The Han'eyi Neolithic Cultural Site and the Han Dynasty Stone Coffin Tomb Cluster

The Han'eyi Neolithic Cultural Site and the Han Dynasty Stone Coffin Tomb Cluster

The Han'eyi Neolithic Cultural Site and the Han Dynasty Stone Coffin Tomb Cluster are listed as National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

The ancient site of Han'eyi is located in Zhonglu Township, Danba County. This is a prehistoric human settlement dating back to the Neolithic Age, which was test-excavated by a joint Sichuan Province and Garzê Prefecture archaeological team from 1988 to 1989. The site spans an area of over 20,000 square meters, with a cultural deposit layer more than 6 meters thick, and a test excavation covering 120 square meters. Through "carbon-14" dating of the uppermost cultural layer, the lower limit of its age has been determined to be 3,500 years.

The site has yielded a wealth of cultural relics and numerous remains. Among the cultural relics are pottery, stone, and bone artifacts, categorized by usage into production tools, household items, and ornaments. The remains include house structures and ash pits.

Production tools are mainly made of stone, and can be divided into three types based on their craftsmanship. The first are chipped stone tools, including hammers, axes, chopping tools, scraper tools, and double-groove stone knives. The second are ground stone tools, such as axes, adzes, chisels, arrowheads, perforated stone knives, and net sinkers. The third are microliths, primarily small stone cores and blades made by pressing materials like quartz.

Household items are predominantly pottery, with a small number of bone artifacts. The pottery is mostly mixed with sand or mica, with gray pottery being the most common, red pottery less so. The decorative patterns on the pottery are mainly incised, along with some stamping, bosses, appliqué, concave string patterns, and carved lines—all handmade. The vessels are mostly jars, including double-handled jars, single-handled jars, deep-bellied jars, high-necked jars, bowls, and cups. Bone artifacts include awls, needles, and combs.

Among the remains, house foundations were found, with walls constructed from stone blocks and interior walls coated with yellow clay.

Many of the cultural relics unearthed at the Han'eyi site have also been discovered at the Changdu Karuo site. The coexistence of chipped, ground, and microlithic stone tools, as well as pottery primarily made of mixed sand, all handmade with decorative patterns such as incised lines and appliqué, and houses built with stone walls—these features align with certain cultural characteristics of the Changdu Karuo site. In addition, a type of double-handled jar with three feet at the bottom, unearthed at this site, shares stylistic similarities with jars found in the Xindian Culture tombs of the Gansu-Qinghai region, and has also been excavated in the Longdong Stone Coffin Tomb in Longdong, Baoxing County, Ya’an, Sichuan.

This archaeological discovery in Danba indicates: 1. Danba is one of the important regions where ancient humans lived on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with evidence of human habitation and development at least since the Neolithic Age. 2. The Han'eyi ancient site is a settlement that possesses unique cultural traits while also showing connections with surrounding archaeological cultures. The cultural features exhibited by this human settlement largely match those of today's Jiarong Tibetan people living in areas like Danba, suggesting a shared and continuous ancestral lineage between the two.

Protected Area: Extending 2 meters outward to the east, west, and south from the site’s boundary, and 5 meters outward to the north from the outermost edge of the stone coffin tomb cluster.

Construction Control Zone: Extending 50 meters outward to the east from the protected area, and 100 meters outward to the west, south, and north.

Further Reading:

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units