Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

Artifacts, Settlement and Belief: An Anthropological Investigation of Human-Environment Relations in the Sanxingdui Ancient Shu Civilization

Zixuan Niu*
The experimental high school attached to Beijing Normal University

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Since 2019, within the context of exploring the pluralistic‑integrated origins of Chinese civilization, newly‑excavated artifacts from Sanxingdui's sacrificial pits offer fresh empirical evidence for studies on the Ancient Shu civilization and its primitive beliefs. Centering on human‑environment relations, this paper investigates Ancient Shu's settlement construction, subsistence modes and primitive beliefs, contributing to archaeological‑anthropological research on the upper Yangtze River and early Chinese civilization's pluralistic‑integrated pattern.Current scholarship tends to analyze Sanxingdui in separate dimensions: Chinese researchers emphasize artifacts and settlement layouts, while overseas scholars focus on paleo‑environmental reconstruction. Few studies deliver holistic analysis anchored in archaeological relics. Combining literature review and interdisciplinary archaeological cross‑analysis, this paper merges domestic settlement archaeology and international scientific archaeology. It builds a "settlement environment‑subsistence‑spiritual belief" framework to unpack Ancient Shu's human‑environment interactions, social stratification and spiritual systems reflected by Sanxingdui remains.It concludes that the humid, flood‑prone basin environment shaped Ancient Shu's secular‑ritual dual‑zoned urban layout. The society developed mixed farming‑fishing‑hunting subsistence, specialized handicrafts and cross‑regional trade. Its early belief system featuring mountain‑river worship and heaven‑earth cosmology functioned as a spiritual bond to ease human‑environmental frictions and sustain social order.

Keywords: Sanxingdui artifacts; Ancient Shu civilization; human-environment relations; archaeological anthropology; primitive belief
Published: September 22, 2026
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2026.36987
Volume: CHR Vol.121
pp. 92-100
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