Sanxingdui site is located in the northwest of Guanghan City, Sichuan Province. It was first excavated in 1934, but it was shelved for a long time. It was not excavated again until 1963, and it was officially named "Sanxingdui Culture" in 1980, which is also known as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in the 20th century.
Because the cultural relics unearthed in Sanxingdui are not recorded in history, many of them are shocking to the world, such as bronze sacred trees, gold scepters, gold masks and various exquisite jade articles, so it is impossible to attribute these cultural relics to which dynasty, so archaeologists deliberately refer to all the cultural relics unearthed in Sanxingdui as "Sanxingdui Site Cultural Relics".
Sanxingdui site is the longest pre-Qin settlement and city in Chengdu Plain, and the largest known bronze age ancient site in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Sanxingdui culture, represented by Sanxingdui site, is the earliest bronze culture in Sichuan Basin and occupies an important position in China Bronze Age archaeology.
Sanxingdui culture can be divided into three stages according to its archaeological findings: phase I, phase II, phase III and phase IV. According to cultural categories, it can also be divided into Baodun culture, Sanxingdui culture and Twelve Bridges culture.
The division of Sanxingdui culture plays an important role in understanding the relationship between Sanxingdui and the local bronze culture and Neolithic culture in the pre-Qin period, and also lays a foundation for perfecting the development pedigree of Sichuan ancient culture and determining the formation of Bashu civilization.