怀化高坎垅新石器时代遗址

NEOLITHIC SITE AT GAOKANLONG, HUAIHUA

高坎垅遗址位于湘西怀化县新建乡牛眠口村的小沙河南岸二级台地上,总面积约1万平方米。整个遗址表面已辟为农田,受到严重破坏。遗址西距怀化市区25公里,东10公里为沅水主流,北约0.5公里为新建乡政府所在地,南为山坡梯田。其北缘之小沙河是由遗址北面约200米许的原大溪河改道而成,东注入沅水(图一)。

The site was discovered in general survey of cultural relics in 1981 and excavated in 1984, altogether in an area of 680 sq m, with cultural deposits brought to light in four layers. Of them only in the third stratum were found 48 tombs arranged rather densely, including 46 burials in earth pits and 2 ones in urns. The pits are different in the proportion of length to width, i.e. roughly 3:1,3:2 and 2:1. Most of the tombs are rowed pointing to the west-and-east, which implys that the cemetery must belong to a clan. There are corpse burials and secondary, skeleton burials. Each tomb contains, generally, 5—10 funeral objects, consisting mainly of pottery, with stone and jade artifacts occurring too. Among the pottery types are the fu caldron, jar, urn, gui basin, dou stemmed vessel, basin, bowl, cup, pot, yu basin and bottle. The stone tools include axes, adzes, knives and chisels, mostly made of pebbles; and the jade objects fall into the spade, huang semicircular pendent, bracelet, etc. The material unearthed shows that the site belongs to the Qujialing culture in the Dongting Lake area; and as part of articles display characteristic features of its own, it might be distinguished as a representative of a new variant of the culture. A typological study results in division of its objects into three phases, which corrispond to the early, middle and late periods of the culture respectively.