Rare 7,000-Year-Old Bottle Dug Up in Central China

The bottle is reportedly the “earliest dated artifact of its kind" to be found in China.

A 7,000-year-old bottle has been discovered in an ancient tomb in China, according to a December 25 news release from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Archeology network. The bottle was unearthed at the Peiligang site in the city of Xinzheng, Henan Province.

The bottle has a distinctive shape, and features a small mouth at the top and a pointed bottom. The 10.16 centimeter bottle looks as if it is shaped like a teardrop or a spade. Researchers initially estimated the bottle to be about 7,700 years old.

The site where it was found is considered to be “one of the birthplaces of Chinese agricultural civilization”, according to one new source. The settlement is between 7,600 and 8,000 years old, with an area of 50,000 to 60,000 square meters.

Prior to this discovery, these distinctly shaped bottles have been found before and are considered to be a representative artifact of the prehistoric Yangshao culture. This Neolithic culture originated along the Yellow River in China, flourishing in what is known today as Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, North China’s Shanxi Province and Central China’s Henan Province.

These bottles have been found in the ruins of dwellings, ash pits and burial sites. But it is unclear what, exactly, these types of bottles were used for—though some archaeologists believe they were used as a vessel for water collection, as a brewing container or a burial item.

Li Yongqiang, an associate researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes the bottle could have been used for making yeast.

"This discovery provides fresh and crucial material evidence for exploring the origin and development relationship between the Peiligang culture and Yangshao culture," said Yongqiang.

Nevertheless, this most recently discovered bottle is unique because of its abnormally small size and exceptionally old age. Other artifacts were also found at the site, including late Paleolithic stone relics, pieces of red iron ore, and fragments of an ostrich egg.