Heritage
5000-year-old large-scale single rooms found in China
By Wang Hanlu (People's Daily Online)
Updated: 2011-01-28 14:33
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Archaeologists found a 5,000-year-old large-scale single room with an area of more than 300 square meters — like a meeting room that could contain more than 100 people — in Shaanxi province, according to a report by Chinaview.cn on Jan. 24.
Zhang Pengcheng, a Research Associate of the Archaeological Institute of Shaanxi province, said there are rich ruins sites of Yangshao Culture alongside the Baishui River valley and Xia River ruins, where archaeologists found the two large-scale ancient houses built more than 5000 years ago.
Zhang said that one of the houses occupies an area of 364.85 square meters if recovered and the usable area would have been about 304.5 square meters. The house has the biggest single room among buildings in the same period of time that have been discovered to date.
It is learned that such a long single room could be constructed due to two main aspects. There were four big pillars supporting the main weight of the roof, and there was close connection of the two main walls, which not only shared the weight of the roof but also played an important role in keeping the room steady.
Near the house, there are the ruins of another single room, which is smaller than this one. It occupies an area of 240.66 square meters with a usable area of 181.44 square meters if it was recovered.
Zhang said both the two houses were in shape of a pentagon, had outer and inner two layers of walls, were covered with lime on the ground and had 2-meter-deep fire pits for heating.
