National Museum of Prehistory

• Natural History of Taiwan designed by MET Studio, London
• Prehistory of Taiwan
• Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan designed by MET Studio, London

Located on the terraces of the Beinan River, the Beinan site attracted the attention of Japanese scholars as far back as 100 years ago due to the multitude of imposing giant schist columns found there. However, it wasn't until the end of 1944 to the beginning of 1945 that Takeo Kanaseki and Naoichi Kokubu embarked on the first small scale excavation of the site. Despite the fact that they covered a relatively small area this time around, the importance of the Beinan site was already abundantly clear to them.

The second phase of excavation took place in the decade between 1980 and 1990. A considerable number of prehistoric relics were unearthed during the construction of the Taitung New Railway station, inspiring scholars to start the largest yet archaeological dig at the site.

The archaeological team of the Anthropology department of National Taiwan University, under the leadership of professors Sung Wen-Xun and Lien Chao-mei spent a total of 436 days excavating over 1500 stone coffins and more than 20,000 stone and pottery artifacts. This all confirmed that the Beinan site was an important representative of Neolithic culture, and indicated that the whole site possibly covered an area tens of hectares in size.