- Banpo
Banpo (半坡) is an archaeological site first discovered in 1953 and located in the
Yellow River Valley just east ofXi'an ,China . It contains the remains of several well organisedNeolithic settlements dating from approximately 4500 BCE. It is a large area of sixty square kilometers and surrounded by a ditch, probably a defensive moat, five or six meters wide. The houses were circular, build of mud and wood with overhanging thatched roofs. They sat on low foundations. There appears to be communal burial areas.cite book
first=Francis D.K.
last= Ching et al
year= 2007
title= A Global History of Architecture
edition=
publisher=John Wiley and Sons
location=New York
pages= pp. 8–9
id= ISBN 0-471-82451-3]Banpo is the
type-site associated with Yangshao Culture. Archaeological sites with similarities to the first phase at Banpo are considered to be part of the Banpo phase (5000 BC to 4000 BC) of the Yangshao culture. Banpo was excavated from 1954 to 1957 and covers an area of around 50,000 square metres.The settlement was surrounded by a
moat , with the graves and potterykiln s located outside of the moat perimeter. Many of the houses were semisubterranean with the floor typically a meter below the ground surface. The houses were supported by timber poles and had steeply pitched thatched roofs.According to the Marxist paradigm of archaeology that was prevalent in the
People's Republic of China during the time of the excavation of the site, Banpo was considered to be a matriarchal society; however, new research contradicts this claim, and the Marxist paradigm is gradually being phased out in modern Chinese archaeological research ["The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States", pp.11] . Currently, little can be said of the religious or political structure from these ruins from the archeological evidence.cite book
first=Francis D.K.
last= Ching et al
year= 2007
title= A Global History of Architecture
edition=
publisher=John Wiley and Sons
location=New York
pages= pp. 8–9
id= ISBN 0-471-82451-3]The site is now home to the
Xi'an Banpo Museum .Footnotes
References
* Allan, Sarah (ed), "The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective", ISBN 0-300-09382-9
* Chang, Kwang-chih. "The Archaeology of Ancient China", ISBN 0-300-03784-8
* Liu, Li. "The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States", ISBN 0-521-81184-8
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