Banpo

Welcome to the Banpo Museum, the first museum of its kind in China, built directly over the archaeological site of a 6,000-year-old Neolithic village. Located on the eastern bank of the Bahe River near Xi'an, Banpo represents the…

The centerpiece of the museum is the grand protective hall, which encloses the main excavation site. Standing on the elevated walkways, you look down upon a landscape of pits, foundations, and post-holes that once formed the…

As you move closer to the dwelling foundations, you will notice that many of the earlier houses were semi-subterranean, built partly into the ground. This was an ingenious form of Neolithic engineering; by digging the floor level…

In the eastern section of the village, archaeologists discovered a dedicated pottery production zone containing six specialized kilns. This area was located away from the residential district, likely to protect the homes from the…

The Banpo site has provided significant clues about the social structure of Neolithic China. Based on the burial patterns found in the cemetery, many scholars believe that Banpo was a matriarchal society, where lineage was traced…

North of the residential area lies the village cemetery, where over 250 graves were excavated. The adults were buried in rectangular pits, often accompanied by pottery vessels containing food for the afterlife. …

The entire residential section of the Banpo village was surrounded by a massive defensive moat, which was five to six meters wide and equally deep. This moat was a significant engineering project, requiring the collective labor…

As you exit the Banpo Museum, you leave behind the quiet remains of one of humanity's earliest successful experiments in settled life. You have walked through the ruins of a village that existed before the pyramids of Egypt and…