Stone tools to process jade, dating back 5,000 years, discovered at a workshop in Nanyang, Henan province. [Photo by Shi Linjing/Xinhua]

Ten jade processing workshops that date back around 5,000 years have been unearthed in China, providing key research material for studying the origin of Chinese civilization.

The scale of the 10 workshops, excavated in the Huangshan ruins in Nanyang, a city in Central China's Henan province, can be counted as a large jade processing base, according to Chinese archaeologists.

The discovery fills in the blank of the jade workshop remains in the Neolithic age in the central plains and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, says Ma Juncai, leader of the excavation project under the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology.

It provides key material for the study of Chinese civilization at the vital time of around 5,000 years ago in the region of cultural exchange and collision between the north and the south, according to Ma.

Three well-preserved workshops can be traced back to the period of Yangshao culture, among which two workshops each cover more than 120 square meters with a large and complicated structure.

The jade materials, semifinished and finished jade articles, and jade-processing tools unearthed at the location demonstrate the jade processing steps and provide an important basis for studying the social structure and economic activities at that time, says Ma.