The carnelian beads unearthed from Sanxingdui ruins Photo: Xinhua News Agency

Chinese archaeologists have traced the origins of 11 carnelian beads unearthed from sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui Ruins, revealing that more than 3,000 years ago, the ancient Shu civilization in Southwest China had already established stable and lasting exchange networks with the distant northern grasslands and the Loess Plateau. The study also found that these carnelian beads are the southernmost such artifacts known in China from that period, according to a research conducted by the Sichuan provincial cultural relics and archaeology research institute on Tuesday.

Discovered in the late 1920s in Guanghan, Sichuan Province, the Sanxingdui Ruins have been dubbed one of the world's greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Experts pointed out that all the carnelian pieces were crafted into beads, with the most prominent traces being drilled holes. The beads' surfaces are polished, and signs of long-term wear from use are visible. Other relics — such as ivory, gold wares, and bronze artifacts — were unearthed from same pits, indicating that these beads were high-status items at Sanxingdui, according to a report from CCTV News.

Archaeologists conducted trace-element analysis on the carnelian beads and confirmed that the raw materials did not originate locally. Instead, they likely came from the Yanshan mountain range and areas north of it, more than 1,000 kilometers north of the Sichuan Basin. Researchers also compared the beads with carnelian artifacts excavated in Northwest China's Gansu Province, Shaanxi Province and Beijing that date to the same period, and found that they shared raw-material characteristics associated with northern regions.

This discovery shows that between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, an extensive and long-lasting trade and exchange network existed across the southern Mongolian Plateau, the Loess Plateau, the eastern Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, the Central Plain, and the Sichuan Basin, according to Xinhua.

Global Times