URUMQI, CHINA—Xinhua reports that a large stone platform surrounded by polished stones has been discovered in northwest China at the Jartai Pass site, which dates to between 1600 and 1000 B.C. The stone platform measures nearly 1,300 square feet, and was built about one-half mile south of a 3,000-year-old residential area. Archaeologist Wang Yongqiang of the Xinjiang Uygur Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute said stone walls, pottery, animal bones, stone artifacts, and ash mixed with blocks of coal were uncovered within the structure. “The new findings are very important to [the] study [of] the history of the Kax River basin in the Bronze Age,” Wang added. For more on archaeology in China, go to “Early Signs of Empire.”