Bangar New Stone Age Ruins in Shannan

SHARGE WANGDUI

The Banggar New Stone Age Ruins is located to the north of Bangar Village, Xiashui Town, Qoingyi County, Shannan Prefecture. First excavation took place in the 1980s. From September to October 2000, the Archaeological Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Tibet Museum and the Cultural Relics Bureau of Shannan Prefecture jointly surveyed the site, and returned with new findings.

Ruins of a housing.

DISCOVERIES. The ruins extend 100 meters long and 30 meters wide. Recent survey uncovered 99 fragments of pottery wares and 186 pieces of stone artifacts.
The 99 fragments of pottery wares included fragments of jar mouths, fragments covered with line designes, pottery handles and potter sculptures in the shape of sheep. They were mainly grayish brown oens, with changes at the jar mouth or jar handles. Some of the pottery basins are round at the bottom.

All the 186 pieces of stone artifacts were chipped or ground ones; none of them was refinedly polished. Most of them are milling stones. Others were used for smashing, chopping or other purposes.

The Banggar New Stone Age Ruins.

The ruins is composed mainly of ruins of houses, ash pits and stone frames. From what have been found from the ruins, the archaeologists came to the conclusion that the ruins was highly likely to be the ruins of a housing in the shape of a square, with southern walls measuring 4 meters and western walls less than 3 meters. Inside the house were five round pits each with a diameter of 0.6 meters and a depth of 0.4-0.7 meters. They were highly likely to be used to store things.
A sheep bone was unearthed, which was processed comparatively refinedly.

TREASURE HOUSE. From what were found from the ruins the archaeologists came to the conclusion it was in existence during the late New Stone Age, some 3,000 years ago. It bears many similarities with the Qugong Ruins in the Lhasa River Valley and the Qamgo

Gully Ruins in Gonggar, Shannan on the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River.

It was the first time a housing ruins was found at the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River. The found housing ruins bears difference with housing sites found from the Karub Culture.

Ruins of herders' residences in Quxum County.

A study of the folklore shows that, in the pastoral area in Nagqu, residents dig pits when putting up tents. Each pit measures 0.5-0.6 meter deep, and stone walls are built around them. In the Yarlung area, Shannan, which is held as the cradle of the Tibetan race, housing were built during the New Stone Age some 3,000 years ago. Housing style prevalent then is still retained today.