Yinxu slowly reveals its secrets

The new discoveries have helped fill in many blanks about the north bank area of the Huanhe River. "Our archaeological work at Yinxu used to focus on the south bank area, where we had unearthed a large amount of oracle bone inscriptions," Wang says. "But we didn't know much about the large area to the north of the river. The road system in the northern bank area exceeds our imagination. The direction of the roads even aligns with Yinxu structures, indicating the northern area was also important.

"In this way, the new discoveries totally changed our understanding of the layout of Yinxu, and offered clues for the leading role that the Central China Plains played in the development of Chinese civilization during the Shang Dynasty," he adds.

Since the groundbreaking discovery of the tomb of Fu Hao, China's first known female general and consort of Shang king Wu Ding, which yielded a dazzling number of exquisite bronze, jade, bone and ivory artifacts in 1976, the focus had been on excavating tombs, according to Wang.

In the last two decades, archaeologists have started to prioritize creating a clear layout of Yinxu, leading to the discovery of the site of a capital from the middle stage of the Shang Dynasty to the north of the Huanhe River, and road and water systems to the south. These new discoveries are another highlight, and may help connect earlier remains found at the site, says archaeologist Chen Xingcan.

Lei Xingshan, an archaeology professor at the Beijing Union University, says the layout of city walls, road networks, and river systems are the keys to uncovering the secrets of large-scale settlement sites in archaeological studies.

"Archaeologists have discussed for years how to study large-scale settlement sites," Lei says. "Now, we are increasingly focused on the exploration of framework details like these. The seemingly simple city walls, roads and water systems often provide crucial archaeological clues."