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| Banpo Neolithic Village tips and photos posted by real travelers and Xi'an locals. • 10 Photos
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This neolithic village is an open air museum with remainings of the neolithic age.
Unfortunately the most interesting part of the park is in renovation, so you have only the option to see the exhibition rooms with some pottery, paitings, some of the history of the place and some technical details on the excavations and archology work. Leave a Comment Address: Suburbs of Xi'anDirections: Bus #105 stops near the museum or take a guided tour.
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Today Banpo sits among smoky factories, white-tiled apartment blocks and busy roads, and it requires some imagination to picture these primitive farmers using their tools to plant crops and fashion pots. Ongoing studies at Banpo and other early Yellow River civilisation sites will yield more discoveries over time. It is certainly a strange experience to close your eyes at Banpo and just feel that you are standing where civilisation all began. It is also a pity that after such a glorious start, China?s pottery industry now seems to focus on producing white rectangular tiles or the most appalling, tacky objects for tourists.
Nearby, a modern day re-creation of the village has been developed to show Chinese tourists what those days were like. Judging by the scathing comments in English language guide books, it is unlikely that many Westerners visit it now. Having said that, the man at the entrance said that I was the first foreign tourist he had seen in some days, so maybe Western tourists are skipping Banpo entirely.
I was impressed by Banpo. Considering the standards of most Chinese museums, this one looked loved and well tended: a museum curator volunteered to show me around the exhibition room and pointed out some of the less obvious points of some of the artefacts. A small stand has a surprisingly wide collection of books and brochures in English, along with the usual collection of cheap souvenirs. Elsewhere in the gardens, several other shops sell Shaanxi farmers primitive paintings (I must admit that I bought two because I quite like them) and another that was crammed full of the most awful silk clothing and other junk.
The Lonely Planet suggests that the "general consensus is that it is tacky and boring, but the occasional traveller comes away singing its praises". But just as Basil Fawlty exclaimed "What do you expect to see out of the window of a hotel bedroom in Torquay?", what do you expect to see at a museum that explains the history of one of the world's first human settlements? Leave a Comment Directions: Bus #105 stops near the museum
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Banpo shows an incredible level of social organisation, and the village was divided into specific areas for living, pottery manufacture and burial. This and the fairly sophisticated tools and painted pottery suggest that there may yet be older cultures yet to be found in unsegregated, probably temporary settlements elsewhere.
The earlier houses were like tepees, with angled wooden posts supporting a thatched roof, over a sunken circular living space. Later houses were built at ground level and were rectangular.
The pottery is absolutely fascinating, and shows a variety of objects. The exhibition rooms at Banpo, and in other museums in China, have many different kinds of objects - many of them beautifully decorated. The museum shows how the Yangshao used and developed a fish motif on their pottery which is quite incredibly fresh and even contemporary, thousands of years after it was applied to a bowl by a potter. The fish and other designs of human faces and deer were seemingly reserved for the more imposing, special objects, while everyday items were either unpainted or used a basketweave or cord pattern.
Other designs, presumably earlier, involved pricking the wet clay with fingernails to give a scaly appearance, possibly imitating the scales of a fish.
Perhaps the most intriguing design element is that of the famous Banpo letters. Archaeologists have discovered many shards with what appear to be Roman letters. I know absolutely nothing about the development of written scripts, but is it possible that these primitive letters somehow moved from Asia to the Middle East to Europe. Some letters are very clear: T, K, and E. Others (X and I) are so universal that they can hardly be described as Asian or European-looking. Currently, the archaeologists suggest that these were used only to identify animals or goods, as there is only ever one letter found on a shard, never more. Leave a Comment Directions: Bus #105 stops near the museum
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Just to give an idea of the sophistication of the Banpo and Yangshao potters, many of the objects have ears and handles, many are polished, many are painted different colours with brushes, and the pre-painted surfaces were lightened to a whiter or redder shade. They were able to manufacture all kinds of bowls, jugs, steamers, eating and drinking vessels, and an amazing amphora-type jar that tilts when placed in water so allowing the water to flow in. This jar also had a very narrow neck to prevent the water splashing out when being carried.
The development of pottery meant that foodstuffs could be stored for consumption later, and so there was no need to follow the animals for hunting as they migrated. Good pottery created human settlements: it is sobering to think that the humble pottery plate, cup, amphora and storage urn made it possible for homo sapiens to stop hunting and start building a place to live.
Although much knowledge of the settlement social structures is conjecture (and challenged by many experts), archaeologists create a very convincing picture of life at Banpo. The clan seems to have been matriarchal, judging by the pattern of burying females with more treasures and objects, and because of the curious practice of reburying people around or in the grave of certain women who died later, with that woman placed at the centre. The first evidence of a patriarchal civilisation doesn?t appear for almost another thousand years.
