The vast burial site is in Gansu Province, near the village of Mogou, close to the border of Lintan County and Minxian County on a terrace close by the west bank of the Mogou River. The site is 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) from East to West and 300 meters (984 feet) from North to South.
The burials date back 4,000 years, or around 1700 BC. This is before writing had been developed in the region. The tombs are all oriented toward the northwest, with all the tombs dug beneath the surface of the ground. Many of the tombs had small chambers off to the side of the main tomb where finely crafted pottery was found.
The Qijia Culture is No. 3.
Human sacrifice was evident in many of the burials. The human sacrifices were found on their sides, with limbs bent and facing toward the burial chamber. In one tomb, the well-preserved bones of a sacrificial victim were found to be those of a young girl about 13 years of age.
Archaeologists also discovered that many, but not all the tombs were covered with sediment mounds above ground, marking the location of the tombs. Some of the tombs held entire families, their heads facing toward the northwest. Included were many different kinds of objects, including jewelry, weapons and decorated pottery. Several tombs contained what the archaeologists called “bone divination lots,” artifacts used to predict the future. But the totally unexpected find of over 300 copper and bronze objects ascribed to the Qijia culture was amazing.
Early metallurgy in the Qijia culture
The metal objects included earrings, necklaces, rings, bracelets, buttons and knives. What surprised the scientists was that while a few copper and bronze objects had been found in previously excavated sites in northern China, this was the first time that a great number of objects were found in one area. Analysis of the metal objects indicated that tin bronze (Cu-Sn) were widely used at the Mogou site.
Metallurgic analysis of six of the items revealed they were manufactured by casting and hot-forging, as well as cold-forging for the final stage of shaping. So what does this discovery mean in the archaeological context? The discovery of tin bronze at the Mogou site has not only confirmed the presence of this metal mix during the later stages of the Qijia culture, but also is making it increasingly clear that the cultures of the Gansu region came into contact with cultures of the Eurasian Steppe in the early second millenium BCE. This contact played an important role in the development of early bronze metallurgy in ancient China.
“Qijia culture sites are found in a broad area along all of the upper Yellow River as well as its tributaries, the Huangshui, Daxia, Wei, Tao and western Hanshui rivers,” Chen Honghai, a professor at Northwestern University in China, wrote in a chapter of the book “A Companion to Chinese Archaeology” (Wiley, 2013).
Honghai says the Qijia people didn’t eat rice or drink tea as many people might assume. Theirs was an arid region, and they grew millet and raised a variety of animals, including pigs, sheep and goats. The Qijia people lived in modest settlements with a family having about 20 acres. Their houses were usually partially buried underground.
“Remains of buildings are mainly square or rectangular, and they are usually semi-subterranean. The doors usually point south, identical to the current local custom of building houses, as rooms on the sunny side receive more light and warmth,” Honghai wrote. He also added that scientists don’t really know why the Qijia people used sacrifices, or for that matter, who they sacrificed.
According to Live Science, Information in this report was first published in Chinese in the journal Wenwu and focused on discoveries made between August and November 2009. Their report was translated into English and was published in the most recent edition of the journal Chinese Cultural Relics. Additional information on the archaeological discoveries has been added.
