Over 6,000-yr-old stone-carved silkworm cocoons found in China

CHANGCHUN -- Two stone-carved silkworm cocoons and chrysalides from over 6,000 years ago were unearthed in Yuncheng city, North China's Shanxi province, according to the School of Archaeology of Jilin University.

The four artifacts are believed to date back as early as the Yangshao period, considered an essential stream of Chinese civilization, said Fang Qi, head of the excavation team and professor at Jilin University.

They offer significant clues to the role of silkworm breeding and silk reeling in the daily production and living as early as the Yangshao period in the Yuncheng Basin, considered a core area of the origin of Chinese civilization, said Fang.

The excavation team also found house sites, ash pits and ditches, tombs, urn coffins, and kiln sites, and an abundance of cultural relics at the relic site of Shicun village, Xiaxian county, including ceramic and stone instruments of production, jade and metal products, as well as bone and shell artifacts.

Experts believe the relic site is a large settlement and owned a primitive handicraft workshop of silkworm raising and silk reeling.