Liangzhu: Neolithic Water City and Jade Culture of China

Liangzhu was a Late Neolithic culture of the Yangtze River delta in eastern China, flourishing from about 3300 to 2300 BC. Its centre, near modern Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, was a walled city surrounded by canals, with an enormous palace platform and one of the world’s earliest large dam systems. Famous for its finely carved jades, Liangzhu is regarded by many scholars as one of the earliest states in East Asia, and its city was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

Background: rice farmers of the delta

The lower Yangtze region was one of the original centres of rice farming. Earlier cultures such as the Hemudu culture and the Majiabang culture had already cultivated rice in wet fields for thousands of years. Liangzhu developed from this tradition around 3300 BC, spreading across the Lake Tai basin in what are now southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang and Shanghai.

The delta was a landscape of rivers, lakes and marshes. It offered rich farmland but also constant risk of flooding. Liangzhu farmers used stone ploughs and sickles, and their rice harvests supported a large population, specialised craft workers and a powerful elite.

Discovery

In 1936 a young researcher from the West Lake Museum in Hangzhou, Shi Xingeng, found black pottery and stone tools near the town of Liangzhu, north-west of Hangzhou. In 1959 the archaeologist Xia Nai proposed the name “Liangzhu culture” for this tradition.

Spectacular finds came in the 1980s with the excavation of elite cemeteries at Fanshan and Yaoshan, full of jade objects. In 2007 archaeologists discovered the walls of the ancient city itself, and in the following decade surveys revealed the outer earthworks and the dam system. These discoveries transformed Liangzhu from a culture known mainly for its jades into one of the largest prehistoric urban sites in the world.

The walled city

The heart of the city was a walled area of about 300 hectares, roughly 1.9 kilometres from north to south and 1.7 kilometres from east to west. The walls were built of earth on a foundation of stones and were very wide at the base. Gates opened onto waterways, and canals inside and around the city served as streets, so that boats were the main means of transport.

At the centre stood Mojiaoshan, an artificial platform of about 30 hectares raised by up to around 10 metres above the surrounding land, with large buildings on top that are interpreted as palaces. Nearby, excavators found large deposits of burnt rice grain, apparently from storehouses, showing that the elite controlled substantial food supplies.

Outside the walls lay a further ring of earthworks and settlements, bringing the whole urban area to around 600 hectares or more. Building the city required the movement of millions of cubic metres of earth.

The dam system

To the north and west of the city, in the foothills, archaeologists have identified 11 earthen dams built in two groups, known as the high dams and the low dams. Radiocarbon dates published in 2017 place their construction roughly between 3100 and 2700 BC.

The dams were made partly from bundles of grass and mud, wrapped in reeds, stacked to form strong cores. Together they created reservoirs that could protect the city from floods coming down from the hills, store water, and perhaps provide waterways for transporting timber and stone. The system is the earliest known large-scale hydraulic project in China and one of the earliest in the world, roughly contemporary with the first water works of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Jade and belief

Liangzhu craftsmen worked nephrite jade with great skill, using abrasive sand, string and drills, since jade is too hard to carve with metal or stone blades. The most characteristic objects are the cong, a tube that is square outside and round inside, the bi, a flat disc with a central hole, and the yue, a ceremonial axe.

Many jades carry a recurring motif: a human-like figure wearing a feathered headdress, combined with a beast’s face with large eyes. This “god-man and beast” emblem appears across the Liangzhu region in almost the same form, which suggests a shared religion controlled by the elite. A large cong from tomb M12 at Fanshan, often called the “King of Cong”, weighs about 6.5 kilograms and is carved with this figure.

Some Liangzhu pottery and jades also bear incised symbols. They may be marks of ownership or religious signs, but there is no evidence that they formed a full writing system.

Other crafts were also highly developed. Liangzhu potters made fine black-burnished wares, woodworkers produced lacquered vessels, and ivory was carved into ornaments. Fragments of silk and ramie textiles from the site of Qianshanyang in Zhejiang, associated with the Liangzhu period, are among the early evidence for textile making of this kind in China. Such specialised work suggests that many people were supported by the rice surplus rather than farming full time.

Society and power

Liangzhu cemeteries show sharp differences in wealth. Elite tombs on raised platforms at Fanshan and Yaoshan contained dozens or even hundreds of jade objects, while ordinary burials had few goods. Some elite tombs held both cong and yue, which may symbolise religious and military authority combined.

The scale of the city and dams, the central storage of rice and the uniform religious imagery have led many archaeologists, including Colin Renfrew and Liu Bin, to describe Liangzhu as an early state. Others are more cautious and prefer terms such as complex chiefdom. Either way, it was one of the most complex societies of its time anywhere in the world.

Decline and legacy

Around 2300 BC the Liangzhu culture declined and the city was abandoned. Layers of flood silt above Liangzhu deposits have led many researchers to link its end with severe flooding and changes in sea level and climate, though social and political causes may also have played a role.

Liangzhu’s influence lasted long after its fall. Jade cong and bi spread to other Neolithic cultures and remained important ritual objects in later Chinese dynasties, which used them in sacrifices to Earth and Heaven. Together with cultures such as Hongshan in the north and the later Erlitou culture on the Yellow River, Liangzhu shows that Chinese civilization grew from several regional centres rather than a single heartland.

In July 2019 UNESCO inscribed the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City on the World Heritage List. The site is now an archaeological park, and the Liangzhu Museum displays many of its jades.

Timeline

• c. 3300 BC: The Liangzhu culture emerges in the lower Yangtze region.
• c. 3100–2700 BC: The main dam system is built north-west of the city.
• c. 3000 BC: The walled city and Mojiaoshan palace platform flourish.
• c. 2300 BC: The Liangzhu culture declines and the city is abandoned.
• 1936: Shi Xingeng discovers the first Liangzhu finds.
• 1959: Xia Nai names the Liangzhu culture.
• 1986–1987: Elite cemeteries at Fanshan and Yaoshan are excavated.
• 2007: The walls of the ancient city are discovered.
• 2019: Liangzhu is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Liangzhu shows that a large, organised society with monumental public works and a shared ritual system existed in the Yangtze delta more than 5,000 years ago, about a millennium before China’s first historically recorded dynasties. It has become central to debates about how early states formed in East Asia.