In 2001, the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated the site at Luotuocheng in Gaotai County and four groups of tombs in the vicinity. The present paper reports Tomb M2 among the earth-mounded graves and M1, M4 and M5 in the southern tomb group. M1 and M2 are multi-chambered brick tombs, and either of them consists of a barrow, a passage, a screen wall, a corridor and chambers. No information on the coffins was obtained owing to robbery. M1 is poor in funeral objects; M2 yielded mainly pottery, including drooping-curtain design jars, string pattern jars, basins, and three-legged dishes. Small-sized pictorial bricks were found in M2, each representing a scene of husbandry. M4 and M5 are conglomerate-cut single-cave tombs. Either has a subrectangular chamber, with the coffin in a good condition. The funeral objects are rare, mainly wood-ware, such as tomb figures and horses, dishes, ladies, eared cups, and inventories of grave goods. Judging by the tomb structure and funeral objects it can be inferred that M1 and M2 are earlier in date, going back to the Wei-Jin period, while M4 and M5 should be assigned to the Sixteen Kingdoms period. The owners of the former two must have held a certain position in both social and economic aspects, whereas those of the latter two belong to the poor people.
The White Stupa Monastery in Wuwei is the site of a Tibetan Buddhist temple of the Mongol Yuan period. In 1247, the Tibetan Sakya sent the Dharma-king Sakya Banzhida to Liangzhou to have talks with Koiten, son of Khan Ogedai of the Mongol Yuan government. The two parties reached a peaceful agreement on the affiliation of Tibet to China. In 1251, Sakya Banzhida passed away, and Koiten built for him a stupa in the White Stupa Monastery. So this temple constitutes a historical witness of the formal annexation of Tibet to the territory of China. The site is square in plan, measuring 420m from the north to the south and 400m from the west to the east. The stupa is in the southwestern corner of the monastery. Its base left over rammed-earth remains five meters high. In plan it is shaped like a cross with folded corners. The rammed-earth stupa core was built in the 13^th century, and surfacing bricks used in repairs of Ming-Qing times remain on its northern side. Excavation shows that beneath the stupa foundations is a square platform, which was built of rammed pure loess in the 13^th century, and the surface was plastered in lime. In the Ming period, the platform was enlarged and surfaced in brick. To the north of the stupa, a ruined building was revealed to be of the Qing period. In the center of the monastery, a little to the north, is the area of halls and pavilions.
Excavation on the Dadiwan site revealed the developmental course of the Neolithic culture in the eastern Gansu region during 7800—4800BP, as well as the evolutionary trace of the pattern of a prehistoric settlement going through 3000 years. The first phase of the site belongs to the Laoguantai culture, and the settlement falls into the type of scattered terraces. The second phase is of the early Yangshao culture; the settlement represents the moat-surrounded terrace pattern, an outstanding change from a single center to multiple centers. The fourth phase consists of remains of the late Yangshao culture; the settlement became a large-scale center in a mountainous district. Its main body occupies an area of 500,000 sq m; a large-sized hall-type building stands at the center of the district ; and living quarters are densely distributed in the surrounding areas. The changes of the site in the four phases reflect that the Dadiwan settlement went through the evolutionary course from the smaller to the larger, from river side terraces to a mountainous district, and from a single village to a central settlement. In the period of Yangshao culture, agriculture developed swiftly, the population increased sharply, and the settlement reached the stage of great prosperity. But owing to the over-reclamation of land, the ecological environments gradually worsened, which finally led to the decline of the settlement.
