Archeologists have excavated more than 400 tombs from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC) to the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) in North China's Shanxi province, according to the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology. 

The excavation site is located in the west of Houzhai village, Yaozitou township, Shuocheng district, Shuozhou city, where farming culture and nomadic culture blend together.

In tombs from the Eastern Han Dynasty, relics (mainly pottery) have characteristics of local aboriginal cultural artifacts from the dynasty. In the tombs of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) and the Han Dynasty, the characters on unearthed pots indicate they were stamps used by market regulators at the time.

Gao Zhenhua, a researcher of the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, said that the discoveries at the excavation site provide lots of archaeological material for the study of the layout and hierarchy of tombs and the funeral customs of the region along the Great Wall in North China during those dynasties. They are also of great value to research on political and military development in North China during this period.