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Monthly Meeting

The Chinese Neolithic: Yangs Hao Culture and the Yangguanzhai Site

Leon Natker

The Chinese Neolithic represents a complex and long-term florescence of human societies, spanning several millennia and encompassing multiple, regionally distinct cultural traditions. Central to scholarly discussions of this period is the Yangshao Culture of the Central Plains, often regarded as foundational to later developments in Chinese civilization. This lecture situates the Chinese Neolithic within this broader cultural and chronological framework through a focused examination of the Yangguanzhai site, a large Miaodigou-phase settlement located north of modern Xi’an. Discovered in 2004, Yangguanzhai is one of the most significant Neolithic sites identified in recent decades. Ongoing excavations—currently encompassing less than 20 percent of the total site area—have revealed extensive architectural features, large-scale ditch systems, and evidence for complex community organization dating to approximately 7,000 BP. This lecture will review the excavation strategies and methodological approaches employed at Yangguanzhai, with particular attention to large-area exposure, spatial analysis, and site formation processes as practiced in contemporary Chinese archaeology. The lecture will assess current interpretations of settlement structure, subsistence practices, and social organization at Yangguanzhai, and consider how these findings contribute to broader debates regarding Neolithic lifeways, regional interaction, and the development of complexity in the Yellow River basin.

Leon Natker is an archaeologist/anthropologist and historian. He is the former Director of the Oklahoma History Center Museum, as well as the New Mexico Holocaust Museum. As Director for Institutional Advancement for the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, he was part of the team that opened this world class museum in 2021. During his career he has participated in many historic preservation projects, including the restoration of the 1928 North Park Theater in San Diego. In 2012, he was invited to participate in the Yangguanzhai excavation in Shaanxi province, in central China. In the Southwest, Leon has worked on preservation projects at Montezuma Castle, Chaco Canyon, Bandelier National Monument, and Coronado State Monument. He has curated exhibits at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Blackwater Draw, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, and the Mesa (AZ) Historic Museum. Leon has degrees in Museum Studies 

7:30 PM, Tuesday, January 20, 2026, Albuquerque Museum of Art and History 2000 Mountain Road NW