There needs to be a plan to preserve, restore and promote the value of the archaeological site of Con Dat.

The conference was organized by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi in collaboration with the Department of Culture and Sports of Nghe An. Attending the conference were representatives of the Department of Culture and Sports, the People's Committee of Quynh Luu district; representatives of relevant departments and professional units of the Department of Culture and Sports, and domestic and international archaeological experts.

The Con Dat site is located in village 4, Quynh Nghia commune, Quynh Luu district, Nghe An province. The Con Dat site was discovered in 1979 and excavated for the first time in 1981 with two pits covering an area of ​​75m2.²In 2020, the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of History conducted a survey and found that there was a modern cemetery on the surface of the relic. The results of the excavation and survey showed that the cultural layer of the relic was about 7m thick, typical of the Quynh Van culture.

The characteristics of Con Dat relic show that this is a relic that plays an important role in understanding the development stages of prehistoric Vietnamese culture in the coastal region of North Central Vietnam. Based on the characteristics of the relics and the published Carbon C14 dating, Con Dat is predicted to date back between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago.

With the above long-standing historical and cultural values, with the consent of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the People's Committee of Nghe An province, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi has coordinated with Nghe An Provincial Museum to conduct archaeological research on Con Dat relics with the following objectives: Excavating, collecting and editing Con Dat relics and artifacts; Assessing the role and methods of human adaptation to the natural environment in history.

The excavation was carried out from the beginning of March 2024. After more than a month and a half of work, with the participation of experts from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Vietnam National University, Hanoi), the Institute of Archaeology - Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Australian National University, National University of the Philippines, and modern archaeological excavation methods, at the Conference to report the preliminary results of the excavation of Con Dat Relics in 2024, the excavation team affirmed: Two archaeological excavation pits at the Con Dat site have provided a lot of information about the relic and types of artifacts.

Based on the excavation results, the stone tool set, especially the pottery collection discovered in Con Dat with the common feature of pointed-bottom pottery with double-sided brushed pattern, is considered to be typical of Quynh Van culture.

Quynh Van culture is considered by researchers to be one of the earliest ceramic centers of the Neolithic period in Vietnam after Hoa Binh, along with other centers such as Da But and Cai Beo. The emergence and development of ceramics is closely linked to the river and sea environment and the main economic exploitation of aquatic products of the ancient Quynh Van people. At Con Dat relic, the excavation team took more than 1,500 charcoal samples to determine the age using the C14 method, however, at present, it is not possible to bring samples for analysis to be able to determine accurately.

The results of excavation and research at Con Dat Relic have provided important information and material documents, contributing to solving a number of issues related to the appearance of ancient people at the relic, the way people lived, the authentic occupation process and the nature, age and scale of this relic.

At the conference, experts also affirmed: Con Dat relic is one of the rare archaeological relics in Southeast Asia that still preserves diverse cultural strata. Therefore, in order to fully identify the nature and value of the relic in order to develop and implement a plan to preserve, restore and promote the value of Con Dat relic, the People's Committee of Nghe An province needs to assign local management agencies to continue to pay attention to directing the work of protecting the relic, expanding the collection of documents, research and archaeological excavations to supplement documents to more clearly determine the scale, structure and nature of the relic.

In addition, from the results of archaeological excavations, together with existing information, a provincial-level relic dossier will be built to preserve the Con Dat relic. After that, it is necessary to build a dossier to propose recognition as a national relic for this relic./.