The oldest known noodles were discovered at the Lajia archaeological site in China. The noodles were preserved in an overturned bowl beneath sediment after an ancient disaster, providing unusually direct evidence of early noodle-making.
The find was reported in 2005 and was dated to approximately 4,000 years ago, during the late Neolithic period. Analysis indicated that the strands were made from millet rather than the wheat commonly associated with many modern Chinese noodles.
Lajia is located in Qinghai Province near the upper Yellow River. The discovery is important because it pushed physical evidence for noodles much further back than earlier written or artistic references. It does not prove that Lajia produced the first noodles ever made; it is the oldest surviving archaeological example currently widely cited.
The find is also sometimes oversimplified as evidence that modern noodles began exactly at Lajia. Archaeology can establish the age of surviving remains, not the absolute date of an invention.