Lajia Ruins, Archaeological site in Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County, China.

Lajia Ruins is an excavated Qijia culture settlement in Minhe County, Qinghai, on the upper Yellow River. The dig shows house foundations, a moat and pits where 32 skeletons were found, some still sprawled on the floors. Round grey-brown ceramic vessels and shallow bowls lie beside the remains.

Lajia is a Qijia culture settlement (c. 2300–1500 BCE) in the Guanting Basin, where millet farming, sheep herding and pig rituals sustained a community with a moat. Around 1920 BCE an earthquake of magnitude 6–7 and mudflows buried the site, killing 32 people in eight houses. Excavators debate whether flash floods or a Yellow River outburst caused the disaster.

Pig shoulder blades were shaped into oracle bones for divination and placed in burials, a practice common at Qijia sites. Sheep supplied milk, wool and most of the meat, while cattle and hunted wild deer also appear among the remains. Stone knives were used to peel and cut foxtail and broomcorn millet.

The excavated pit lies in Lajia village, Guanting town, Minhe County, Qinghai, near the Gansu border. The site is open ground with little shade, and the pit is viewed from its edge, so sturdy shoes and water in warm weather help. The skeletons and ceramic vessels lie on the pit floor below the rim.

The 2005 find was a cluster of thin yellow strands in an upturned pot, radiocarbon dated to about 4,000 years ago. Later experiments showed millet alone cannot form noodles, so the dough must have included other starches such as barley or wheat. The site also yielded pig scapulae worked into oracle bones.