Dating back millennia and once spanning over 13,000 miles, the Great Wall of China is one of the most ambitious construction projects ever undertaken by humans. Recent excavations at the ancient monument suggest that its oldest sections were built 300 years earlier than previously thought.
Oldest Section of Great Wall Dates Back to Western Zhou Dynasty
The Great Wall of China was not a single cohesive construction project. It actually comprises numerous walls and fortifications built over the course of over 2,000 years across northern China and southern Mongolia. Nine different dynasties contributed to the Great Wall’s construction across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China to deter invasion by nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe.
It was previously believed that the first portions of the Great Wall of China were constructed as early as the 7th century BCE, then later joined together under the Qin Dynasty during the 3rd century BCE. Successive dynasties continued the Great Wall’s expansion, with the best-known sections being built by the Ming Dynasty, which ruled from 1368 to 1644. However, new excavations in eastern China’s Shandong province unearthed sections of the Great Wall that date back to the late Western Zhou Dynasty, which ruled from 1046 BCE to 771 BCE.
First-of-its-Kind Excavation of the Great Wall of China
Last year, archaeologists began the first proactive excavation of the Qi Great Wall—the earliest and longest section of the ancient monument—following years of preliminary surveys. The research team, directed by the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, excavated approximately 1,100 square meters between May and December 2024. They utilized a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach, including traditional artifact analysis, soil sampling, plant studies, and high-tech dating techniques like carbon-14 dating and optically stimulated luminescence. These methods proved that portions of the Great Wall of China date back about three centuries earlier than once thought.
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Excavation Also Reveals New Insights About Life in Ancient China
In addition to determining a more accurate timeline for the Great Wall of China, the excavation revealed new insights into the advanced engineering capabilities of ancient people in the region. For example, archaeologists found that the Great Wall was expanded to approximately 30 meters wide at its peak, particularly during the Warring States Period, which lasted from 475 BCE to 221 BCE. The research team also found that the Great Wall of China may have functioned as more than a military fortification. The presence of semi-subterranean residential dwellings beneath the earliest parts of the wall indicates the Great Wall played an integral role in the everyday lives of ancient people.
