Archaeological Site of the Neolithic Age

Location: Linxia Hui Autonomous District, Gansu Province

Period: About 2,000 BC

Excavated in 1924

Significance: The Qijia Culture is named after the site. The find has prompted the study of the prehistoric cultures in the upper reaches of the Yellow River.

 Introduction

Pottery urn: container (left-up, height 11.8 cm); Painted pottery fragment with triangle design: (right-up, height 4.7 cm); Pottery fragment from the ear of vessel: (up of the right-mid, height 4 cm); Pottery fragment from the ear of vessel: (bottom of the right-mid, height 4.8 cm); Painted pottery amphora with the pattern of triangle: food container (height 10.2 cm)

Qijiaping Site in Guanghe, Gansu Province, a late Neolithic Age cultural relic, covers an area of 1.5 square kilometers. Quite a few ancient houses, storage pits and tombs were unearthed here, in which a lot of stoneware, pottery, bone ware and jade were discovered.

Qijia Culture was first discovered in 1924 at Qijiaping. Culture spread around the upper reaches of the Taohe, Daxia and Weihe rivers in Gansu and the Huangshui basin in the upper reaches of the Yellow River in Qinghai, during the transitional period from the Neolithic Age to the Bronze Age (2,250-1,900BC). The culture was at the same time as the Longshan Culture (2,500-2,000BC), which was widespread in the Central Plains in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.

Tools are mainly of stone, although copper articles have made an appearance. Pottery includes red fine clay and a grey type of coarse sand. A cast bronze mirror has also been found, which is by far the first bronze mirror found in China, suggesting that some elements of early Chinese bronze casting may have originated in western China -- and may even have been linked to the bronze casting of Central Asia and the Iranian area.

The Longshan Culture, discovered largely in East and Central China, represents a critical period for the origin of civilization in China, with the appearance of city sites as its significant symbol.