On March 20, 2023, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recognized and ranked the National Archaeological Site for Cave C6.1.
Archaeological site of Cave C6.1 (formerly known as C6-1) is located in the North of DNUGGp, about 6,271m northwest of Nam Blang volcano (Chu Bluk), dating from about 6,000 – 3,000 years ago (belonging to the Middle Neolithic period). This is one of the archaeological sites that still preserves many complex traces of a residence site, burial site and traces of the place where tools were made…
In 2017, during the implementation of the National Project “Research on the value of cave heritage, proposing to build an on-site conservation museum in the Central Highlands; For example, the volcanic cave in Krong No, Dak Nong province belong to the Central Highlands program (2016-2020) chaired by the Vietnam Museum of Nature. The geologists and archaeologists have discovered many archaeological sites that belong to volcanic caves in Krong No district, including: cave C1, cave C1-1, cave C3, cave C4, cave C4-1, cave C6, cave C6′, C6-1, cave P1, cave P2. These sites were researched and excavated by the Vietnam Museum of Nature continuously in 2018 and 2019.
Hole was excavated in Cave C6.1
Cave C6.1 is the product of eruption activities of Buon Choah volcano (current name is Nam Blang), in addition to containing the components that make a unique volcanic cave, also discovered traces of residence, factories and graves. After excavating at the main entrance of Cave C6.1, a large number of relics such as pottery pieces, sea snail molluscs, bone tools, raw stone, stone tools have been collected, notably Hoa Binh cultural tools such as oval axes, short axes, disk axes, irons-shaped tools, remains of a fire stove. Especially, there are 7 graves with remains buried in a lying position or sitting hugging pillow and 1 bronze arrow. Based on the cultural layer structure, the 14C dating system and the relics complex can see that Cave C6-1 consists of 2 cultural stages: the early stage existed from 7,000 to 5,500 BP, the late stage is dated from 5,500 to about 4,000 BP.
Assoc.Prof. Ph.D. Nguyen Lan Cuong, Archeology – Anthropology expert, Vietnam Archaeological Association is handling tomb 1 – Cave C6.1 (2019)
The excavation results have brought new insights because archeology of Vietnam and Southeast Asia in the first time know a archaeological site type in the volcanic cave and the prehistoric inhabitants here knew how to choose, adapt to the volcanic cave environment in the Central Highlands for long-term residence.
This site is classified by experts as unique site with great scientific and practical value. It is very rare in volcanic caves in Southeast Asia as well as in the world.
