At Niumatou Site Cultural Park in Taichung's Qingshui District, the past spans several periods. Middle Neolithic pottery gives the archaeological site its name; a former Shinto shrine recalls the Japanese colonial period; reused military buildings speak to a later chapter. The municipal heritage office describes a park of 1.66 hectares on Aofeng Hill. A walk here means reading a site built on, disturbed, studied and reinterpreted. The useful question is what survives from each layer and what requires excavation and careful display.
“Niumatou” was an old name for Qingshui, according to Taichung Tourism. Archaeologists use it for a Middle Neolithic culture in central Taiwan, recognized especially through red and brown pottery with cord-marked surfaces. The heritage office places the culture roughly 4,500 to 3,500 years before the present. That span makes the finds much older than any standing building now visible in the park. The contrast is essential: the military barracks can house an exhibition about archaeology, but they are not themselves prehistoric dwellings. A visitor should look for labels and displays that explain the difference between objects recovered from the soil and the much later structures that now protect them.
