ZHENGZHOU -- A total of 224 tombs believed to be over 3,000 years old have unearthed in Central China's Henan province.

The tombs, which archeologists date from the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), are located across a river from a royal burial site in Qixian County. Archaeologists have also excavated five pits containing the remains of horses and the ruins of a house, unearthing nearly 400 items including pottery, bronze weapons and carts, shells, jade, and lacquerware.

Most of the tombs were small in size and carefully planned, which showed that they belonged to ordinary people, according to Han Zhaohui, head of the team and associate research fellow with the Henan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.

There are also a few larger tombs which included horses and carts, suggesting that they belonged to aristocrats, Han said.

He added that it appears to have been a military area, as about a quarter of the tombs contained broken shields and daggers.

Most of the pottery pieces were boilers and jars, which were typical burial objects for people of Zhou Dynasty in late Shang (1600-1046 BC) and early West Zhou periods, Han said.