Majiajiao culture, a late Neolithic culture, was named after it was discovered in Majiajiao, Lintao, Gansu, about 2900-2 100 BC. Distributed in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, it is a local type where Yangshao culture develops westward. The discovery of villages and large cemeteries in Majiajiao culture shows that people at that time lived a settled life.
Qijia culture is a late Neolithic culture with Gansu as the center, and has entered the stage of using bronze and stone tools. Its name comes from its main site, Qijiaping Site in Guanghe County, Gansu Province. It is an important archaeological culture in the early Bronze Age distributed in Hexi Corridor.
Qijiaping site was discovered by archaeologist An Tesheng in 1924. The time span is about 2200 BC to 1600 BC. It is an archaeological culture with special value in the upper reaches of the Yellow River and an important source of Chinese civilization.
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When An Tesheng discovered Qijia culture, he also collected some jades of Qijia culture. However, due to his misjudgment of Qijia culture era and neglect of the cultural nature of jades, he did not study these jades.
In fact, before the discovery of Qijia culture in An Tesheng, Qijia culture jade articles had spread all over the world, and there were Qijia culture jade articles in the old collection of Qing Palace. Wu Dacheng, a epigraphist in the Qing Dynasty, also recorded a batch of Qijia jades in the Ancient Jade Examination (now part of them are in Shanghai Museum), but there is little textual research on jades with Qijia cultural characteristics in the book. According to the literature records, it is believed that the jade cong may be a ritual vessel in Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
At the same time, at the beginning of the 20th century, there was an upsurge of collecting China ancient jade in the west, and a large number of ancient jade was lost overseas. Because collectors pay attention to the jade itself, most of the ancient jade articles in China that have been lost overseas have no records of the unearthed places and conditions, so the specific sources of Qijia culture jade articles collected overseas are mostly unknown.