Living between two rivers
Jiangzhai lies near the meeting of the Lin and Wei rivers at Lintong in Shaanxi. Residents built on a riverside terrace. The Lin provided access to water and a natural boundary to the southwest, while houses, workplaces and routes to its bank developed within this setting.
Eleven excavation campaigns between 1972 and 1979 exposed most of the surviving village. Investigators first encountered graves and a large house, then followed structures and ditches in different directions. A shared plaza became clear when houses in several sectors were found facing an open central area.
Doorways facing a common open space
About 120 house remains belonging to the first phase were grouped into eastern, southern, western, northwestern and northern sectors. Each contained buildings of different sizes with doorways generally facing the central plaza. Trampled surfaces there preserve a common space where movement between households converged.
Hearths and storage pits lay among the houses, and some large buildings had earthen platforms against their walls. Nearby dwelling, cooking and storage areas allowed households to carry out several kinds of work locally. Overlapping and replaced structures preserve successive building rather than a single moment of occupation.
Different emphases in household work
Stone, bone and ceramic tools preserve cultivation, food processing, fishing and textile work. Enclosures and overnight pens held animals, while workshops and kilns stood near the river. Collecting clay, using water, firing and carrying finished vessels connected these neighboring spaces.
Peterson and Shelach compared tool assemblages from houses and residential sectors and found differences in productive emphasis and storage capacity. Some households left more plant-processing tools; others emphasized textiles or other activities. The differences reveal complementary economic activities within an early village.
Ditches, access routes and cemeteries
Ditches ran along the eastern, northern and southern residential perimeter; interruptions may have provided entrances. Adult cemeteries lay mainly beyond them, while children’s urn burials also occurred near houses. The boundary organized access alongside different spaces for burial.
Later occupation changed the use of some ground, including dense secondary collective burials in the central area. Stratigraphy distinguishes the earlier plaza from the later cemetery. Housing, collective activity and burial at the same site preserve how a village maintained and reorganized its life over time.