Welcome to pay attention to "Fangzhi Sichuan"!
Sanxingdui Museum (Image source: Sichuan Daily)
Before the rise of Sanxingdui culture
Culture and Society of Chengdu Plain
Yu Mengzhou Li Yangyang
The Internet is full of different theories about the origin of Sanxingdui culture. Although the archaeological community will not agree that the Sanxingdui culture comes from extraterritorial cultures or extraterrestrial civilizations, it is not yet possible to explain the formation process of the Sanxingdui culture very clearly, so this is an academic topic that the archaeological community will face in the future for a long time. This article intends to combine the understanding of the academic community and discuss this problem slightly, in order to help the final solution of the problem.
First, the appearance of pottery culture where continuity and fracture coexist
According to academic research, the Baodun culture (about 4500-3700 years ago) before the Sanxingdui culture combined the remains of Yingpanshan on the Western Sichuan Plateau with the cultural factors related to the remains of qujialing culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the XiaJiang area, and then re-integrated, which lasted for about 800 years (see Zuo Zhiqiang, He Kunyu, and Bai Tieyong, "A Brief Discussion on the Rise and Settlement Changes of prehistoric cities in the Chengdu Plain", Proceedings of the International Symposium on "Cities and Civilizations", Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2016). In the fourth phase of the Baodun culture, the cultural outlook embodied in pottery has changed to a certain extent, so that some scholars want to use new names such as "Yuji Village Culture" to call it (Sam Sun Hua and Su Honor, "The Mysterious Kingdom", Bashu Book Society, 2003). At present, the remains of this stage found on the Chengdu Plain are gradually increasing, and even the ruins of the Laoguan Temple in Fengjie in the Yudong area can find jomon pottery pots of this stage (Figure 1) (see Department of Archaeology of Jilin University and Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, "The Third Excavation of the Ruins of Laoguan Temple in Fengjie County", "Collection of Archaeological Reports of Sichuan", Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1998). This shows that the fourth phase of Baodun culture or the culture of Yuyu Village is a clear stage in the development of prehistoric culture in the Chengdu Plain (hereinafter referred to as "Baodun Culture Phase IV"). Because of its close relationship with the Sanxingdui culture that emerged later, the remains of this stage also have special cultural significance. It is said that it is related to the Sanxingdui culture, that is because the Sanxingdui culture has inherited the pottery collar jar, the mouth jar, the high-handled bean, the flat chassis, the lid, etc. of the fourth phase of the Baodun culture; however, the lace mouth-edge jar, the narrow-edge jar, the curved-edge jar, the wide-edge flat-bottomed zun, the high-circle foot bean, and the horn-mouthed high-necked jar in the fourth phase of the Baodun culture have not been found in the Sanxingdui culture, which also reflects the rupture between the two. Going back further, the fourth phase of The Baodun culture continued the narrow edge jar, curved edge pot, narrow edge pot, curved belly bowl and other utensils in the three phases, but it was rare to see the typical pottery lace mouth edge jar, open circle foot zun, pan circle foot zun, trumpet mouth high neck jar, wide edge flat bottom zun and pot in the previous Baodun culture. This reflects the gradual disappearance of the typical factors of The Baodun culture and the process of the gradual incubation, formation and development of the typical factors of the Sanxingdui culture (See Jiang Zhanghua, Wang Yi, Zhang Qing, "The Early City Sites of the Chengdu Plain and Their Archaeological Culture", "Su Bingqi and Contemporary Chinese Archaeology", Science Press, 2001). Combining the characteristics of pottery and combination, the fourth phase of Baodun culture is in the stage of change before the formation of Sanxingdui culture, and it is also the stage of integration and innovation of cultural factors. Therefore, whether it is a transitional relic, or a separate cultural heritage, it has its rationality. But before a large number of relevant archaeological remains are published, it is too early to give a definitive opinion.
