A total of 42 sites from the Hongshan culture, an important part of the Neolithic Age, were recently unearthed in Fuxin City, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

According to the provincial institute of cultural relics and archaeology, the 42 newly discovered sites are concentrated in the foothills or extended plateaus of the Nulu'erhu Mountain and the Yiwulv Mountain in Fuxin. This indicates that the Fuxin area should be an important region for the distribution of the Hongshan culture.

"The significant number of sites unearthed in the Fuxin area exhibit notable characteristics of clustering. These findings from the Hongshan culture display similarities with neighboring regions like Chaoyang City and Chifeng City, while also showing unique attributes," said Zheng Junfu, a faculty member of the Archaeology and Museology School of Liaoning University.

Since initiating a new round of investigation into the relics of the Hongshan culture in the province in March last year, Liaoning has completed a survey of 4,900 square kilometers in the middle reach of the Daling River, the Xihe River basin and the mainstream of the Liaohe River. This has resulted in the discovery of 129 new Hongshan culture sites.

Compared with previous field surveys, the new round of investigation has expanded beyond the Yiwulv Mountain to the Liaohe River basin, breaking the traditional notion that the eastern boundary of the Hongshan culture ends at the mountain.

This investigation has also led to a fresh understanding of early Hongshan culture settlements, productivity, the construction of ritual sites and the development of settlement forms.

The Hongshan culture is an important prehistoric archaeological culture dating back approximately 5,000 to 6,000 years. Its distribution covers three regions of western Liaoning Province, northern Hebei Province and eastern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Among them, Liaoning is the core area of Hongshan culture distribution and the focal region for studying this culture.