Lajia Site Museum 喇家遗址博物馆

About Lajia Site Museum

Lajia is a large settlement site excavated on the upper Yellow River, mainly of the Neolithic, discovered in 1981 and about 4,000 years old. The Xinhua report records that it preserves traces of several disasters — a prehistoric earthquake, a great Yellow River flood and mudflows — and both pages call it the only large prehistoric disaster site found in China so far. The provincial page records that the Lajia National Archaeological Site Park protects the disaster scene, and that the experts Zhou Cunyun and Cai Linhai read what the site now shows as the superimposed result of several disasters, earthquake and flood among them, adding that a link between the site and the legend of Yu taming the waters has no scientific demonstration. The Xinhua report, quoting the museum's director Wu Xiulan, records that excavation has found and cleared more than 70 house foundations, seven of them with human remains, and more than 30 sets of human bones of men, women and children, and that these house foundations are now open to the public. The provincial page records that the site is the most representative prehistoric site dominated by Qijia culture, that exploration puts it at at least 670,000 square metres, of which less than 10,000 square metres has been excavated so far, and that its scale far exceeded the experts' expectations.

In the museum's No. 1 hall the Xinhua reporters saw a woman curled in a corner holding an infant and a man trying to hold up a collapsing roof. Beside house F3 they saw two skeletons, one a woman kneeling with her seat on her heels and her arms around a small child who clung to her waist; the museum's interpreter Ye Mengna told them that DNA testing has confirmed the pair were not related by blood and that the woman used instinct to shield another's child. In another house, the page records, archaeologists clearing the upper part found a man of about 40 to 45, and beneath him a child still holding the posture of life, drinking from a small pottery cup — which the interpreter read as showing that the earthquake came very suddenly and the adult's first response was to run and shield the child. The provincial page records that in 2002 archaeologists excavated at the site a bowl of noodles from 4,000 years ago, that in 2005 the journal Nature reported the find as physical evidence of the world's earliest noodles, and that Zhou Cunyun said it cannot be verified whether it was the world's first bowl, but that the earliest noodles so far certainly appeared in China, in Qinghai. The same page lists the site's finds as a small plaza reflecting social stratification and organised activity in the Qijia period, high-grade tombs whose occupant may have been a shaman-priest or a leader of the Qijia settlement, a large stone chime it calls the Yellow River chime king and a symbol of supreme authority, and a great jade knife it calls the largest known; it reads the knife and the chime as marks of status and power and of the settlement as an important political, economic and cultural centre in prehistoric times.

What to look for

• House F3 and the two skeletons the Xinhua reporters saw there — a woman kneeling with a small child in her arms, a pair the museum's interpreter says DNA testing showed were not related by blood
• The house where a man of about 40 to 45 was found with a child beneath him still holding the posture of drinking from a small pottery cup
• The bowl of noodles from 4,000 years ago excavated in 2002 and reported in Nature in 2005 as physical evidence of the world's earliest noodles
• The great jade knife the provincial page calls the largest known, and the stone chime it calls the Yellow River chime king
• The house foundations themselves — more than 70 cleared, seven with human remains, and now open to the public

Location & getting there

Getting to Lajia Site Museum

Confirm the venue or campus, reservation channel and exhibition calendar. A museum name may cover more than one building.

• Search for 喇家遗址博物馆 with 海东市 and 民和回族土族自治县.