Figure 1 Clay pots excavated from the site of Laoguanmiao (T4:42)
Second, the prehistoric cultural center that may have been overlooked: Sanxingdui
Since the 1990s, eight ancient cultural cities of Baoding have been discovered, including Xinjin Baodun, Dujiangyan Mangcheng, Pixian Ancient City, Wenjiang Yujiao Village, Dayi Gaoshan and Yandian, Chongzhou Shuanghe and Zizhu, showing that the collective organization and operation ability of Baodun cultural society is relatively strong. Affected by the environment of the Chengdu Plain, but also limited to the adaptability of human beings at that time, at the beginning of the formation of the Baodun culture, most of the people gathered in the transition zone in front of the mountains suitable for human habitation on the western edge of the Chengdu Plain, the early settlement of the Baodun culture was basically located on the edge of the alluvial fan on both sides of the Min River, the city sites were mostly located on the west side of the Min River, and the city sites and related settlements in the late Baodun culture went to the hinterland of the plain (see Zuo Zhiqiang, He Kunyu and Bai Tieyong in "A Brief Discussion on the Rise and Change of settlements in the Prehistoric City of the Chengdu Plain"). Judging from the current archaeological data, the city sites have not continued the entire Baodun culture period. Moreover, entering the fourth phase of Baodun Culture, the cultural relics in each city site have decreased significantly, whether the city wall still plays its function, and whether some kind of change has occurred in the society at that time, all need to be further studied and determined (see He Kunyu and Zuo Zhiqiang, "On the City Site of the Longshan Era in the Chengdu Plain", "Proceedings of the International Symposium on "City and Civilization", Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2016). In the first and second phases of the Baodun culture, the number of settlements without walls was very small, and in the third phase, such settlements sprang up, and there were also large settlements such as Wenjiang Hongqiao Village and Xindu Sanzhi Village, and the settlements in the fourth phase were mostly small settlements (see Zuo Zhiqiang, He Kunyu, and Bai Tieyong, "A Brief Discussion on the Rise and Change of Settlements in the Prehistoric City of Chengdu Plain").
Unlike other city sites in the Chengdu Plain, the Baodun cultural remains of the Sanxingdui site last for the entire four phases. In addition to the continuous development of cultural relics, the scale of the site is also particularly noteworthy. According to rough estimates, the distribution range of the first phase of the Sanxingdui site, that is, the distribution range of the baodun culture phases I to III mentioned in this article is about 3.7 square kilometers, and the distribution range of about 1.3 square kilometers Although no stratigraphic accumulation of the sanxingdui phase I has been found, there are relics of the first phase in the late strata or relic units, and the total of the two is about 5 square kilometers. In terms of distribution range and richness of relics, the Sanxingdui site should be the largest late Neolithic site in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and it is not excluded that the remains of the city wall will be found in the future [see Lei Yu "One Year Chengju Two Years Chengyi - Two Points of Understanding of the Cultural Remains of the First Phase of sanxingdui Site", "Xia Shang Duyi and Culture (II): Proceedings of the Academic Symposium commemorating the 55th anniversary of the discovery of the Erlitou Site", China Social Science Press, 2014]. Since 1999, in the process of excavation and data collation, the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has successively identified the inner residential site of the city wall of Moon Bay in 1999, Sanxingdui in 1980, 1984 and 1986, and Xiquankan in 1984 containing the remains of the fourth phase of The Baodun culture (see Lei Yu", "A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Remains of the "New Phase II" of the Sanxingdui Site - Talking about the "Yujiao Village Culture"" and "Sichuan Cultural Relics", No. 1, 2021). If the Sanxingdui site in this period still maintains a large scale, then the cultural pattern centered on the Sanxingdui site may appear in the fourth phase of the Baodun culture, changing the situation in which two or more city sites coexisted. Of course, this needs to be further confirmed by future archaeological work.
Third, the emergence of a complex society
The luxury materials seen in the prehistoric culture of the Chengdu Plain are jade, teeth and bone textures, and copper ware has not yet been seen. The tombs of the first three phases of The Baodun culture are basically missing with the burial products, and the overall appearance is still in the simple social stage. By the fourth phase, there were obvious changes, except for the Rensheng Village Cemetery at the Sanxingdui site, individual tombs in the 10th Neighborhood of Palm Tree Village in the southern suburbs of Chengdu and Huacheng Village in the western suburbs of Yingmen Township began to be buried with bone ornaments or stone tools. It can be speculated that in the fourth phase of The Baodun culture, there was differentiation among the members of the group, and special classes with certain powers began to appear (Seejiang Zhanghua and He Kunyu, "Analysis of Prehistoric Settlements in the Chengdu Plain", Sichuan Cultural Relics, No. 6, 2016). Unlike the situation where fewer jade artifacts were unearthed at several sites such as Jinsha Site Zhixin Jinshayuan Phase I and Qiangyi Automobile Trading Co., Ltd., the RenshengCun cemetery found 22 pieces of jade during cleaning and excavation in 2007 and 2008. In addition to the more common axes, hammers, chisels, bi-shaped instruments, etc., special snails, bubble shapers, conical devices, etc. have been found (see Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology Sanxingdui Ruins Workstation "Sichuan Guanghan City Sanxingdui Ruins Rensheng Village Earth Pit Tomb", Archaeology, No. 10, 2004). This may be related to the fact that the excavation of Rensheng Village is a tomb, or the level of the site. Some scholars believe that the conical vessels, jade axe-shaped vessels and obsidian beads buried with the tombs of Rensheng Village may be the main manifestations of social status, status hierarchy and wealth, when the social structure of Rensheng Village has been divided and a hierarchical system has emerged (see Xiao Xianjin, Wu Weixi, "Preliminary Study on Jade Tools Excavated from the Tomb of Rensheng Village in Sanxingdui Site", Sichuan Cultural Relics, No. 2, 2010). There is legitimacy to this understanding.
