This is the largest plateau in Qingyang City, Gansu Province - Dongzhi Plateau. Dong Zhiyuan has an open plateau and vast fields, forming a sharp contrast with the surrounding thousands of gullies and ravines. Underneath the current village lies another 'city' - a metropolitan settlement dating back approximately 5000 years. Recently, the Nanzuo Site in Qingyang has been selected as one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in China for the year 2025. This site of the late Yangshao culture is grand in scale, well-organized in layout, and rich in relics, which also makes people start to ask again: what role did the Loess Plateau and the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River play in the process of Chinese civilization? Under the loess, what kind of city is hidden? From 1984 to 1986 and from 1994 to 1996, the Nanzuo site carried out six archaeological excavations in two stages, and a large rammed earth building F1 from the late Yangshao culture gradually emerged. It faces north and south, with a building area of approximately 690 square meters. The interior of the building is divided into a "front hall" and a "back hall" by partition walls. There are three doors on the partition walls: left, middle, and right, with the middle door facing a large fire altar with a diameter of 3.2 meters. In addition, the indoor floor and wall surfaces have been coated with six layers of white plaster and have undergone meticulous "decoration". For a prehistoric site dating back approximately 5000 years, such a building scale and structure are unusual. It's not like an ordinary residential building, but more like a high-level public building, "said Zhang Xiaoning, a member of the Nanzuo Site Joint Archaeological Team and a curator at the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. The discovery of two ring trenches on the outer side of nine rammed earth platforms further indicates that the Nanzuo site is not just an isolated building, but may be a large-scale site that has been planned and structurally complex. In 2021, the Nanzuo Site launched a new round of archaeological work. The archaeological excavation work in the past five years has gradually clarified the layout and outline of the site. Preliminary archaeological work has confirmed that the total area of the Nanzuo site is about 6 million square meters, with a main area of about 2.3 million square meters and a core area of about 300000 square meters. The main body of the site dates back to the late Yangshao culture, with carbon-14 dating dating dating from approximately 5100 to 4700 years ago. The core area is located at the center of the entire settlement, consisting of a large building area with F1 as the core, 9 large rammed earth platforms, and a moat. It is the earliest, largest, most well-organized, and best preserved high-level rammed earth building complex in northern China to date. Outside the core area, multiple concentrated and contiguous residential areas are distributed around it, ranging from 30000 to 50000 square meters in size to 70000 to 80000 square meters in size, forming a protective barrier to the core area; More peripheral, there are also multiple archaeological sites distributed within an area of approximately 100 square kilometers. This is no longer the size of an ordinary village, but can be understood as a city that has undergone unified planning and layout, presenting a multi-layered structure. If this is regarded as the capital city, the high-level courtyard where F1 is located is equivalent to a 'palace city', and the Nanzuo site is located at the center of the Loess Plateau region. ”Zhang Xiaoning said. Who drew the earliest central axis of the urban settlement? What sets the Nanzuo site apart from ordinary prehistoric settlements is not only its grand layout, but also closely related to the early royal atmosphere it presents. In later Chinese cities, the central axis is a spatial expression of ritual system and an important clue for people to understand urban order. Archaeological work shows that there is a central axis running north-south in the core area of the Nanzuo site. This central axis is based on the highest level "Miyagi" F1 central axis and extends to the entire core area of the settlement. On both sides of the central axis, large rammed earth platforms and architectural relics exhibit symmetrical distribution characteristics. This is the earliest and clearest central axis of urban settlements in ancient China, which is of great significance for studying the planning of ancient Chinese capital cities and the formation of ritual systems. ”Chen Guoke, the leader of the joint archaeological team at the Nanzuo Site and the director of the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that the Nanzuo Site has chosen to build a palace and a hall in the middle, forming a spatial pattern with clear priorities and progressive layers, reflecting the architectural features of the close combination of divine power and royal power, with royal power as the center, and possessing distinct characteristics of Chinese civilization. Trenches reflect the construction site of large-scale projects. The trial excavation area shows that the trench is locally about 20 meters wide and 10 meters deep, with the bottom reinforced layer by layer with 2 to 4 meters wide rammed earth. Layers of silt deposit inside the trench, indicating that it may have both protective and hydraulic functions. The main part of the Nanzuo site should have been planned and built in a relatively short period of time. If calculated based on 5000 people participating in the construction, it may take 2 to 4 years to complete the overall project. ”Professor Han Jianye from Renmin University of China believes that this mobilization ability has broken through the traditional clan society based solely on blood relations and is directed towards a public power or royal power based on geographical relationships. The window for observing the formation of the diverse and integrated pattern of Chinese civilization dates back to around 5000 years ago. Ancient countries are numerous and diverse, and the society in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, and the West Liaohe River basin has become highly complex. Some areas display hierarchical order through large tombs and jade ritual vessels, some areas demonstrate organizational ability through water conservancy systems and ancient city construction, and some areas gather crowds through religious rituals. The Nanzuo Site presents another peak of civilization in the Loess Plateau region of the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, with architectural planning along the central axis. The high level, large scale, and strict layout of it have never been seen in the Yangshao culture so far. ”Chen Guoke stated. Professor Guo Weimin from Yuelu Academy of Hunan University believes that the Nanzuo Site has pushed social organization to the highest level of urban settlements, and is the highest achievement of the late Yangshao culture on the Loess Plateau. What is even more intriguing is that Nanzuo is not a closed 'highland city'. A archaeological report from the Nanzuo site shows that the raw materials used for the white pottery unearthed at the Nanzuo site were kaolin and porcelain stone, and the porcelain stone raw materials may have been produced in the south; The marine crystalline coating material on the surface of some white pottery may come from the Haidai region. Turquoise and cinnabar are not found on the Loess Plateau, and their raw materials may come from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Chen Guoke stated that the Nanzuo site has established extensive communication and connections with the outside world, and even the possibility of remote control over scarce resources such as turquoise and cinnabar cannot be ruled out. These connections spanning mountains and rivers also make the Nanzuo site a window for observing the formation of the diverse and integrated pattern of Chinese civilization. (Looking into the New Era)