Ningxia Shuidonggou Scenic Area, located in Lingwu City, Yinchuan, is a national 5A-level tourist attraction, a national key cultural relics protection unit, a national geological park, the earliest excavated Paleolithic cultural site in China, and is known as the "birthplace of Chinese prehistoric archaeology".
The Shuidonggou site covers an area of 7.8 square kilometers and was discovered in 1923 by French geologist and paleontologist Sang Zhihua and the famous scholar De Rijin. Shuidonggou site is the earliest excavated Paleolithic cultural site in China, after six archaeological excavations, so far more than 30,000 stone tools and 67 ancient animal fossils have been excavated here, recording the real picture of ancient humans living here 30,000 years ago, fighting with nature, which contains rich and precious prehistoric information is an important basis for people to understand China's prehistoric culture, the lifestyle and environmental characteristics of the ancient era "Shuidonggou" people.
Shuidonggou is also the Grand View Garden of the Great Wall, Beacon, Castle, Ditch, Tibetan Soldier Cave, Grand Canyon, Pier Terrace and other military defense buildings in the Ming Dynasty in China, and is the only three-dimensional military defense system of the Great Wall that has been best preserved in China. In the protected area, the Great Wall winding eastward, the towering piers, the quaint and mysterious castles, and the twists and turns of the deep trenches are dazzling, reminiscent of the magnificent scene of "armored soldiers holding spears to fight at the fortress, generals drawing swords to chase Hu soldiers".
Shuidonggou Scenic Area has more than 20 scenic spots, with a variety of highlights, and is the first choice for tourists to visit and relax, outdoor enthusiasts to explore military secrets, and scientific expeditions to study.
Shuidonggou Ruins Museum, with a construction area of 4308 square meters, is shaped like a stone leaf stone tool excavated from the Shuidonggou site. The museum is divided into two parts: the above-ground ring corridor display and the sinking interventional dynamic experience: the above-ground ring corridor is composed of five parts: the prologue hall, the history of human evolution, the Chinese Paleolithic tools, the Shuidonggou Paleolithic, and the closing remarks; the sunken exhibition area is the highlight of the museum, mainly the super-large half-scene painting combined with the dynamic ground shaping, under the cooperation of sound and photoelectricity, forming a vacuum three-dimensional sense, and truly reproducing the life scene at that time.
The Ming Great Wall in the Shuidonggou Scenic Area is a relatively complete preservation of the Great Wall site in Ningxia, climb the Great Wall Observation Deck and look out, the Shuidonggou landform is in full view, the ravines are longitudinal, the terrain is unique, the earth forest landscape seems to be under the feet, the ups and downs go straight to the depths; the whole piece of emerald green reeds sway with the wind, wild pigeons fly, red-billed ducks cry everywhere, springs babbling, a grand scene of desert oasis. Shuidonggou Ming Great Wall is located at the junction of Mengning and Ningbo, tourists climb the observation deck, one foot on the land of Inner Mongolia, the other foot on the land of Ningxia, are very excited, have taken photos under the landmark buildings, if they are in the Ming Dynasty, they are actually on the border line! Shuidonggou Ming Great Wall is the best embodiment of Ningxia Shubian culture, and it is an excellent place to explore the desolate and tragic ancient battlefield!
Hongshan Lake is the largest lake in the shuidonggou site, and because it is located in the Hongshan area, it is named "Hongshan Lake". In the period of abundant water, the lake surface can extend more than 2 kilometers eastward in the canyon, climb the stone cliff, the peculiar landscape of "high gorge out of ping lake" comes into view, eagle cranes soar, wild ducks cruise, take a boat in the lake, the Great Wall, cliffs reflected in the water; blue sky and white clouds, reflected in the water, can really be described as "boats on the blue waves, people swimming in the middle of the painting".
