Qijia culture

Bronze Age culture around the upper Yellow River region

The Qijia culture (2200 BC – 1600 BC) was an early Bronze Age culture distributed around the upper Yellow River region of Gansu (centered in Lanzhou) and eastern Qinghai, China. It is regarded as one of the earliest bronze cultures in China. The Qijia Culture is named after the Qijiaping Site (齐家坪) in Gansu Province. Prior to Qijia culture, in the same area there existed Majiayao culture that was also familiar with metalwork. At the end of the third millennium B. C., Qijia culture succeeded Majiayao culture at sites in three main geographic zones: Eastern Gansu, Middle Gansu, and Western Gansu/Eastern Qinghai. The Qijia culture benefited from the warm and humid climatic conditions from the Late Glacial to the Middle Holocene, which led to flourishing agricultural production and rapid population growth. These conditions changed with the aridification of the Late Holocene, provoking material and cultural decline.

The Qijia Culture Cemetery at Mogou in Lintan County, Gansu was excavated beginning from 2008. More than one thousand graves have been found there. The area was inhabited during the first half of the second millennium BCE. Thousands of funerary goods have been found, such as pottery vessels, bone ornaments and implements, shells, and metal objects. To date, this represents by far the biggest find of copper and bronze objects ascribed to the Qijia culture, as more than three hundred items were found here. The finds are mostly implements, such as knives, and ornaments, such as buttons, earrings and beads. Some types of objects, such as torques and armbands, were not found before. Examination reveals that tin bronze (Cu Sn) was the most important alloy used at the Mogou site. Other alloys, such as Cu Sn Pb (lead) and Cu Sn As (arsenic), were also in use. Some items were manufactured by casting and hot forging. Two iron fragments were recently excavated at the Mogou cemetery. They have been dated to the 14th century BC. One of the fragments was made of bloomery iron rather than meteoritic iron.

During the late stages of the culture, the Qijia culture retreated from the west and suffered a reduction in population size. Some scholars hold that Siwa culture was a descendant of the Qijia culture. Also, Kayue culture is believed by some to have developed from the western part of the Qijia culture. The Qijia culture people were 80% Yellow river neolithic farmer and 20% Amur hunter gatherer. A mix of 34 36% Ancient Northeast Asian and 64 66% Yellow River neolithic farmer were the results of the Di Qiang people in eastern Hexi Corridor (Gansu) who were related to the Qijia culture during the Neolithic.