After more than 40 days of excavation, archeologists found an about 5,000-year-old Yangshao culture site in Zezhou county of Shanxi province. A well-persevered pottery kiln dating back to the Xia and Shang dynasties over 4,000 years ago was unearthed, providing valuable information about ancient ceramic firing techniques. Liu Yan, an archeologist from the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, said they found the well-preserved pottery kiln in Pit No. 25. The kiln still works well and has great research value.
  The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China. It is dated from around 5000 BCE to 3000 BCE. The culture is named after Yangshao, the first excavated representative village of this culture, which was discovered in 1921 in Henan Province by the Swedish archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson.

Edited from Xinhuanet (22 December 2011)