Division and Integration: Reflections on the Naming of the Sanxingdui Culture

Release time:2026-02-03 16:39Source:

  Abstract: For a long time, the naming of the Sanxingdui Site in Guanghan, Sichuan Province, as well as the naming of the Sanxingdui Culture and other related cultural remains, has been the subject of many controversies in Chinese academia. From the initial classification as one cultural type to the subsequent division into two to four archaeological cultures, the remains of the pre-Qin period at the Sanxingdui Site have undergone a process of integration and recognition. The early remains of the Sanxingdui Culture should be attributed to the Neolithic Period rather than the Bronze Age. The eight artifact pits in the sacrificial zone of the Sanxingdui Site are the earliest known remains of the Bronze Age in the Chengdu Plain, which, according to current knowledge, are dated no earlier than 3200 years ago. Therefore, the proposal of isolating the early remains of the original Sanxingdui Culture as an independent archaeological culture, the “Yueliangwan Culture”, is reasonable. In addition, it can be argued that the artifact pits at the sacrificial zone of Sanxingdui that were originally classified as the Sanxingdui Culture, along with the remains of the sacrificial zone at the Jinsha Site in Chengdu, Sichuan Province that were originally classified as the Shierqiao Culture, are successive and possess the same knowledge system and value system. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider it the earliest bronze civilization in the Chengdu Plain and thus name it as “Sanxingdui-Jinsha Culture”.