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Archaeologists have excavated three c. 3,000–2,400-year-old ritual structures in Shandong Province, China, indicating that the origins of a shared Chinese cultural identity lie in ceremonial gatherings that sowed the seeds for the political unification of China under the First Emperor. The are reported in Antiquity.

China's political unification is generally attributed to founder of the Qin dynasty and First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Taking power in 247 BC, he is credited with standardizing and unifying many aspects of Chinese society, from writing to measurements.

However, this unification process began long before the birth of the First Emperor, with many of the pre-Qin polities that ruled parts of China working to create a shared cultural identity to solidify their political control.

"The First Emperor's political unification of China in 221 BC marked the culmination of a long process that was characterized by infrastructural investments, new technologies, and the integration of diverse ideological constructs," says co-author of the research, Dr. Qingzhu Wang from Shandong University. "However, most studies of this period focus on large-scale developments, often overlooking the influence of public rituals at individual settlement levels."

To tackle this, researchers from Shandong University in China and the Field Museum of Natural History in the U.S. interpreted the excavation conducted at the site of Qianzhongzitou in Shandong, which was excavated by Shandong University.

Occupied from prehistory onwards, Qianzhongzitou developed from a residential village to a sacred ritual center over hundreds of years, providing the perfect opportunity to explore how ritual activities contributed to cultural changes over time.

Excavations uncovered three platforms constructed at Qianzhongzitou, one dating to the Western Zhou period (c. 1046–771 BC) and two to the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC). They were meticulously constructed with various types of different-colored earth.

Several inscriptions of the character 土 (tu), meaning earth, were found at one of the platforms. This, coupled with the colorful earth, indicates they were used for some form of earth worship.

Importantly, the platforms likely served as open spaces for public ritual gatherings and performances. Food remains and cooking vessels found at them indicate these events were accompanied by large-scale feasts.

The communal nature of these gatherings would have provided the perfect opportunity to bring people together.

"The primary purpose of these platforms, we argue, was to bring together an expanding population and cultivate new collective identities through shared ritual experience," states Dr. Wang.

By taking a "bottom-up" approach, the researchers show how state expansion impacted local communities and their ritual practices, rather than just elite-level politics. Through public ritual feasting, incoming powers adapted and formalized local cults into a state-sanctioned cosmological system to legitimize their rule.

Historical sources describe the worship of "Eight Deities" (the spirits of Heaven, Earth, Arms, Sun, Moon, Yin, Yang and the Four Seasons) as the state belief system developed by the Qi State (which primarily ruled over the northern and eastern parts of present-day Shandong Province) in early China. These platforms likely represent the early practice of incorporation of local spirit worships into the state belief system, which subsequently inspired and developed into the later Eight Deities belief system.

This means that, long before the First Emperor, public ritual spaces were instrumental in creating the shared Chinese cultural identity necessary for the formation of a unified Chinese state.

"Our excavations at Qianzhongzitou reveal that the expansion of ancient Chinese states went beyond military conquest," concludes Dr. Wang. "Elites strategically utilized grand public rituals and feasting on monumental platforms to integrate diverse peoples and their spiritual beliefs, cultivating a shared identity that helped form powerful states."