Hemudu, the ancestors of the homeland fish and rice fragrant

The discovery of the Shell Hill Site of Jingtou Mountain in Yuyao, which is more than 8,000 years old, has once again brought the Hemudu culture into the public eye. Archaeologists say we found the "grandfathers" of the Hemudu people, who were the earliest fishermen and navigators on the eastern coast of China.

The last time people looked so eagerly at this place was in 2004, when the Tianluoshan site unearthed a large number of stunning relics and relics of the early and middle hemudu culture, and the daily life and spiritual world of the ancestors were vividly displayed before our eyes.

Further back, the Hemudu site was discovered and excavated in the 1970s and is the most iconic prehistoric archaeological work in Zhejiang since the founding of New China to that time. She proves that the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin are both the birthplace of the ancient culture of the Chinese nation, and are recognized as an important milestone in China's Neolithic archaeology, which has been written into history textbooks.

The three sites are located in a narrow area of 20 to 30 square kilometers in Yuyao, Ningbo. When we and Sun Guoping, a researcher at the Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, visited this land that has gone through vicissitudes, we could not help but sigh: the term "Hemudu" has become a symbol of Zhejiang's prehistoric culture for many years, and to this day it still continues to bring us new knowledge and surprises.

Today, we are accustomed to calling the land where we live as the land of Wuyue. Have you ever thought that there is a vast gap of 5,000 years between the Wuyue people in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Hemudu people, which has been very long ago. And even so, we are still continuous in blood and soul, and we have never broken it.

Rice soup fish thoughts fluttered

After several days of rain, when we arrived at the archaeological site of Jingtou Mountain, we saw that the water in the archaeological exploration party was quite deep, and the remains that had yet to be excavated were hidden in the water. Sun Guoping laughed and said that this is more like the original state of life of the Jingtou Mountain people - they live on the coastline, accompanied by the sea tide all year round, and it is natural that the water enters and retreats, and the water retreats.

Located between the remnants of siming mountains and the East China Sea, the People of Jingtou Mountain have caught up with the best coastal climate and environment that humans have encountered in the last 10,000 years. The massive shell remains discarded after eating by the JingtouShan people are breathtaking, and they are also the most talked about by the media and visitors, and some people jokingly call it "prehistoric seafood feast" and "prehistoric large-scale foodie scene". In the corridor outside the doors of the work site, rows of plastic boxes filled with shells of various kinds are stacked two or three stories high. In the two large cultural relics warehouses, the shells of various marine shellfish such as oysters, cockles, snails, clams, etc. have been placed on several long tables, especially those huge oyster shells, each of which is several rounds larger than the palm of a person. Without sun Guoping's detailed description, we already have the picture of the ancestors sitting on the beach after harvesting seafood, or raw food, or boiling, and feasting.

Relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, relying on the sea to eat the sea. Judging from the remains unearthed now, the People of Jingtou Mountain not only ate shellfish and fish, but also ate venison, pork, acorns and various wild fruits. And, as archaeologists expected, their recipes also included cultivated rice— golden grains like a constant thread, giving Zhejiang prehistoric culture an incomparably unique humanistic charm.

Two archaeological excavations at the Hemudu site in 1973 and 1977 unearthed the prehistoric remains that became famous and well-known at home and abroad—large, seemingly fresh husks of rice piled up and charred rice scattered near dry-railed houses. When we examine the remains of these rice crops through the glass in the quiet Hemudu Site Museum, we can still imagine the shock of the archaeological community at that time: a rice settlement that has been sleeping for more than 7,000 years is impressively presented in front of modern people, and the tradition of Jiangnan rice soup and fish and rice village goes straight back to the distant upstream of the long river of history. Archaeologists even once believed that the Hemudu people were the first ancestors in the world to cultivate rice fields, produce rice, and cook rice. Later, the relevant archaeological discoveries in the southern region have repeatedly rewritten and refreshed the historical record of the origin stage of rice farming in China. Sun Guoping said that at present, more than 10,000 years ago, rice farming with rice cultivation as the center originated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River has become the consensus of plant archaeology and agricultural history.

From Jingtou Mountain to Hemudu and Tianluo Mountain, with the increasing development and progress of prehistoric society, the excavated remains are becoming more and more abundant, which makes people not only enjoy the simple and courageous daily labor life of the ancestors, but also glimpse their spiritual world. Stepping into the tianluoshan ruins site museum, Sun Guoping opened the door of the original art palace of Hemudu for us: carved bone fences, delicate bone whistles, butterfly-shaped wood and bird-shaped wooden tools... We seem to be able to feel the temperature of the thinking of the Hemudu people, and the romantic feelings that overflowed 7,000 years ago.

