Stone-Age civilisation in the land of Hoa Binh

12/11/2022 - 8:15:59 PM

(HBO) – Hoa Binh province is an ancient land where humans came to reside from very early periods. The Hoa Binh Civilisation was discovered in 1926 by Madeleine Colani, a female archaeologist of France. In 1932, it was recognised by the world and officially took its name.

The provincial Museum and the Centre for Prehistoric Southeast Asian Studies carry out an excavation at the Vanh Village stone shelter, an archaeological site in Yen Phu commune of Lac Son district.

The Hoa Binh Civilisation scattered across mainland Southeast Asia. Its vestiges concentrate in Hoa Binh province, where a rich diversity of artefacts have been found, with stone tools being the most typical. The province was the first place to discover and also boasts the biggest number of important and typical relics and material traces of the civilisation.

In her first excavations in the early 20th century, Colani found numerous prehistoric vestiges in limestone mountains of the area which is now Hoa Binh province, including those at Oc cave (Luong Son district); Chieng Khen cave (Man Duc and Tan Lac districts); the Vanh Village stone shelter and Trai hamlet cave (Lac Son district); Da Phuc, Phu Luong and Dong Noi caves (Yen Thuy district); and Oc and Sao Bay caves (Kim Boi district).

During 1960 - 1964, Russian Professor Boricopski instructed his students, the first generation of archaeologists of Vietnam, to excavate and re-examine many caves dating back to the Stone-Age civilisation such as Tam, Muoi and Bung caves.

In the early 1980s, notable excavations included those by Dr. Nguyen Viet, Director of the Centre for Prehistoric Southeast Asian Studies, at the Trai hamlet cave in 1982 and 1986, and by Bulgarian experts at Can cave in 1987, opening up the possibility for collecting fruit seed traces – a more trustworthy material for radiocarbon dating than snail shell or animal bone. Based on these vestiges, relic sites of the Hoa Binh Civilisation in the province were found to be more than 20,000 years old.

After a number of valuable findings at local archaeological sites from 2000, Dr. Nguyen Viet declared that the early core centre of the Hoa Binh Civilisation was the system of valleys surrounding the Kim Boi basalt/granite mountain complex, mostly typically Muong Vang valley with such sites as Trai hamlet cave and Vanh village stone shelter.

So far 80 archaeological sites of the Hoa Binh Civilisation have been discovered in the province. In 2022, the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism coordinated with Dr. Nguyen Viet to conduct another excavation to gain a further insight into Trai hamlet cave and Vanh village stone shelter.

Existing tens of thousands of years ago, the presence of this civilisation can still be found across Hoa Binh province, becoming a source of pride and precious heritage of Vietnam.

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