by Xinhua writers Yu Xiaohua and Ji Hang
HANGZHOU, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Across the landscape, golden rice is ready for harvest in the fields about an hour's drive northwest of downtown Hangzhou, in east China's Zhejiang Province. Reeds sway in the breeze. An egret skims the water, leaving ripples in its wake.
Xu Rushui, 70, tends the rice. The farmer, the fields and, in the distance, statues depicting scenes from everyday life in ancient Liangzhu evoke generations of people who worked this land -- and a history that continues to shape the region today.
The scene is part of the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City, a UNESCO World Heritage site dating to between 5,300 and 4,300 years ago. Archaeologists believe it was a center of power and belief for an early regional state in late Neolithic China, in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Liangzhu took its place alongside the early civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.
New discoveries continue to reveal how this ancient city was built and how its people lived. Wang Ningyuan, a researcher at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, discussed the latest findings on the sidelines of the fourth Liangzhu Forum, which was held from Oct. 18 to 20 in Hangzhou.
Archaeologists have reconstructed three prehistoric buildings east of a royal cemetery based on postholes uncovered during excavations, Wang said. The largest is oval-shaped.
The buildings may offer clues to how early rulers were honored in death. Further excavations could help test that hypothesis and reveal more about how the structures were used, he said.
The year 2026 marks 90 years since the Liangzhu ruins were first discovered. The forum named after the site made its debut in 2023 and has since grown into a major venue for international dialogue on cultural heritage.
This year's edition, held under the theme "Bridging the Past and the Future: Safeguarding Cultural Heritage for Our Times," featured discussions ranging from early civilizations to the archaeology of ancient cities, with new research findings released.
Nayef Al-Fayez, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture, said in a video speech at the opening ceremony that Hangzhou, whose region is home to a number of World Heritage properties, including the Liangzhu site, reflects 5,000 years of advanced urban planning and cultural exchange.
"It reminds us of the value of the heritage and the importance of safeguarding it for future generations," he said.
A CITY BUILT ON WATER, RICE AND JADE
The ruins take their name from the nearby town of Liangzhu, which literally means "beautiful islets amid the waters."
Built on low-lying land once crisscrossed by waterways, the ancient city comprised a palace complex, an inner city and an outer city, along with an extensive water-management system and settlements spread across the surrounding landscape.
Across this broader archaeological site, researchers have uncovered evidence of palaces, altars, elite burial grounds and craft workshops.
Waterways were integral to daily life in the ancient city. Of its nine gates, one opened onto land, while the other eight connected the city's waterways with those outside. People traveled in dugout canoes carved from tree trunks and on rafts made by binding bamboo poles.
Rice farming formed the base of the economy. Archaeological evidence suggests that settlements specialized in different forms of production, including jade working and stone-tool making.
Liangzhu's society was marked by pronounced social stratification, specialized production and a shared system of religious beliefs, said Fang Xiangming, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Its trove of jade artifacts offers a particularly revealing window into this social order.
Among them is the famed "king of jade cong," a tubular object with a square exterior and a circular interior, carved with distinctive divine-human and animal motifs.
Jade cong artifacts reflected the ancient people's understanding of the cosmos, embodied their shared beliefs and left a lasting imprint on later generations, said Xu Tianjin, director of the Liangzhu Museum.
The monumental engineering works of Liangzhu offer another window into the organization of this ancient society.
To the northwest of the city, inhabitants built an elaborate network of dams and levees to help manage floods, irrigate farmland and facilitate transportation. It ranks among the oldest large-scale hydraulic systems identified to date in China.
According to Wang, a leading expert on the site's ancient waterworks, the system created a reservoir with a total capacity of about 46 million cubic meters. That is roughly four times the capacity of Hangzhou's West Lake, or the equivalent of 18,400 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Estimates suggest that building the ancient city and its surrounding waterworks required the movement of a combined 10.05 million cubic meters of earth and stone, roughly twice the estimated volume involved in constructing the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
The scale of these projects points to a society with sophisticated planning capabilities and the ability to mobilize large numbers of people for collective undertakings, Wang said.
