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The Liaowadianzi site in Yunxian County, Hubei, is located on a secondary platform in the middle and upper reaches of the Han River. From 2005 to 2011, in order to cooperate with the construction of the first phase of the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, entrusted by the Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, the School of History，the Department of Archeology and Museology at Wuhan University and the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology conducted rescued archaeological excavations at the site. The cultural connotation of the site was very rich, mainly including remains from the late Neolithic age to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. It filled the gap in the cultural development of this area and established the scale of the cultural development sequence in the middle and upper reaches of the Han River.

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This talk focuses on the new discoveries of Liaowadianzi remains of the Western Zhou period, which provides important materials for the study on the early Chu Culture in the southern region of China.We divide Liaowadianzi remains of the Western Zhou Dynasty into five phases from the early Western Zhou continue to the early Spring and Autumn periods（1050-650BC）.These five phases develop continuously from local culture to local type of Zhou culture and at last to typical Chu culture. Based on the combining with Residents of Chu（Chuju楚居）and comparing to sequence of archaeological culture in the Western Han River, we believe that Liaowadianzi remains of the Western Zhou period has the closest relationship to the early Chu culture. This type of remains is mainly distributed in the Northern Han River including the Danjiangkou reservoir area.Although there are no discovered bronzes yet in this area, we are very much looking forward to underwater archaeological discoveries to further support our views in future.

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