What they say about Hongshan and Niuheliang

Wang Wei, a member of the Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

As an important component of the diverse yet unified Chinese civilization, Hongshan culture proves that Chinese civilization did not originate from a single center, but emerged from the independent development and mutual influence among multiple regional cultures ... In the past, archaeologists from both China and the West used to define civilization by the presence of writing, cities and metallurgy. Hongshan culture lacked all three, yet it formed a complex society organized around belief, ritual systems and shared spiritual identity. This shows that there is more than one path to civilization.

Fang Xiangming, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology

Around the same period as Hongshan culture, Hongshan's jade pig-dragon spread to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, over 1,000 kilometers away, and eventually became part of the unified religious emblem and ancestral icon of the Liangzhu civilization.

If we are to trace the origins of the Liangzhu jade civilization and jade culture and discuss the symbolic system of cosmology, Hongshan and Lingjiatan, which are closely related, are among the most important parts. The Hongshan and Liangzhu jade civilizations represent the earliest and most systematically developed models in the inheritance and innovation of Chinese jade culture, and they are essential components of China's 5,000-year-old civilization.