DaNang (VNA) - Forty-eight stone tools and thousands of ceramic piecesdating back to the pre-Sa Huynh Culture (3,000-3,500 years-old) were foundduring a third excavation in the garden of the Khue Bac Communal House in DaNang City.

PhamVan Trieu, head of the archaeological team, said at a report on the excavationon May 30 that it’s once again strongly confirmed that the site is a uniquerelic of the pre-Sa Huynh Culture.

Trieusaid items found in the digging, which began from April 15, were similar toitems from previous digs in 2001 and 2015. Combined, these reveal the stabledevelopment of the Sa Huynh Culture in the area.

“Researchon ceramic and stone items from previous excavations clearly expose the rare,intact archaeological relic of only one layer of the Sa Huynh Culture,” Trieusaid.

Hesaid the digging also exposed a vestige of an ancient channel running from thesite to the 200m away Co Co River.

Trieu,who is from the Vietnam Archaeology Institute, speculated that a marinetransgression in the past thousands year in the area submerged the site, andpeople living in the area had moved up to a higher land.

“Weexcavated an area of 50sq.m, 20m away from the 2015 site and found 19 pits withmany stone axes that people had used as production tools for daily life andjewelry,” he said.

“Theteam also recognised chopping boards, knives and grindstone, four-corneredstone axes and multi-function stone tools. The ancient residents used stoneaxes as major tools and combined chopping board,” he said.

Trieusaid the institute will invite an expert from Japan to identify which stoneswere used for axe making.

Theteam also found some stone tools that used rock from Quang Binh province,proving that there were exchanges between people from Dai Viet (Great Viet, ornow Vietnam) and people in the Champa Kingdom in the past thousands years.

Theteam said the former residents created a stone table to produce jewelry andceramics at a workshop near a defunct river.

Theteam concluded that the items found in the site were similar to those excavatedat archaeological sites of pre-Sa Huynh Culture in Cham Island, Quang Ngai and QuangNam.

Theteam suggested that the site, which includes in the 8,000sq.m of the Khue Bac CommunalHouse, must be recognised as a national relic for special protection.

Theteam also blamed construction of a road had claimed 400sq.m of the site, as thecity did not have any warning on an archaeological site.

Trieusaid more excavations will be done in the future in the most precious pre-Sa HuynhCulture site in the central region.

Hesuggested the site will be a big research centre for archaeology of the Sa HuynhCulture.

Directorof the city’s Culture Department Huynh Van Hung said the city will rapidlypropose the site as a city relic before promoting it as a national relic.

Atthe previous excavations, more than 4,500 items, including ceramics, stoneaxes, coins, mollusc shells were found at the site

ManyCham tower ruins have been found in rural areas of Da Nang, but it’s the firstpre-Sa Huynh Culture site unearthed in the city.

KhueBac Communal House, which lies at the foot of the Ngu Hanh Son (Marble)Mountains 15km from the city, was a residential area for people during the Sa HuynhCulture as shown by the stone axes.

TheNational Archeology Institute had signed a five-year co-operation deal with thecity’s Heritage Management Centre to search for more valuable ancient vestigesin Da Nang and the central region.

Somestone axes and pot-shaped burial urns, which were unearthed from the Khue Bac CommunalHouse’s garden in 2001 and 2015, are now on display at the city’s Museum.-VNA