Xi'an Banpo Museum

China's first museum built over a prehistoric archaeological site, opened in the late 1950s on the eastern edge of Xi'an to protect the excavated Banpo village. The settlement, roughly six thousand years old, belonged to the Neolithic Yangshao culture, and a covered hall preserves its foundations, storage pits, kilns and a communal cemetery in situ. Display cases show painted pottery decorated with fish and human-face motifs. Visitors walk elevated walkways above the dwelling ruins, glimpsing an early farming community.