WHAT MAKES A CIVILIZATION?
Unlike many ancient societies, Liangzhu left behind no written records -- not even legends. Its history has been pieced together largely through archaeological excavations and the material remains unearthed in the process.
For centuries, writing systems, metallurgy and cities have often been treated as criteria for civilization in Western accounts of early societies. Liangzhu has helped broaden that perspective, according to Wang Wei, a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In simple terms, he said, three key developments mark the emergence of a civilized society: cities arising as productivity advances and population grows; distinct social classes taking shape as the division of labor deepens and society becomes more differentiated; and the concentration of power paving the way for kingship and the state.
The Liangzhu ruins have provided material evidence for Chinese civilization spanning more than 5,000 years. The site's inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019 brought wider international attention to the achievements of China's early civilization.
Research under a national project led by Wang Wei during the first two decades of this century uncovered evidence that the origins of Chinese civilization can be traced to multiple regions.
Around 5,800 years ago, early signs of civilization were emerging not only along the Yangtze River, where Liangzhu is located, but also in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Xiliao River basin.
A PAST THAT LIVES IN THE PRESENT
The legacy of Liangzhu lives on not only in artifacts excavated and housed in museums, but also in the daily lives of people today.
For farmer Xu Rushui, who works the park's rice fields with three other farmers across a combined area of more than 880 mu (around 59 hectares), the fields are more than just scenery. They remain a source of income for his family.
Restrictions on chemical inputs, combined with the area's cultural heritage, have given the rice a distinctive identity. What was once simply a crop now has a story to tell -- one that helps it stand out in the market.
"Five thousand years ago, people planted rice by hand. Now we have machines, and visitors come to see the fields," said Xu. "A lot has changed, but rice is still part of our lives. We still depend on this land to make a living."
Beyond the villages, Liangzhu is helping reshape the wider region. A cultural corridor spanning hundreds of square kilometers links the archaeological site with nearby heritage sites, cultural institutions and the surrounding hills, waterways, villages and woodlands.
A new generation of creators and entrepreneurs is emerging here. Programmers and designers in their 20s mingle with investors and seasoned engineers from major tech companies, bringing fresh ideas to this ancient land.
Master Qi (a pseudonym), a product manager who moved from Beijing, started by hosting informal discussions in his living room. Those gatherings have since grown into a lively hub where AI creators share projects, exchange ideas and find collaborators.
"You get the openness and quiet of the countryside, along with the conveniences of city life," he said. "The low-rise buildings, the space between them, the cafes where people talk about AI, and the remote workers, indie developers and content creators you see everywhere -- it all fuels my creativity."
Liangzhu is also drawing an increasingly international crowd. It has hosted exchanges with heritage professionals involved in preserving historical sites in Toledo, Spain, and Rome, Italy.
Dorian Fuller, a fellow of the British Academy and professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, was in Hangzhou to attend the fourth Liangzhu Forum. On Sunday, the archaeologist tried a pair of AI glasses at the Liangzhu Museum -- a device that identifies exhibits in the wearer's field of view, provides explanations and answers visitors' follow-up questions.
"I can see how it would be appealing maybe to the younger generation and people who are new to archaeology and are kind of learning about this stuff for the first time," Fuller said.
The museum's augmented reality (AR) glasses also allow visitors to watch a virtual jade cong float out of its case and rotate digitally in midair, revealing intricate carvings from every angle without touching the original.
Yet much remains unknown. Wang Ningyuan, who has worked at Liangzhu since 2000, said archaeologists have excavated just 60,000 square meters within a 100-square-kilometer area, leaving vast stretches untouched.
Phytolith analysis, for example, has found no evidence of rice paddies in the outer city area, suggesting that grain may have come from beyond the city. If so, how was it grown, transported and brought to the people who lived there?
Nine decades after its discovery, Liangzhu is still yielding its secrets. ■
