6,000-year-old cemetery discovered in China

A 6,000-year-old cemetery has been unearthed in China's Shaanxi province, archaeologists said.

The cemetery, covering about 90,000 sq.metres, is located near the Yangguanzhai ruins, which belonged to a late Neolithic culture called the Yangshao that originated on the middle reaches of the Yellow river and is considered the main precursor of Chinese civilisation, Xinhua news agency said.

It is the largest cemetery from the Yangshao Culture period, researcher Wang Weilin, who headed the excavation, said at an ongoing seminar on new archaeological findings in 2016.

The site has been excavated by archaeologists with the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology since 2015.

By the end of 2016, 182 tombs were found in an area of more than 1,900 sq. metres.

"Such a big 6,000-year-old public cemetery is quite rare," said Yang Lihua, an associate researcher with the institute.