On the northeastern border of our country, Xiaonanshan sits quietly on the west bank of the Wusuli River, watching the rolling river flow forward. People stroll in the mountains and camp at the foot of the mountain, interweaving laughter and bird songs into a symphony of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. Crossing the long river of history, the Xiaonanshan site is now known for its stunning jade, providing strong evidence of the 9000 year old Chinese jade culture. The Xiaonanshan Site is located on the banks of the Wusuli River in the southeast of Raohe County, Shuangyashan City, Heilongjiang Province, with a total area of over 400000 square meters. Since the 1950s, ancient cultural relics have been discovered multiple times on Xiaonan Mountain, but due to the lack of formal archaeological excavations, the cultural connotations and nature of the Xiaonan Mountain site have long been relatively vague. The birch tree on the cliff has a story and has been a great help to archaeologists! ”Yang Yongcai, deputy research curator of Raohe County Cultural Relics Protection Center, said that when he and other archaeologists came to conduct preliminary investigations in 2014, they found nothing for several days. One day while on a mountain, a pottery piece was accidentally discovered under this tree, and then a jade relic was pulled out near the pottery piece, allowing archaeological excavation work to move forward. Can you imagine? The tens of centimeters thick soil layer on the surface of Xiaonan Mountain has condensed tens of thousands of years of history. ”Yang Yongcai squatted on the ground, caressing the Xiaonan Mountain that he had devoted a lot of effort to, while sighing that the cultural layer of the Xiaonan Mountain site was too thin, coupled with the tall trees and lush forests on the surface, and the large amount of stones mixed in the strata, making archaeological investigation and exploration very difficult. Since 2015, in order to understand the cultural connotation and distribution of relics at the Xiaonanshan site, the Heilongjiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Raohe County Cultural Relics Protection Center have officially carried out archaeological excavations at the Xiaonanshan site, with a total excavation area of nearly 2700 square meters. Archaeologists excavated tens of thousands of cultural relics from dozens of burial pits in the mountains, and discovered and confirmed cultural relics from multiple periods from the late Paleolithic era to the Han Dynasty, outlining the early life of the ancestors in the Wusuli River Basin. The Xiaonanshan Site was announced as a national key cultural relic protection unit in 2019, and was named one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in China in 2020. At the foot of Xiaonanshan Mountain, Raohe County Museum is the main cultural and museum venue for displaying the unearthed cultural relics of Xiaonanshan Site. Jade artifacts are a prominent feature of the Xiaonanshan site. In the past decade, more than 140 jade artifacts have been unearthed from the Xiaonanshan site, and with previous discoveries, the total number exceeds 200. "Director Song Yanling introduced that these jade artifacts often show curved and strip-shaped marks left by sand rope cutting technology, which is the earliest discovery in the world and lays the technical foundation for the early flourishing development of Chinese jade culture. According to carbon-14 dating and archaeological research, the second phase of cultural relics unearthed from the Xiaonanshan site's jade collection dates back approximately 9000 years. ”Li Youqian, Deputy Director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Head of the Xiaonanshan Archaeological Excavation Project, stated that this not only traces the origin of China's jade culture back 1000 years, but also advances more than 1000 kilometers northward, overturning previous understandings of the origin of jade artifacts. Li Qun, the former director of the National Cutural Heritage Administration, wrote that the Xiaonanshan Site in Raohe, Heilongjiang Province, about 9000 years ago "originated from the custom of valuing jade and taking jade as beauty". In June 2024, the "Xiaonanshan Jade Culture Forum" hosted by the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics was held in Raohe County. Experts and scholars from the Palace Museum, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, and other institutions attending the forum believed that the jade artifacts unearthed from the Xiaonanshan site provided strong evidence of the 9000 year old Chinese jade culture, providing a new perspective for the study of the origin, formation, and dissemination of Chinese jade culture, as well as the development of prehistoric human society. It also provided important clues for further exploring the origin of Chinese jade culture, revealing and interpreting the development and internal characteristics of Chinese civilization. The production and use of jade are important symbols of human civilization, especially the development of East Asian regional civilization. The jade artifacts unearthed from the Xiaonanshan site include rings, rings, pipes, beads, bi, axes, etc. The combination of jade artifacts reflects the earliest known jade culture in China. Li Youqian sighed and said that jade artifacts not only have the function of decorating the body and highlighting identity, but also serve as important carriers for gods or ancestors to worship, and are a key to understanding prehistoric culture and social operation. The jade artifacts unearthed in Xiaonanshan indicate that ancient humans 9000 years ago were not as clothed and hungry as modern people imagine, but rather had higher-level spiritual pursuits. At present, the field excavation work of Xiaonanshan Site has been completed in stages and has entered the stage of report writing. Relevant scientific research work is continuing. Zhao Yongjun, director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, stated that the next step will be to accelerate the compilation and publication of archaeological reports, improve scientific research planning, strengthen publicity and protection, and continuously expand the archaeological and cultural relic protection work of the Xiaonanshan site. (New Society)