Banpo is a

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

archaeological site located in the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

valley, east of present-day

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

, China. Discovered in 1953 by Shi Xingbang, the site represents the first phase of the Yangshao culture () and features the remains of several well organized settlements—including Jiangzhai, which has been radiocarbon dated to ). An area of was surrounded by a ditch, probably a defensive moat wide. The houses at Banpo were circular, built of mud and wood on low foundations, with overhanging thatched roofs. There also appear to have been communal burials.

Site

The settlement was surrounded by a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

, with the graves and pottery

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

s located outside the moat perimeter. Many of the houses were semi-subterranean with the floor typically below the ground surface. The houses were supported by timber poles and had steeply pitched thatched roofs. According to the paradigm of archaeology influenced by

Marxist historiography Marxist historiography, or historical materialist historiography, is an influential school of historiography. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography include the centrality of social class, social relations of production in class-divided s ...

that was prevalent in China at the time the site was being excavated, Banpo society was considered to be matriarchal; however, new research contradicts this claim and the Marxist paradigm is gradually being phased out in modern Chinese archaeological research. The archaeological evidence to date has not allowed for deeper insight or analysis concerning the religious or political structure of Banpo society. The site is now home to the Xi'an Banpo Museum, built in 1957 to preserve the archaeological collection.

Banpo culture

Banpo is the

type site In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and H ...

of the Banpo culture, first phase of the Yangshao Culture. Archaeological sites with similarities to the site at Banpo are considered to be part of the "Banpo phase" (4th-3rd millennium BCE) of the Yangshao culture. Banpo was excavated from 1954 to 1957. The tomb of a four-year-old girl contains one of the earliest examples of children's toys, a set of three stone balls.

Pottery innovations

Banpo was the first culture to use the potter's wheel in China, while other cultures continued to use coiling techniques, and the potter's wheel only became generalized by the end of the Yangshao period. Banpo also had the first pottery kilns in China. The designs of the Banpo were often geometric, and animal or anthropomorphic figures. File:Banpo - Neolithic kiln (4535392749).jpg, Banpo pottery kiln File:Banpo Neolithic pottery (4535389317).jpg, Banpo pottery made on a potter's wheel File:YangshaoCordmarkedAmphoraBanpoPhase4800BCEShaanxi.jpg, Yangshao traditional cordmarked

amphora An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

(Banpo phase, 4800 BC,

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

Designs

Banpo is known for a characteristic type of decorative pottery, with a red clay coating all over the body, and geometrical drawings in black, typically depicting a round human head with some fish around it. The round human head had a triangular design on top. Similarities have been noted between the motifs of the Afanasievo culture and Okunev culture of the Minusinsk basin in Siberia, and those on the potteries of Banpo. Pottery style emerging from the Yangshao culture spread westward to the

Majiayao culture The Majiayao culture was a group of Neolithic communities who lived primarily in the upper Yellow River region in eastern Gansu, eastern Qinghai and northern Sichuan, China. The culture existed from 3300 to 2000 BC. The Majiayao culture represent ...

, and then further to

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. Several of the potteries have symbol marks, and are part of the Neolithic signs in China, but each sign occurs singly, which is antinomic with the function of a written script. They could instead be the personal mark of individual potters. File:Pottery pot with human and fish design from Neolithic age (9000 to 2000 BC). Found in Shaanxi province. Beijing Capital Museum.jpg, Pottery pot with human and fish design, Shaanxi province. Beijing Capital Museum File:Banpo bowl.jpg, Human faced–fish decorated bowl recovered at Banpo. File:Banpo motif.jpg, Banpo anthropomorphic motif File:Banpo Neolithic Village burial.jpg, Banpo burial File:BanpoSkull.jpg, A skull recovered at Banpo displayed at the Xi'an Banpo Museum. File:Banpo pottery symbols.svg, Banpo pottery symbols

Footnotes

References