A vast stone-walled settlement on the northern Loess Plateau, at 400 hectares the largest known walled site of the Longshan period in China, whose monumental fortifications and jade caches overturned the assumption that early Chinese civilization formed only in the central plains.
Shimao was abandoned around 1800 BC as the late Neolithic settlement system of the northern Loess Plateau collapsed; its stone ramparts were later mistaken for a section of the Great Wall until jade finds prompted excavation.
The standard synthesis of Chinese archaeology, covering the late Neolithic walled-settlement horizon to which Shimao belongs.
Traces how monumental centres outside the central plain reshaped the account of Chinese state formation.