Although 2021 is not yet over, archaeology magazine, the world's most authoritative archaeological academic journal, has confidently rated this year's "World's Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries". Egypt's high-profile "Lost Golden City", Aten, the ruins of the ancient city of Luxor in the Valley of the Kings, is at number one on the list. It is followed by the ancient human hand and foot prints found by Chinese scholars, Professor Zhang Dian of Guangzhou University and others in Qiusang Hot Springs in Tibet, which is also the earliest ancient human art relics found in the world so far. At the same time, this is also the only Chinese archaeological achievement selected among the world's top ten archaeological discoveries in 2021.
Color rendering of newly discovered hand-footprint fossils at the Qiusan site renders a 3D model
On the evening of December 6, Zhang Dian told the Red Star News reporter that he himself did not know that the results had been selected as one of the world's top ten archaeological discoveries until the day before. "The surprise was a little bit, and I sent a red envelope in the WeChat group." He laughed. "As for the discovery itself, it has been an international sensation for a long time."
33 years ago, the first serendipitous discovery
Zhang Dian's academic background is not archaeology, but geological geography, he has long been engaged in geomorphological and natural environment research, and has taught in the Department of Geography of the University of Hong Kong for many years. He told reporters that when he was inspecting the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in 1988, he found a set of ancient human hand and foot prints about 10,000 to 20,000 years old near the modern hot springs in Qiusang Village.
"The initial discovery of that set of hand and foot prints was purely accidental." Zhang Dian said, "There are many hot springs in the area of Qiusang Village (located in the Dulong Deqing District of Lhasa City) that have been formed due to geothermal reasons. I was there on a geological expedition and found many hand and foot prints on the springs of the hot springs. ”
Quanhua is a loose, porous hard texture formed by the long-term precipitation of minerals such as calcium carbonate contained in hot spring water on the surface. So how did the hand and foot prints of such a hard Quanhua print?
"This calcium carbonate initially precipitates around the spring mouth in the form of soft mud, and accumulates thicker and thicker as the spring water gushes out." Zhang Dian said, "The ancient humans on the plateau pressed their own hand and foot prints on these soft muds. When the soft mud gradually solidifies into rock, these imprints are preserved permanently. ”
180,000 to 200,000 years ago, the most accurate dating measure to date
In 2018, after Zhang Dian came to Guangzhou University to teach, he still remembered these ancient marks. In October 2018, he, together with Dr. Wang Leibin and graduate student Wang Xiaoqing, made a new discovery during their second Qinghai-Tibet expedition: on the Guquanhua sediment near the Xiongqu River in Qiusang Village, a group of "rock surface art" containing 5 handprints and 5 footprints was exposed to the surface. The quanhua sediments have long been dehydrated and consolidated into rocks, but the hand and foot prints of ancient humans have undergone the baptism of time and have been almost completely preserved.
The researchers conducted a series of simulations and quantitative analysis of the fingerprints, confirming that they were not carved later, or were pressed out by ancient humans before Quanhua did not have diagenetic rock, and that they should have been far more than 10,000 or 20,000 years away from this generation.
In order to obtain accurate dating of this ancient work of art, Professor Cheng Hai of the Isotope Laboratory of Xi'an Jiaotong University and his research team and the guangzhou university team led by Zhang Dian finally determined through multiple samples and repeated tests that the surface age of this "art rock plate" is between 169,000 and 226,000 years old, which includes a direct dating age of a finger print (187,000 to 207,000 years).
Children's waterside play, what is the relationship with art?
"These rocky surface art with the budding of artistic creation shows that this ancient human race has the ability to think figuratively. And can be expressed in the form of pressing on soft mud, which is one of the important signs that distinguishes humans from other animals. "In addition, shaping on soft clay is also a newly discovered form of ancient human art creation." ”
In addition, based on the size of the palm prints, they speculated that the set of hand prints was left by two children, "all of which were very small." Of course, the possibility of being an extremely short ancient human is not ruled out. ”
Location of the Qiusang site and fossil specimens of ancient human hands and footprints
Two children may have printed several handprints on the soft mud of the hot spring out of curiosity or naughtiness, can it be called art?
"Ancient art is mostly based on local materials, and the subject matter is mostly familiar to the creators, such as the animals or prey they domesticated, and of course, humans themselves." Zhang Dian said, "In addition to humanoid sculptures, handprints are also a very common symbol in cave art. In fact, the handprint is not only an ancient art form, this form continues to this day - is not the star handprint on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a kind of artistic imprint? ”
Behaviors that go beyond the need to survive are significant
Zhang Dian told reporters that art was produced very early, "from the perspective of art history, art is almost as old as human history." ”
Most of these ancient art are preserved in hidden caves or corresponding formations. Some are presented in the form of paintings, such as the 73,000-year-old abstract reticulated petroglyph art on the conglomerates in the Brombos Cave in South Africa; some are realized by means of carving, such as the ostrich eggshell carving about 60,000 years old in the caves of South Africa.
"Of course, there are also very creative ways, such as putting the palm of the hand on the rock wall, blowing the paint up, getting a silhouette of the handprint, etc." Zhangdian believes that these hand and foot prints can be regarded as art because they are imitations of people's images of their limbs, and there are intentional combinations of patterns.
"The emergence of art is a milestone in human evolution, and even a few deliberate handprints mean that such acts have gone beyond the actions that have to be done just to survive."
Through this set of hand and foot prints, researchers can roughly restore the scene about 200,000 years ago: two children playing in the soft mud by the hot spring, they find their footprints in the soft mud very interesting, they take local materials, and actively "create": after pressing the soft mud hard, they carefully move their hands/soles...
The figures of these two naughty children have long disappeared into the long river of history, but their works have been covered up by later spring deposits and preserved until they are discovered by scientists, making them the earliest "artists" of mankind.
They are worshipped, but not our ancestors
The first batch of hand and foot prints found by Zhang Dian was about 50, and when he revisited the place in 2002, he regrettably found that there were less than 20 left in that batch of hand prints - the locals learned that they were handprints pressed by ancient humans, and regarded them as the imprints left by their ancestors, and often went to worship and caress them, and some of the imprints were gradually worn away (the 10 hand and foot prints found in 2018 were another batch).
However, these "artists" are not our true ancestors.
"The hand and foot prints near The Chusang Hot Springs were created much earlier than the age when Homo sapiens left Africa, so the rock art was created by unknown ancient people." Zhang Dian explains, "This discovery may subvert the current view that Homo sapiens is the smartest, because homo sapiens in Africa did not find this ability to create art." ”
A poem written by Zhang Dian to the ancient "artists" of 200,000 years ago
Nevertheless, for those "artists" who created these "art", Zhang Dian is still quite sorry, and he also wrote a poem for this purpose, sending his heart to the future.
Red Star News reporter | Qiao Xueyang
Edited | Duan Xueying
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