Shimao site, located in Gaojiabao town, Shaanxi province on the northern edge of the Loess Plateau, is the biggest prehistoric walled site discovered in China, offering archaeologists insights into the origin of Chinese civilization.

　　The Shimao site is roughly 4,000 years old and covers an area of around 4.25 million square meters. In September 2019, by performing carbon-14 dating， archaeologists figured out the building time of the primary section of the Shimao site - the palace center - to be about 2200-1900 BC, towards the end of the Longshan period. In recent decades, a lot of valuable jewellery, carved stones, bone needles, shells, and even musical instruments and crocodile bone dishes have been found at the site.

　　Archaeological research has shown that the Shimao site consists of three practically complete and relatively independent stone cities: the palace center, the inner city, and the outer city. The palace center was surrounded by inner and outer stone walls, which were 2.5 meters thick on average, with perimeters of approximately 4,200 meters and 5,700 meters respectively, and feature gates, turrets and watch towers.

　　The palace center was a huge stepped pyramid built on a hill made of loess. The pyramid was modified to form 11 platforms, and it stood 70 meters tall. The inner city consisted of a stone-walled platform, which experts believe was a palatial complex. Unusual features at the Shimao site include jade embedded in the walls for spiritual protection, relief sculptures of serpents and monsters, and paintings of geometrical patterns on the walls.

　　These discoveries have provided a lot of new research materials for understanding the origin and formation of the Chinese civilization, as well as the social and settlement development and the relationship between humans and the land.