Banpo Houses

Banpo is a Neolithic village of the Yangshao culture in the Yellow River valley, east of present-day Xi'an in Shaanxi province, China. It was occupied from about 4700 to 3600 BCE. The site was discovered in 1953 and excavated from 1954 to 1957, and the Xi'an Banpo Museum was built over it in 1957. It is one of the best-known examples of a pit-house village in East Asia.

The settlement

The site covers about 50,000 m² (12 acres). Visitors today can see the remains of 45 houses, two animal pens, more than 200 storage cellars, six pottery kilns and about 250 graves. Estimates of the population range from about 100 to 500 people. A large building near the centre is interpreted as a meeting hall, alongside a central storage area.

House construction

• Floor: many houses were semi-subterranean, with the floor sunk about 1 m (3 ft) below the ground surface.
• Walls: mud and wood on low foundations; some accounts describe wattle-and-daub walls.
• Frame: timber poles and beams carried the roof.
• Roof: thatch over the timber frame, steeply pitched and overhanging the walls.
• Heating: a fire in the middle of each house.

Most houses were round. Sinking the floor gave headroom with only a short wall above ground, and the steep pitch helped the thatch shed rain.

Significance for roofing history

Banpo is among the earliest well-documented villages in China with a recognisable roof form: a steep thatched cone or pyramid on posts, overhanging a low wall. Pit-house construction continued for millennia in northern China, and dugout dwellings were still being built there in the 20th century. The site is also a reference point for comparing East Asian pit houses with those of Jomon Japan and Neolithic Korea.