SHAANXI, CHINA—According to a Phys.org report, a workshop that produced bone needles has been unearthed at the Shimao site in north-central China. Min Li of the University of California, Los Angeles, said that the workshop has been dated to the second millennium B.C., during the transition from the Neolithic period to the Bronze Age. The workshop was discovered at the top of a mound known as the royal terrace that was surrounded by an inner and outer enclosure. Many of the more than 16,000 recovered needles had been made in a variety of sizes and shapes from the long, straight bones of sheep and goats. Residences of elites, temples, guardhouses, stone carvings, and petroglyphs were also found on the royal terrace. “For me, the unexpected finding is the location of the production on top of the central mound, associated with the ritual architecture and possibly palatial buildings,” Li said. The production of needles was likely associated with making garments for ritual authorities. “I think that Shimao was a pilgrimage center and the silk, hemp, and sheep-skin garments produced on the central mound were likely shamanistic costumes, adorned with cowrie shells, turquoise beads, and small copper accessories,” he suggested. The hundreds of thousands of sheep and goats whose bones were used to make needles at Shimao were also likely used for ritual feasting, the researchers concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. For more, go to “Neolithic City of Shimao,” one of ARCHAEOLOGY’s Top 10 Discoveries of the Decade.
