In the upper reaches of the Yellow River, on the banks of the Tao River, the small mountain village of Majiayao in winter is quiet and peaceful.
More than 5,000 years ago, the ancestors here used the soil under their feet to push the prehistoric faience art of mankind to the peak.
Nearly a hundred years ago, with the footsteps of archaeologists, the Majiayao culture stone broke the earth. Since then, a group of Chinese and foreign archaeologists have flocked to seek the "genetic sequencing" of civilization.
Why did the peak of prehistoric Chinese faience culture appear on the desolate loess slopes?
Why did the Majiayao faience style in East Asia collide with the faience pottery in the Black Sea region and the South Asian subcontinent?
Why, before the Silk Road, there could have been a "faience road" "chiseled" by prehistoric ancestors?
In 2021, modern Chinese archaeology ushered in its centennial birthday. Majiayao culture, a cultural type characterized by faience pottery, is also increasingly bursting out of its unique charm, attracting the world's attention because of its prehistoric "Dunhuang" role.
The majiayao site that has been backfilled.
Text | Zhang Qin, Zhang Baihui, Zhang Yujie, Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter
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The source exploration of Chinese civilization in the upper reaches of the Yellow River is unique
If you drive westward and walk into the upper reaches of the Yellow River and its tributaries, the Tao River and huangshui river basins, the scorched yellow, red and brown mountains are endless, like a continuous row of faience pottery vessels. Walk into any provincial, municipal and county-level museum in this area, and the dazzling Majiayao faience pottery will surely come into your eyes:
Black, red and white colors are painted on the orange-yellow pottery base, forming flexible water ripples, swirls and grid patterns. The rich shape of the vessel and the smooth and delicate appearance of pots, pots, pots and so on make the faience more elegant.
Majiayao faience pottery.
Faience pottery is the most prominent feature of Majiayao culture. China's scientific exploration of prehistoric culture began with the discovery of faience pottery, and also ran through the thinking and debate of faience pottery. One of the most representative topics is the mystery of the origin of Chinese faience culture. The Majiayao culture, which is about 5,000 years old, provides important clues and new ideas for solving this puzzle.
More than 5,000 years ago, the Majiayao culture was formed in the northwest region, with the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the Taohe and Huangshui river basins as the central area, and developed rapidly.
In 1924, Swedish geologist and archaeologist Anderson first came to the prehistoric human site in Majiayao Village, Lintao County, to investigate, and named it "Gansu Yangshao Culture". Anderson, who has just completed excavations at the Yangshao site in Shichi, Henan, discovered the similarities between Chinese faience pottery and faience pottery in Central Asia and the west coast of the Black Sea, and the "Chinese faience culture in the west" was born. The purpose of Anderson's trip to Gansu was to find evidence connecting Western faience and Central Plains faience at this key node of communication between China and the West.
In the 1940s, Chinese archaeologist Xia Nai revisited Majiayao and considered it a unique cultural type and named it "Majiayao Culture". In the past hundred years, the in-depth study of Majiayao culture has overthrown the "West".
Majiayao ruins.
"Majiayao culture is in the same vein as yangshao culture in the Central Plains, which is a witness to the continuous expansion of living space in the formation of Chinese civilization 5,000 years ago, and has played an important role in the formation of a pluralistic and integrated Chinese civilization." Li Xinwei, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who has long studied majiayao culture, said.
Zhou Jing, a librarian at the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that faience pottery originated in the Neolithic era, and the Majiayao faience pottery that appeared in the late Neolithic period reached the peak of faience art since the Yangshao culture.
"The peak of faience art not only refers to the emergence of higher aesthetic needs and the development of realistic techniques such as water ripples, but also indicates that there was a social division of labor to make faience pottery as a profession at that time. The specialized division of labor is an important symbol of economic prosperity and cultural development. Zhou Jing said.
In Zhou Jing's view, Majiayao faience pottery is like a mirror, from which it can be seen that the climatic conditions in the northwest at that time were better, which was conducive to agricultural and cultural development. This has provided favorable conditions for the formation of a pattern of pluralism and integration of Chinese civilization.
In the view of Lin Shaoxiong, a professor at Shanghai University, the emergence of faience means that basic tools such as pen and ink have been "in place"; the painting of ornamentation means the invention of lines. "It is in the inheritance of this brush and painting that Chinese civilization has been continuously carried forward and developed, pioneering and innovative." Lin Shaoxiong said.
The northwest Loess Plateau region is the highland for the development of faience culture in China. Dadiwan culture, Majiayao culture, Qijia culture... Many types of prehistoric civilizations are named after villages in the Northwest that have unearthed a large number of faience pottery. Some experts and scholars said that the shaping influence of faience culture on the artistic genes of the Chinese nation is not excluded.
The influence of Majiayao culture on other cultural types in China cannot be underestimated. Existing archaeological achievements show that the Chinese civilization is pluralistic and integrated, and since ancient times, it has developed and exchanged with each other one after another to form a cultural body.
Pottery pieces found at the Majiayao site.
Lang Shude, a researcher at the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that the Majiayao culture developed from the Hehuang region to the west and south in the early days, and once spread south to northern Sichuan, which had an impact on the later Sanxingdui and Jinsha cultures; in the middle and late period, it spread north and west, and developed to eastern Xinjiang.
