prisoners who belonged to a rival group.