Banpo Neolithic Museum Spectacular Museum In The world

Banpo Neolithic Museum Traveling to China was a fantastic cultural opportunity. Not having traveled much, I was excited about the chance to meet people from backgrounds so different than my own. I was surprised to find out how much I had in common with the Chinese students. They were all so happy to meet us, and were quick to explain anything we didn’t understand. The students in Xi'an were especially easy to relate to. Though my background is in geology and environmental science and the Xi'an students were all biology students, we all had a love of science.

While assisting a fellow student during the lab exercises, I had the opportunity to go into a beautiful river in the Qinling Mountains. Surrounded by igneous rock (pink granite) and metamorphic rock (schist), the riverbed was filled with wonderful polished stones and minerals. Of particular note was a spectacular specimen of
biotite with large intact crystals at least two inches in diameter. There were also examples of nephrite; one of the two species commonly called jade. The river itself was stunningly beautiful.

Near Xi'an we visited the Banpo Neolithic museum. This spectacular museum is one of the first in-situ museums of it's kind. Built directly over a 6,000 year old Banpo village, it literally places you inside of history. The Banpo village was discovered in 1953, and the museum was open very quickly afterwards in 1958. The village grounds include houses, pottery, and burial sites. The burial sites showed extraordinary care in the
placement and ritual associated with death, helping the site feel more “human” and less like an emotionless museum.

The Banpo site is remarkable for being one of the most wellpreserved neo-lithic villages in the world. It represents the very beginning of the Agricultural Revolution; the first settled farmers living a stationary lifestyle. Only nomadic tribes existed previous to this time. The Banpo created some of the first stone tools, and were excellent potters. Their skills with clay were evident by the many pottery shards remaining at the site.

This step back in time was especially poignant for me. As a geologist, I had become accustomed in my studies to take a long term view of the earth and our relationship to it. To visit one of the first sites were ancient man succeeded in taming his environment, even a little bit, was profound. I'm not sure if 6,000 years seems like a long time to most people, but in the context of earth's history we are a blip.

The advances we have made, and our impacts on the environment, have grown exponentially. The world the
Banpo knew is not our world. Our impacts are so extreme that some people equate the rise of humans with
an extinction event. If we would like to be here 6,000 years in the future, we are going to have to change our
priorities very quickly; and we are going to need China to change with us.