In the view of many scholars, this northwest stage is not only an important member of the pluralistic interaction of Chinese civilization, but also assumes the role of prehistoric "Dunhuang".
"For the first time, the ancestors of Majiayao opened up a vast living space in the northwest region, providing a broader stage for the origin and development of Chinese civilization." Li Xinwei said, "Here, the collision of Eastern and Western civilizations has produced unexpected sparks, bringing many surprises to the archaeological community. ”
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Prehistoric "Bumping Shirts" and "Faience Road"
With the multidisciplinary intervention of science and technology, environment, materials and other disciplines in the field of archaeology, the information interpreted by scholars from the Majiayao culture has become more and more colorful.
In recent years, Li Xinwei has not only often come to the field archaeology on both sides of the Tao River in Gansu Province, but also traveled thousands of kilometers away to Romania and Ukraine to carry out work.
This is to solve a puzzle: why do the faience ornaments in the upper reaches of the Yellow River "collide" with the faience pottery in the Black Sea region?
The Kukutney-Tripoli culture, centered around the western and northwestern Parts of the Black Sea, also saw a great boom in faience around the same time. What is amazing is that the faience pottery in the two places is highly similar in ornamentation and shape, and the styles are similar, and they often use the combination of arc triangles and parallel diagonal lines, and also make ceramic sculptures of human heads.
Tang Huisheng, a professor at Hebei Normal University, said that from the ornamentation and shape of the vessel, there may also be exchanges and interactions between the Majiayao culture and the Indian Harappan culture. Because their faience pottery is painted with diamond checks, triangles, etc. The two cultures, thousands of miles apart, also have similarities in the shape of the lids of utensils.
This pile of prehistoric "shirt collision" incident has stimulated the interest of the archaeological community in the "Faience Road". Is this a coincidence, or is it the result of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries? In the prehistoric period long before the advent of the Silk Roads, was there a "faience road" that triggered a wave of art across Eurasia?
According to the definition of Han Jianye, a professor at the School of History of Chinese Min University, the "Faience Road" is a road of mutual exchange between early Chinese culture and early Western culture represented by faience pottery in the prehistoric period, including the exchange of Western culture in metalware, crops, livestock, religion, art, ideas and many other aspects in this passage. Among them, the influence of faience from west to east can reach at least the Ganqing region of China, and the influence from east to west can reach at least southern Central Asia and Kashmir.
Han Jianye believes that the "Faience Road" was the primary channel for cultural exchanges between China and the West in the early days, the main predecessor of the Silk Road, and had an important impact on the formation and development of early Chinese and Western civilizations.
"Many countries along the Silk Road have the emergence of faience civilizations, and all have similar forms of civilization and cultural expressions. This laid the cultural foundation for the connection and formation of the Silk Roads. Li Xinwei said.
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The world's Majiayao looks forward to the eyes of the world
Thousands of years ago, from the tao river to the black sea coast, prehistoric humans were thousands of miles apart and the sky was different. They have no modern means of transportation, let alone mobile phones, satellites, how to achieve close communication and interaction? Is the "Faience Road" a road of trade, a road of technology dissemination, or a road of migration of ancestors?
Many scholars say it is difficult to give a definitive answer. Because in the Central Asian belt between the two major cultural bodies, no culture that plays a bridging role has yet been found.
Wang Renxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Is it the direct impact of culture, or the development of people's minds in different regions to the same level? For now, there are still missing loops in the propagation path. ”
Many interviewed scholars admitted that there are still many puzzles to be solved in prehistoric culture, and prehistoric memory needs to be awakened together.
Majiayao faience pottery cultural and creative products.
Behind the similar faience culture is a similar agricultural society. The Kukutni-Tripoli culture and the Majiayao culture are representatives of prehistoric agrarian civilizations at both ends of Eurasia, like "quantum entanglement", which rose and fell almost simultaneously.
However, the former's agricultural society gradually formed a livestock economy and a nomadic economy after disintegration, while the latter formed a stable agricultural economy on the basis of absorbing the animal husbandry economy through interaction with other regions, and eventually formed a unique culture of pluralism and integration.
"The reasons for the similarity of the two major cultures, as well as the reasons why the two similar cultural bodies have embarked on different development processes, are worth exploring in depth." This is a worldwide issue. Li Xinwei said.
Based on a thirst for the same mystery, Chinese and Romanian archaeologists have conducted joint excavations of the ruins of an agricultural village in Romania.
In recent years, Chinese archaeologists have also studied the Namazga culture faience pottery in Turkmenistan, exploring its similar serrated patterns to Chinese faience pottery.
At the same time that Chinese experts are "going out", many overseas experts are also "invited in". In recent years, experts and scholars from Harvard University, Oxford University, Indiana University and other foreign universities and scientific research institutions have also come to the upper reaches of the Yellow River to investigate with Chinese experts.
Li Xinwei said that Majiayao culture and archaeological work in northwest China are an important window for Sino-foreign cooperation today. "We hope that while introducing new technologies and concepts to us, relevant international cooperation will also put this regional research in a more international context – both for China's central plains and for the vast Eurasian grasslands."
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