Banpo  is an archaeological site discovered in 1953 by Shi Xingbang, and located in the Yellow River Valley just east of Xi'an, China. It  contains the remains of several well organized  Neolithic settlements, like Jiangzhai, carbon dated to 6700–5600 years ago (). The area of  is surrounded by a ditch, probably a defensive moat,  wide. The houses were circular, built of mud and wood with overhanging thatched roofs. They sat on low foundations. There appear to be communal burial areas.

Banpo site
The settlement was surrounded by a moat, with the graves and pottery kilns located outside the moat perimeter. Many of the houses were semisubterranean with the floor typically  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 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. Currently, little can be said of the religious or political structure from these ruins from the archaeological evidence.

The site is now home to the Xi'an Banpo Museum, built in 1957 to preserve the archaeological collection.

Banpo culture
Banpo is the type site of the Banpo culture, first phase of the Yangshao Culture. Archaeological sites with similarities to the site at Banpo are considered to be part of the “Banpo phase” (4th-3rd millennium BCE) of the Yangshao culture. Banpo was excavated from 1954 to 1957.

Pottery innovations
Banpo was the first culture to use the potter's wheel in China, while other cultures continued to use coiling techniques, and the potter's wheel only became generalized by the end of the Yangshao period. Banpo also had the first pottery kilns in China. The designs of the Banpo were often geometric, and animal or anthropomorphic figures.

Designs

Banpo is known for a characteristic type of decorative pottery, with a red clay coating all over the body, and geometrical drawings in black, typically depicting a round human head with some fish around it. The round human head had a triangular design on top. Similarities have been noted between the motifs of the Afanasievo culture and Okunev culture of the Minusinsk basin in Siberia, and those on the potteries of Banpo.  Pottery style emerging from the Yangshao culture spread westward to the Majiayao culture, and then further to Xinjiang and Central Asia.  

Several of the potteries have symbol marks, and are part of the Neolithic signs in China, but each sign occurs singly, which is antinomic with the function of a written script. They could instead be the personal mark of individual potters.

See also
 Banpo symbols
 Sanxingdui
 Cishan culture
 Nanzhuangtou
 Jiangzhai
 Yangguanzhai

Footnotes

References

 Allan, Sarah (ed), The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective, 
 Chang, Kwang-chih. The Archaeology of Ancient China, 

Populated places established in the 7th millennium BC
1953 archaeological discoveries
History of Xi'an
Archaeological sites in China
Neolithic cultures of China
Neolithic settlements
Former populated places in China
Archaeological type sites
Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shaanxi
5th-millennium BC establishments
Tourist attractions in Xi'an
Yangshao culture