MOGOU, CHINA—An article in Chinese Cultural Relics describes a 4,000-year-old cemetery made up of hundreds of tombs that has been excavated by a team from the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Northwest University Silk Road Heritage Preservation and Archaeology Research Center near the village of Mogou in northwestern China. Live Science reports that the remains of sacrificed humans were found in some of the tombs, and some held the remains of entire families. There were also small chambers where finely made pottery, decorated with incised designs, had been placed near the tombs’ occupants. Jewelry and weapons such as bronze sabers, stone mace heads, axes, daggers, and knives were also recovered. Artifacts known as bone divination lots suggest that the people, most of whom belonged to the Qijia culture, attempted to predict the future. Some of the tombs had been covered with mounds of sediment, perhaps to mark them. To read more about archaeology in China, go to "The Tomb Raider Chronicles."