Sun Guoping carefully held out from the basin a double bird wood carving artifact excavated by hand in 2012, which represented the unique aesthetic concept and superb artistic achievements of hemudu people. The wooden ware is made of whole pieces of wood finely carved and carved, bringing together three carving techniques of circular carving, through carving and relief, and everyone present at the time of excavation was amazed.

Sun Guoping said that the form of the wooden carving is two divine birds flying in opposite directions, and the eyes of the birds are carved into a circular vortex-like shallow concave hole, which may have been inlaid with silver-white mussel shell material. What is even more unique is that the whole work is in a circular arc, and the linear shape resembles a human forehead or a round wooden column. A closer look reveals that there are 5 raised parts at the upper end of the wood carving artifact, each with a small hole with a diameter of 2 or 3 mm, which could have been used to place feathers.

"It is speculated that this is likely to be a wooden feather crown, which was an important prop for clan leaders and wizards to hold sacrifices at that time." Sun Guoping said that along with the two birds wood carving artifact unearthed at the same time, there are more than 20 pieces of wooden butterfly-shaped artifacts, like butterflies flying one after another, it is likely that they are all props used in primitive witchcraft and sacrifice activities.

The cradle of warmth in early civilizations

Exploring the trajectory of prehistoric human activity in the Yangtze River Delta, Hemudu is a unique coordinate.

For a long time in the 20th century, the number of prehistoric sites found in Zhejiang was small, and the number of cultural relics unearthed was also small. Until the 1970s, the Hemudu site saw the light of day, and with its unprecedented rich and extremely precious cultural relics, it became an important representative of Neolithic archaeology in the Yangtze River Basin and even in southern China.

So, where does hemudu culture come from and where is it going? This question, in a sense, has become a vein for us to sort out the prehistoric archaeology of Zhejiang since then. The Hemudu site is like the first piece of the puzzle to emerge, and the prehistoric sites that have been excavated in the land of Zhejiang can not help but compare their position with Hemudu.

Sun Guoping said that since the excavation of the Hemudu site, for more than 40 years, archaeologists have salvaged the fragments of the "puzzle" little by little, gradually piecing together a long neolithic picture of the life of the ancestors of Zhejiang in the Neolithic Era. Before the Hemudu culture, there was the Shangshan culture from 11,000 to 8,000 years ago, the cross-lake bridge culture from 8,000 to 7,000 years ago, and the ruins of Jingtou Mountain, which can be regarded as the "ancestor of Hemudu". Roughly at the same time as Hemudu, in the Hangjiahu area there is a Majiabang culture dating from 7,000 to 6,000 years ago. After Hemudu, there is the Liangzhu culture from 5300 to 4200 years ago, and the Qianshan Yang culture from 4200 to 3900 years ago.

Following this timeline, we see that the civilization of the ancestors of Zhejiang is constantly maturing, and they are walking on the eastern land with more and more pride.

Several pieces of hollowed wooden handles have been unearthed at the Jingtou Mountain site, and the size of the holes is just the size of a polished stone tool. As long as the stone tool is wrapped with sackcloth or animal skin, it can be tightly combined with the wooden handle. "There is also a piece of wood with wooden latches, and during the excavation, I groped under the water with my hands, touched its delicate and unique shape, and felt a wave of anticipation and excitement in my heart." Sun Guoping said that such an obvious mortise and mortise structure shows that the woodmaking skills of the ancestors of Jingtou Mountain have developed beyond our imagination.

Thus, after thousands of years of refinement, there are rows of thick and large wooden pillars that amazed Sun Guoping during the excavation of the Tianluo Mountain site, that is, the remains of the dry-column building inhabited by the Hemudu people. These buildings also commonly used tenon structures. With the increase in the proportion of farming in the production activities of the ancestors, primitive agricultural tools such as bone and bone came into being.

"From the primitive average society of the Hemudu period to the early kingdom society of the Liangzhu period, the essential change was the differentiation of human status and wealth, and the average situation was broken, and inequality appeared." Sun Guoping said, "And the differentiation of human beings is first of all the differentiation of ability and ability, of which the most important thing is the ability to use nature and transform nature." "We seem to see that hemudu people and their descendants are holding on to more and more advanced tools, bravely facing the challenges of nature, and finally coming to Liangzhu and opening the door of civilization."

