Amsa-dong Prehistoric Settlement: Ancient Koreans
I’ve been wanting to visit this site for quite a while. I first read about it on the Gangdong-Gu website (Gangdong is the district of Seoul that I live in), and thought that since it’s so close it would be worth checking out. Admittedly the reason I hadn’t gone is because I didn’t think it would be that impressive. I was expecting 4 or 5 old straw houses and a plaque written in Korean that I wouldn’t be able to understand.
After I paid the ridiculous 500 won entrance fee (ridiculous because it may as well be free, that’s like charging someone 10 cents….more hassle than it’s worth) I was given an English brochure about the area. I walked in and realized it was much bigger than I had assumed. Sure enough there were the straw houses, huts, settlements, whatever you wish to call them.
You know these people lived here over 6,000 years ago? They discovered ancient artifacts after some big flood in the city in 1925, and have since excavated other pots and weaponry from the site. It is pretty cool actually to walk around there and imagine that SOOO long ago there were people in my neighborhood hunting and fishing and making settlements.
They have an exhibition hall where you can view the real artifacts that they uncovered such as combed pottery, weapons, tools, etc. I was surprised by the amount of English they had. And of course, as with many exhibitions and museums in Korea, they had the creepy mannequins that are build to re-enact scenes of a family sitting around a fire, or kids pulling in a net of fish from the Han River. These mannequins really freak me out for some reason, I’d much rather leave it to my imagination.
The good thing about this place is that it’s not at all crowded. I went today (Saturday) and there were only a few groups of school children on tours, but other than that it was pretty empty. This was nice considering today was beautiful and they actually have a large park where you can just chill out. Some old Korean men were playing the Asian chess game at a picnic table of course.
If you’re living in the area I would definitely suggest checking it out, or if you are interested in Korean history then of course you should see it. Gangdong-gu’s district mascots are actually a cartoon cave-boy (Gangdongmi) and cave-girl (Gangdongei) and you see them on sign posts around the area, haha. There is some big festival every year at the Asma-dong Prehistoric Settlement site, it takes place in October although I can’t tell you much more about it now….I’ll have to ask my students and co-workers.
