China history Up Down 7000 yrs
Hemudu Cultural Site, located at Liangshuqiao Village of Hemudu
Town, Yuyao City, is a site of cultural relics of the Neolithic Age
(BC 7000). Found in 1973 and excavated in 1973 and 1977, the site
at present is found to consist of four ancient cultural layers
whose accumulation is as thick as four meters. Hemudu (whose
translation is "the Ferry Place on the Yaojiang River") was in the
past called "Huangmudu" or "the Ferry-place near the Tomb of the
Revered Mr. Huang" for it is the place where Huangong-one of the
four venerable elders in the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 24)
lived and died. In February 1982, Hemudu entered in the list of the
National Key Cultural Preservation Units and later it was listed as
one of the National Patriotic Education Base of the country. Hemudu
Cultural Site Museum was opened in May 1993 and its name is the
inscription by Jiang Zemin, then General Secretary of the CPC and
President of China.
Hemudu Cultural Site Museum comprises two parts: the Exhibition
Halls and the Excavation Sites. The Exhibition part is a complex of
six buildings which are connected to one another by covered
corridors. Each building is patterned after the 7,000-year-old
Hemudu "raised house", typical of "long ridge, short eaves, and
elevated foundation." Built on 456 stilts, the buildings of the
exhibition halls take the shape of a rafter roof construction and
on the sloping exposed walls stand seven sets of structural
components, imitating the mortise and tenon components of houses
7,000 years ago. The buildings, with brown walls and red tile, are
in great harmony with the environment. The front building is in
shape of a flying roc-an enormous legendary bird transformed from a
gigantic fish-totem of our Hemudu ancestors.
About 100 meters from the exhibition hall is the excavation site.
Visitors here can enter the restored raised houses and experience
the many advantages of this kind of house: warm in winter and cool
in summer, dry and safe from beasts. Beside the houses is a
restored wood-mouthed well. On the site there are sets of stereo
models revealing the panorama of the life of the Hemudu people:
life in the raised house, working on the artworks, spinning,
weaving, fishing, hunting, husking rice, having meals, and feeding
babies.