Cultural genes are deeply rooted in the blood

The magic of the "cultural gene" lies in the shock and emotion that can be generated through time and space.

"You must look at the 'fish cover' used by the Jingtou Mountain people." In the cultural relics warehouse of the Jingtou Mountain ruins, Sun Guoping opened a plexiglass cover, and inside a small mound was a basket made of reeds that was upside down. In shallow tidal flats, fishermen often cover their fish with such covers, making it easier to catch them.

"I am a native of Ningbo, and when I was a child, I could sometimes see fishermen around me catching fish with bamboo weavers like 'fish covers'. When excavating the site of this land 8,000 years ago, the same 'fish cover' was seen. Sun Guoping sighed, "In the process of arduous archaeological excavations, you will feel a magical moment like this, which is also rare and unforgettable." ”

Such a moment is as if suddenly a beam of light shines directly into the heart, making people wake up to the distant, sleeping and even annihilated monuments and heritage, but in fact, they have left a projection in our lives and carved imprints in our blood.

For example, rice farming technology has been passed down in Jiangnan for nearly 10,000 years. In the various sites of the Hemudu culture alone, the rice grains found in the late remains of the Tianluoshan site are fuller than the early rice grains, which is obviously the result of continuous domestication. In the Liangzhu culture period around 5,000 years ago, the rice grain form became closer and closer to what we look like today. At the same time, the accumulation of agricultural production tools and farming experience derived from prehistory has played an irreplaceable role in China's long traditional society.

Another example is the ceramic craftsmanship that Zhejiang is proud of, and the clues of the original pottery process can also be found on the quaint pottery of Hemudu. "The Hemudu culture produced the most mature form of cooking utensils, the clay pot. The shape of this kind of utensil, such as the round bottom, the neck and other elements, were fixed in the Hemudu period and have been passed down. Sun Guoping said.

In addition, on a 12-centimeter-long bone fence, the ancestors of Hemudu also took the trouble to engrave fine geometric patterns and plant patterns. And on the feet that support the bottom of the cauldron when cooking on the fire, they will also poke a cute human face image. Seeing these artifacts, you may be willing to believe that the Jiangnan character, which is known for its delicacy and delicacy, may have been decided as early as then.

Archaeologists have excavated fairly well-preserved wooden oars in Hemudu and Jingtou Mountain, and we have every reason to infer that the ancestors of Zhejiang have at least begun to sail in the shallow sea near the coast, taking the first step in exploring the ocean, which is nothing less than a precursor for Zhejiang to embrace the ocean and build a strong province of the sea today. A wooden paddle more than 100 centimeters long excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site has a thin square blade, a bulging back, and a hole ring chiseled at the head of the handle, which is exquisitely shaped and well preserved. Sun Guoping said that the partial shape of the double bulge on the back of the wooden oar shows that it can be fixed to the corresponding structure of the side of the ship, which is very similar to today's rowing boat. When Sun Guoping fished the wooden oar out of the daily preservation tank, we felt for a moment that the sound of the rushing water seemed to come from 8,000 years ago, and the pioneers were paddling hard to the sea.

Discovering this inextricable connection between ourselves and our prehistoric ancestors is the basis for cultivating cultural self-consciousness and building cultural self-confidence. Sun Guoping said the shock of the excavations at the Hemudu site has affected generations in Yuyao, Ningbo and even Zhejiang. "Hemudu was discovered in the rural water conservancy construction in that year, the TianluoShan site was discovered when the enterprise drilled a well, and the Jingtou Mountain site was found when the villagers herded sheep after geological drilling. The strong awareness of cultural relics protection in Yuyao can be seen. Sun Guoping said.

In 2013, Sun Guoping wrote an article titled "Hemudu's Forty Years of Discovery Road". Now, another 7 years later, the excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site has shown that this land still hides more secrets. "Jingtou Mountain is the 'grandfather' of Hemudu, where is the 'father' of Hemudu? Exploring the mysteries of history is not only the basic duty of our archaeologists, but also the spiritual channel for archaeologists to maintain the public. I am sure that young archaeologists and I will be able to answer this question in the future. Sun Guoping said.

Disclaimer: This article is reproduced for the purpose of transmitting more information. If there is a source labeling error or infringement of your legitimate rights and interests, please contact the author with the proof of ownership, we will correct and delete it in time, thank you.