Remains of a 4,200-square-meter building on a hilltop in Northwest China's Shaanxi province are the largest Shang Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC) ritual site on the Loess Plateau.

Located in Xinzhuang, Qingjian county, on the west bank of the Yellow River, the late Shang site covers 100,000 square meters and is believed to reflect the relationship between the ancient Chinese and nature.

A team led by the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology began the excavation work in April 2013. More than a hundred artifacts made of clay, bone, copper, wood and stone have been unearthed, including the earliest wooden floors ever found on the plateau.

The team's archaeologist Sun Zhanwei says each piece of floor is of different thickness, creating a flat surface on the rugged terrain. The construction, on a hillside more than a hundred meters above ground level, is similar to that of the Potala Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Tibet autonomous region, he says.