In addition to the differentiation between the rich and the poor between the cemeteries of different sites, the following two phenomena occurred between the tombs (burials) of the same site during this period.
First, there is an uneven number of burial items in the interior of the same cemetery. Of the twenty-nine tombs that have been excavated and numbered at the Rensheng Village Cemetery, except for eight tombs that have been destroyed or have not seen any relics or burials, there are still a small number of unseemly burials in the remaining twenty-one tombs. There is a difference in the number of relics in tombs with burial items, such as M14 only burying one piece of jade snail-like rotator, which is significantly less than the burial items of M5, M21 and M29, and the burial chamber area of M14 is also smaller than that of M5, M21 and M29 (Figure 2).
Figure 2 Rensheng Village 97M14 burial plan, cross-sectional view and excavated relics
1. Snail-shaped jade M14:1
2. M14 plane, section view
Perhaps there are different classes between these tombs, or there are differences in the degree of wealth they possess. In this way, there may be two or three levels between the tomb owners of Rensheng Village. Among them, the clear division criteria between the first and second grades (that is, the two types of tombs represented by M5 and M14) are not easy to determine, such as one M10 burial pottery bean, one lid, one jade chisel, one spear, and five obsidian beads. The number of burials and the burial area are between the first and second class tombs mentioned above. Therefore, as far as the current archaeological data is concerned, it is not easy to clearly determine the boundary between the first and second levels. But at least there should be a difference between the non-funerary items. However, no matter how big or small the tombs in Rensheng Village are, how many burial items are unearthed, they all follow a certain arrangement order relatively neatly, and do not break through the shackles of blood relations. In addition, there are also large differences in the use of burial items in the ten-street cemetery. The burial items of the tombs are all bone ornaments, some tombs do not have burial items, some only bury one or two pieces, and the largest number of burials is fourteen (see Zhu Zhangyi, "Minutes of Annual Excavations of Ten Neighborhood Ruins in the Southern Suburbs of Chengdu", "Chengdu Archaeological Discovery (1999)", Science Press, 2001). This also reflects the different wealth possession of the tomb owner, and there may be a certain hierarchical difference.
Second, there are also hierarchical differences between different cemeteries at the same site. In 1986, archaeologists excavated six Baodun culture tombs near the Yanjia courtyard, more than 1,500 meters east of the current Renshengcun cemetery and about 200 meters west of the Moon Bay Mound, of which M1-M3, which opened on the second floor, is noteworthy (Figure 3) (Sam Ma Jixian, "The Remembrance of the Excavations at the Moon Bay Site in Guanghan", Southern Ethnic Archaeology, Vol. 5, Sichuan Science and Technology Publishing House, 1993).
Figure 3 Pottery excavated from the Moon Bay Tomb
1. Cylindrical tank (M1:6)
2—4. High circle foot bean (M1:2, M2:4, M3:1)
All three tombs are buried with yao-shaped cups and shallow bean, which are consistent with the 97GSDg M22 in Rensheng Village in terms of burial pottery (Figure 4), but there are differences in specific shapes, and it is not known whether there is a slight distance in age. The yao-shaped vessel buried with the Moon Bay site is sand-filled red pottery, some of which are black pottery coats, and the fire temperature is very low, which may have the characteristics of the meditator; the high-circle foot beans buried with M1-M3 are mostly very low, and the largest of the four shallow-bellied high-circle foot beans buried with M1 (M1:2) has a higher fire temperature, but there is a round hole in the bottom of the plate, which may not be a practical instrument and should have a specific meaning. This shows that the burialrs of the Moon Bay Tomb have a certain understanding of the use of burial utensils. Although the tombs of the Moon Bay site have similarities with the Rensheng Village Cemetery in terms of burial pottery, the jade tools, obsidian beads, ivory, etc. seen in the Rensheng Village Cemetery are not found in the Moon Bay Tombs, indicating that the level of the Moon Bay Tombs is obviously not as high as the Rensheng Village Cemetery. In the excavated Baodun Culture Phase IV tombs, the level of burial items in the Rensheng Village cemetery is significantly higher than that of other tombs. The owner of the tomb of Rensheng Village has a high ability to obtain high-grade items such as jade tools, indicating that he has the power to produce, trade and distribute foreign exchanges and high-grade items.
