Hemudu culture refers to the ancient and colorful Neolithic culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin in China, dating back about 7,000 years. In the 1970s, the excavation of the Hemudu site had a sensational effect on society. This archaeological excavation has also opened up the research of industry experts on the Hemudu culture.
Over the past few decades, archaeologists have discovered a number of typical prehistoric settlements in southern China that rely on mountains and rivers and use gathering, fishing, hunting and farming as economic means in the archaeological excavations of more than ten sites such as Tianluo Mountain, Fujia Mountain and Jingtou Mountain. Together, they show a more complete picture of the Hemudu culture, which has become the most important middle and late Neolithic archaeological culture in southern China.
The "Great Ruins of China" column of The Paper invited Sun Guoping, director and researcher of the Prehistoric Archaeology Department of the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, to talk about his archaeological experience of the Hemudu culture and the source of the Hemudu culture.
Many people knew the idiom "vicissitudes of mulberry fields" when they were in elementary school, but even if the teacher explained its meaning at that time, it was still difficult to imagine the time span behind it, and I think many people felt the same way as me. It wasn't until I was engaged in archaeology for thirty years that I unveiled the several meters of thick silt covering the ruins of Jingtou Mountain in Yuyao, and I saw that the ancestors of 8,000 years ago lived on the seashore for hundreds of years and left a lot of shellfish garbage.
On the one hand, because the Jingtou Mountain site is buried under the mud deposited in the seawater 8,000 years ago, the relics of life in the distant times were actually discarded as if they were yesterday; on the other hand, the things around them that the ancients used were both simple and simple, but also shone with primitive wisdom and contained the hardships of life, which has a huge contrast with our daily necessities today. That convinced me that they were truly 8,000 years apart from us now.
No wonder, not long ago, a reporter who came to the archaeological site of the Jingtou Mountain site to interview me asked, "What is your biggest feeling or most meaningful gain after you have personally engaged in archaeological work for such a long time?" Without hesitation, I said that the work of "archaeology" made me truly feel the depth of human history and the brevity and preciousness of personal life, and I could often feel the wisdom and emotions of the ancestors across time and space.
Hemudu ruins environment
Excavation scene of the ruins of Hemudu
No, the social significance of the discipline of archaeology or the profession can be simply used to acquire a lot of knowledge about various aspects of ancient society and the natural environment. This role and value cannot be replaced by ordinary history and all other disciplines of social science and natural science. Because compared with the long history of the birth, development and evolution of the earth, the process of human emergence and development is still very short, but this "short" process, we think that we have super memory ability, or have the so-called vast sea of historical documents, still, can only preserve some of the short and recent survival fragments, the history of the extremely limited record or some misunderstanding, can not fully reflect the length and breadth of history, is far from enough to show the full picture of history for today's people. Tai Shi Gong even left a little historical prejudice in the "Records of History" that had a far-reaching impact on the modern Jiangnan region. Even more than 99% of human history is still extremely vague, and it is impossible to solve this limitation with the study of historical documents, and only the "archaeology" that has recently been formed and developed can make up for this limitation to a large extent. So, in the past, there have been many different but similar statements about "archaeology": "Reorganizing the cumbersome chains of biological evolution, building a biological evolutionary tree, understanding the past of animals, plants, and ourselves, where do species come from, and where do we ourselves come from?"
It is true that the "Jingtou Mountain Ruins" have attracted the attention of many experts and the public through excavations in the past two years, but the Hemudu Ruins not far from it can be said to be household names or famous, especially in recent decades, young and middle-aged people who have taken middle school history classes usually know it. So how did the Hemudu site get written into a middle school history textbook in the early 1980s?
Schematic diagram of the relative location of The Ruins of Jingtou Mountain, hemudu And Tianluo Mountain
Excavation of foundation pits at the Jingtou Mountain site
First of all, thanks to its important and unique geographical location. Located at the foot of Siming Mountain in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, on the south bank of Hangzhou Bay, the Hemudu site is at the midpoint of China's 18,000-kilometer land coastline, surrounded by mountains and seas and close to the 30th parallel north, with moderate temperature and humidity in terms of climatic conditions. Therefore, it is undoubtedly a place to live, and the people of Hemudu found this treasure land 7,000 years ago with a keen eye to flourish.
Secondly, the Hemudu people took advantage of the superior natural conditions to carry out production and life according to local conditions, creatively built dry-column wooden houses (the earliest "buildings" on the ground floor) for living and settling down; extensively reclaimed the wetlands of the seaside beach to plant rice, and with the hunting of a large number of freshwater fish and some marine fish, thus appearing the earliest true "fish and rice town" in the southern part of China, providing the most accurate source for the allusion of "rice soup fish"; and also produced a large number of pottery and stone with a high degree of practicality and artistry , bone, wood and other daily necessities.