The Grand Canyon is a naturally formed gully, located between Shuidonggou and Hongshan Fort, 10-15 meters deep, wind-eroded landform, stretching for about 4 kilometers, originally a "masterpiece" of nature, but in the Ming Dynasty, this became an important part of the Ming Great Wall's "deep ditch high fortress" defense system. The two sides of the canyon are often eroded by wind and rain for many years, the strange walls in the valley are steep, the ravines are longitudinal, the deep loess is washed by long-term rain, and the soil pillars stand on the wall, and the shape is strange, forming a strange "earthen forest" landscape.
The Tibetan Soldier Cave is the earliest tunnel warfare site and prototype in China, and is an ancient three-dimensional military defense system. In the Ming Dynasty, Tatars and Wa La entered the main River Loop, and the Great Wall of Lingzhou became the northernmost defensive line of the Ming Dynasty in Ningxia and other places, while the terrain around Hongshan Fort was flat, which was the first place of attack for the tatars and other northern ethnic groups to lead their armies to the south.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, tatars and wallars were demolished from Lingzhou several times to the south, but they did not attack from Hongshan Fort, only because the three-dimensional fortifications of the Tibetan Soldier Cave played a huge role, so that they did not dare to rush to attack it. The Tibetan Soldier Cave is the Hongshan Fort defenders from the ground to the ground, conceal the army, protect their own tunnels, the Tibetan Soldier Cave meanders in the hanging wall, up and down communication, left and right connected, the cave forks a lot, left and right, for a long time without seeing the end, indeed like a labyrinth, generally unfamiliar with the situation in the cave, it is difficult to go out. In addition to the cave passage, there are earthen houses on the left and right, which can be inhabited by people, which are probably for the commander of the leading soldiers. There is also a grain storage room in the cave, there are wells, stove rooms, etc., as long as there is enough food to store, in the corresponding period of time, the soldiers hidden in the cave do not come out of the hole, and they can still survive. The Tibetan Soldier Cave is more than 10 meters above the bottom of the ditch, not afraid of flooding, for many years, even if there is a flash flood, the Tibetan Soldier Cave has not been flooded, the wisdom of the ancients is really breathtaking.
Shuidonggou Village is an ancient crypt-type settlement site area. In the ancient shuidonggou village, there are cave-type, crypt-type, semi-crypt-type and shallow cave-type apartments created by the northern ancestors. This kind of living room handed down from the Neolithic Age is often built on the slopes or ditch banks with thick loess layers, which have the characteristics of warm winter and cool summer. Shuidonggou Village inherited this ancient way of living, first digging a certain depth of crypt on the loess slope, and then on the edge of the crypt, using adobe to build a low wall to make it higher than the ground, and then using rafters to build a roof, compounding firewood, and pasting mud on the firewood grass to prevent water leakage. This kind of living room building is extremely cheap and is the best choice for ancient humans to live. It originated in ancient times when productivity was extremely underdeveloped, accompanied by human beings for thousands of years, until it was gradually abandoned by people in the 1960s, and finally withdrew from the stage of history. There are a total of 29 crypt-style architectural sites in the Shuidonggou Village Settlement, and some of them have been restored by the scenic spot, so that visitors can intuitively understand the living forms of the ancestors.
Zhang Zi, a native of Lingwu Shuidonggou Village, was born in 1894 and died in 1965. Because of his third rank, the small shop he opened was called "Zhang San Xiaodian". Mr. Jia Lanpo, who studied under the famous French paleontologist De Rijin, wrote a memoir in 1982 describing: "Shuidonggou is a desert area, and the nearby area is deserted within a radius of at least 5 kilometers. But there is a small shop here, called "Zhang San Xiaodian", which is only set up for travelers who come and go. The small shop can live for four or five people at most, and does not sell rice, but the guests bring their own grain and rice and cook rice on their behalf. When De Rijin and Sang Zhihua excavated in Shuidonggou that year, Zhang San and his wife received and helped in the small shop.
In 2006, Shuidonggou Tourism Development Company renovated the "Zhangsan Xiaodian" to commemorate the farmer Zhang San and his world-famous xiaodian who contributed to the excavation of the Shuidonggou cultural site.