Figure 4 Pottery excavated from 97M22 in Rensheng Village
1. Cylindrical tank (M22:2)
2, 3. Bean shaper (M22:3, 1)
Some scholars believe that during the Baodun culture period, the social organization of the Chengdu Plain had broken through the clan system and entered the chieftain society, and the political structure was no longer limited to the basis of villages, but a concentration of regional power (Samson Yan and Yang Hongyu, "Local Traditions and Foreign Influences: Different Models of Local Bronze Culture Formation from Sanxingdui and Xingan", "Archaeology in the New Century: Diverse Interactions of Culture, Location, and Ecology", Forbidden City Publishing House, 2005). However, although there were many city sites before the fourth phase of the Baodun culture, and large-scale building sites were also found (such as the F1 and the north and south ends of the Drum Dun sub-area of the Baodun site found in 2010), there was no obvious sign of social stratification in the scale of the tomb and the burial items. It is speculated that the tribal leaders who organized large-scale collective activities at this time may have a certain public service nature, or have a certain power to organize religious sacrifices, but did not form a special power above all tribal members, nor did they form a privileged class. However, in the fourth stage of the Zhibaodun culture, the number of tombs with burial goods increased, and the uneven distribution caused by wealth accumulation already existed. From the analysis of the phenomenon that there are more burials in a number of tombs in Rensheng Village, perhaps the privileged class has begun to appear, and further verification can be done after the increase of tomb materials in the future.
4. The rest of the argument
At present, there are few published research materials on the Sanxingdui site, and it is not yet possible to explain the development process and characteristics of the Sanxingdui culture. However, only from the eight artifact pits that have been found near the Sanxingdui city wall (the actual number should be more than this), and the No. 1 and No. 2 artifact pits that have systematically published the excavated objects (see Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology", Sanxingdui Sacrifice Pit, Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1999), regardless of whether these pits are sacrificial pits or not, the excavations in the pits such as copper altars, bronze statues, kneeling figures, top statues, various copper and gold hanging ornaments, jade, stone tooth zhang, ivory and other relics may be related to some kind of sacrifice behavior. The Sanxingdui people advocate the social atmosphere of religion and sacrifice, and now through the excavation of the Rensheng Village Cemetery, it can be traced back to the Baodun cultural stage. The human bones and graves in the rensheng village tomb were rammed, and this special way of burying the dead is very different from other Baodun culture tombs, and it is speculated that the owner of the Rensheng village may have gained a higher status in the status of mastering special religious rites. Such a customary tomb, I don't know if it will be found again in the Sanxingdui cultural period, it is worth looking forward to. The use of ivory is also significantly earlier than the Sanxingdui culture, and 97GSDgM1 and M29 have been found in Rensheng Village.
The snail-like apparatus excavated in rensheng village is peculiarly shaped, especially one of them (M21:5) has nine fire-like round nests on one side of the outer arc surface, which excavators have speculated may be related to divination. The architectural site of the Baodun culture can also roughly reflect the signs that collective ritual activities were paid special attention to by the society at that time. Pixian Ancient City F5 is a large house building base site, the plane is rectangular, the direction is consistent with the direction of the city site. It is about 51.5 meters long, 10.7 meters wide, and has an area of about 551 square meters. It is speculated that the walls of the house are wooden pillar oleander fences, and the inside and outside are mothed with mud. There are no remains of the partition wall in the site, a circular pillar consisting of small pebbles was found in the middle of the east side, and five regularly arranged rectangular pebbles were found in the room, using round bamboo as a parapet, and the outside of the parapet is likely to be plastered. Among them, the no. 2 and no. 3 pedestals are larger than the other three pedestals. Excavators speculate that F5 may be a large ceremonial building, such as a place for public ceremonial activities (see Chengdu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Pixian Museum, "Briefing on the Excavation of the Ancient City Site of Pixian County, Sichuan Province, 1997", Cultural Relics, No. 3, 2001). This inference can be derived. There are many indications that the sacrificial cultural tradition of the Sanxingdui site has a traceable origin. Excavators of the Renshengcun cemetery have pointed out that the snail-shaped jade is similar to the bucket-shaped white pottery of the second period of the Erlitou culture. If this is the case, it is necessary to re-examine the time when the Erlitou cultural factor entered the Chengdu Plain and its significance for the formation of the Sanxingdui culture. While continuing the cultural factors of Baodun, the Tomb of The Eartheng in Rensheng Village reflects a large cultural rupture, both the intensification of social class differentiation and the rupture of cultural characteristics embodied in funeral customs. If this phenomenon is combined with the imminent emergence of Sanxingdui culture, it is not difficult to find that new cultural changes are brewing at the Sanxingdui site at this time. Subsequently, the cultural pattern of the Sichuan Basin was formed through the Sanxingdui culture and its external expansion, and eventually gradually tended to be unified.
(This article was published in Literature and History Knowledge, No. 10, 2021)
Source: Literature and History Knowledge
Author: Yu Mengzhou Li Yangyang
Some of Fangzhi Sichuan's pictures, audio and video come from the Internet, only to disseminate more information. The copyright of the pictures, audio and video contained in the article belongs to the original author or media.