XI'AN -- The Shimao ruins in Northwest China's Shaanxi province has been listed as one of the top 10 archaeological discoveries of the past decade by the Archaeology journal.

Over the past 10 years, excavators have uncovered a stone city with immense fortifications and sophisticated infrastructure, thousands of luxurious artifacts and a 230-foot-high stepped pyramid, commented the journal, which is published by the Archaeological Institute of America.

"The site's early date and peripheral location were surprising since Chinese civilization was thought to have first developed in the Central Plains around 500 years after Shimao's founding," read an article in the journal.

Other top 10 discoveries listed by the journal include the Neanderthal genome in Vindija Cave, Croatia, a mummification workshop in Egypt and the grave of the "Griffin Warrior" in Greece.

The Shimao ruins were a neolithic city built about 4,300 years ago and abandoned roughly 300 years later during the Xia Dynasty (2100-1600 BC), the first dynasty in China described in historical chronicles.