The graves are interesting, with the bodies arranged facing south and usually with some funereal bowls and jewellery. Some children were buried inside large urns, and in graves within the residential area. Adults were buried outside the defensive trench.
Chinese archaeologists are keen to demonstrate that these were also primitive collective settlements, as storage areas and cellar complexes are clearly communal. Bai Shouyi?s book 'An Outline History of China' proudly states "Collective labour and the public character of the ownership of the means of production....". Yes, quite. Leave a Comment Directions: Bus #105 stops near the museum
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One of the oldest human settlements on the planet ? around 6,000 years old ? can be found on the eastern outskirts of Xi?an. The actual excavation site is closed for renovations until October 2004, although several of the exhibition rooms remain open.
In 1953 excavations for a factory uncovered the remains of an old village on a sloping site. The village covers some 5 hectares, and is believed to be typical of the early Yangshao settlements which existed then in a region which extended along the Huanghe and Weihe, from modern-day central Shaanxi through to north-western Henan and southern Shanxi provinces. In fact, microlithic communities are known to have extended from Gansu and Nei Mongol through central China to the Shandong peninsular. The southern and eastern culture is known as the Yangshao (named after a discovered settlement east of Luoyang, Henan) and the more western culture is named after Majiayao village in Gansu province.
These people used stone and bone tools to break the ground, plant grains and vegetables, and harvest them. They fished using reverse barb hooks still used today by fishermen everywhere, and kept dogs and pigs in animal enclosures. They even used hard stone discs to grind the grains and seeds, and stored the food for use in winter months. It is known that they grew cabbage, mustard, hemp and fox-tail millet. Despite the fragile sustenance agriculture of the field crops, the Yangshao people still relied heavily on hunting and gathering of berries and nuts. Leave a Comment Directions: Bus #105 stops near the museum
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This is located on the east bank of the Chanbe River of Xi’an. This is a museum on the site of village remains of a matriarchal clan community of Neolithic age that existed 6,000 years ago in the Yellow river Valley. It covers an area of 50,000 m and is divided into residential, pottery making and burial sections. We found this museum a bit touristy but the video demonstration which showed the building of various houses excellent (English as well as Chinese footage). Directions: Bus #105 stops near the museum
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Over 6,000 years old, it's an archeological site of great significance and interesting to see how the ancient Chinese lived. Despite the crowds that get here, it can be quite serene - until the kids at the college next door start playing soccer, that is. Still, that's what village life is all about, I guess. Leave a Comment
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Visit the Neolithic village Banpo on the outskirts of Xian.
This museum is built on the site where the remains of a Yangshao village was discovered and it was opened in 1958. The village, in the Huanghe (Yellow River) valley, dates back to about 6,000 years ago and was discovered in 1953. There are three areas to the site – a residential quarter, a pottery- making ground and a graveyard. Between 1954 and 1957 10,000 square metres were excavated and among the finds were 45 huts, more than 200 cellars, 6 pottery kilns and 250 tombs. These tombs included 73 urns containing the remains of children. More than 10,000 tools and household utensils were also found. There were also large amounts of animal bones, fruit stones and millet. There are two types of huts on show in the main hall – the semi-subterranean one built at the early stages and the wooden-structured ones from the larger stage of development in the settlement. The pottery-making grounds lay to the east of the residential area and are one of the oldest sites of pottery making in China.
It is really well preserved, this urn contains the remains of a baby. Leave a Comment
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Banpo is included in the East City Tour conducted by CITS along with the Wild Goose Pagoda, the Hot Springs and the Warriors.
Banpo is frankly not worth visiting. It was the oldest on site museum in China (the exhibiyion hall was built over the excavations). Unfortunately it was porrly maintained following its construction in the 50's and so, during heavy rains a couple of years ago, the main buildings flooded and have had to be destroyed. New buildings are being constructed in 2004, but at the moment all you can see is a couple of rrom s containing neolithic pottery - not very thrilling Leave a Comment Directions: Bus #105 stops near the museum
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The Banpo Neolithic Village is an archeological site dating back some 6000 years. I wouldn't really call this one a "must see" but if you have some extra time to kill or like me have an interest in archaelogy it's worth a look. It's a bit of a laugh anyway. The first exhibition hall we entered seemed to be a public health display aimed at young people, with fairly graphic photographs of genitalia in the various stages of different venerial diseases. Up at the back of the museum was a reconstructed neolithic village with shades of the Flintstones. The dig site itself was interesting enough but the museum in general seems to have been overrun by kitchy theme park considerations. Leave a Comment Directions: Bus #105 stops near the museum
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