Qijia culture

Qijia culture, the only Neolithic culture to be uncovered in China that shows northern Eurasian influence. Although most archaeologists date the Qijia in the Late Neolithic Period, it survived into historical times, and remains from as late as the 1st century bce have been found.

Evidence of the culture was first unearthed in the small village of Qijiaping, in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu, in the early 1920s by the Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson. In the 1940s and ’50s more important finds were explored in the nearby villages of Yangwawan and Cuijiazhuang by the Chinese archaeologists Pei Wenzhong and Xia Nai. More sites associated with the Qijia culture were later found in Qinghai province and in the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia.

The dominant characteristic of the culture appears to have been comblike designs and amphora-like vases, both of which are alien to China. The Qijia people lived in large villages in terraces along the Huang He (Yellow River) and buried their dead in pits. Their most common implements were stone axes and rectangular knives, although small copperware items were also widely used by the Qijia people.