The ritual landscape of ‘Boar Mountain’ Basin: The Niuheliang site complex of north‐eastern China

Abstract The relic Neolithic landscape at Niuheliang was recognized and partially excavated by the Liaoning Provincial Archaeological Research Institute in the mid‐1980s. A decade later, scholars are competing to re‐interpret the landscape's symbolic and ritual nature deriving from its unique and unprecedented complexity within the East Asian Neolithic. In these new interpretations, the old pitfall of untestable speculation is joined by politically emotive considerations in acting to shape the significance of Niuheliang within the origins of Chinese civilization.