There is also a very important reason, the cultural layer and various relics of the Hemudu site are mostly buried under the mud of the low-lying ancient coastal beaches, forming a burial environment isolated from the ground air, so that all kinds of relics even carbonized rice, rice husks, leaves, fish scales and other organic matter relics have been well preserved underground for six or seven thousand years. This alone is incomparable to thousands of other sites of the same period in the country.
Finally, the discovery of the Hemudu site in this special historical period in the 1970s produced an almost unprecedented sensational effect on the whole society at that time.
Hemudu unearthed a carved pig pattern rounded horn square bowl
Rice was excavated from the T224 four A layers of Hemudu
More than 40 years after the discovery and excavation of the Hemudu site, archaeological excavations have been done at more than ten sites such as Cihu Lake, Mingshanhou, Tashan, Xiaodongmen, Diaojiashan, Mushan, Tianluoshan, Fujiashan, Yushan and Xiawangdu, and a number of typical prehistoric settlements in southern China with mountains and rivers and gathering, fishing and hunting, and farming as economic means have been discovered. Together, they show a relatively complete appearance of the Hemudu culture, which has become the most important middle and late Neolithic archaeological culture in southern China, dating back to about 5300 to 7000 years ago, with the remains of dry-column wooden structures, the remains of rice farming, carbon black pottery, ivory carvings, many bone tools, stone tools and wood tools, and rich animal and plant remains as the main cultural connotations. However, in the decades since 1973, archaeologists and the public have wondered where the ancients created such a wonderful and mature Hemudu culture 7,000 years ago.
For such a question, ordinary people may not have to worry much about it, and sometimes it is enough to ask an expert. As an expert in the study of Hemudu culture, it is incumbent upon us to explore and solve this important question as if it were a case. Therefore, experts have been thinking about this problem for nearly half a century and have put forward several answers, the main one of which is the Xiaoshan cross-lake bridge culture from the inland of Zhejiang, which is 8000-7000 years old, and the Shangshan culture that is mainly distributed in the Jinqu area, but because of the similarity between the two, there is not much "blood" relationship, which is not recognized by everyone.
Personally, as a native of Ningbo in the Hemudu Cultural Zone, I grew up eating all kinds of small seafood by the side of Hangzhou Bay, but until I joined the work, I had never seen the real blue sea. After working, it was not until the early 1990s that there were more opportunities to visit the sea. After that, successively to the domestic Zhoushan Islands, Dongtou Island, Pingtan Island, Hainan Island and other islands, as well as the seaside Japan, the United States Hawaii, the Philippines, South Korea, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia and other places, have more understanding of the ocean, but also gradually realize the special importance of the sea for mankind, and for a long time personally touched many Hemudu relics researchers, Naturally, there will be more personal thinking and understanding of the origin of the hemudu culture in the coastal sea. Because, in terms of location, the Hemudu site is also about 40 kilometers away from the current coastline, but the bones of some marine fish unearthed in the site, although much less than the bones of freshwater fish, at least show that the Hemudu people lived not too far from the seashore 6 or 7 thousand years ago; Moreover, the wonderful features of all aspects of the Hemudu culture should be that they have gone through a long period of accumulation and development before it, and these characteristics can not find the exact source of the surroundings, so it is very likely that they are native. Local origins.
Landscape of Tianluo Mountain Ruins (Winter 2004)
Excavation of DK3 rice husks at the Tianluoshan site
Based on one judgment, I have been thinking about this problem since 2004 when I presided over the excavation of the new representative site of the Hemudu culture, the Tianluoshan site, and when the site unearthed a lot of wooden oars and sea fish skeletons, it further strengthened my belief that the Hemudu culture must come from the local coast. At the same time, looking at the Liaodong Peninsula, Shandong Peninsula, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan coastal areas and other places on China's long coastline, a large number of Neolithic coastal shell hill ruins (living and living sites formed by discarding a large number of shells in the formation after eating shellfish and seafood on the seashore) have not been able to see any trace of the shell hill ruins in Zhejiang and adjacent Jiangsu and Shanghai, which are also close to the coast, climate and geographical environment, and are also quite puzzled. However, looking at the world, the coastal areas of the world with superior modern environment are all economically developed and densely populated areas. Therefore, some simple and puzzling questions lingered in my heart: Is there really no shell hill ruins in the coastal treasure land of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, and has not been favored by ancient ancestors? In ancient times, when did humans arrive at the coast, adapt to the ocean, and use the ocean to rely on the ocean? With its good location and long coastline, when did Chinese first go to sea? Or Chinese when and where did you start to live by the mountains and the sea? Does the Ningbo area, which has superior geographical conditions, have a very early origin of marine culture?
Part of the 6,500-year-old TianluoShan ganlan-style architectural remains
The excavation of the single wooden ladder in Tianluo Mountain
Therefore, in the process of being in charge of the excavation of the Tianluo Mountain site for many years, I tried to think and try to search for relevant information from the deep strata of Tianluo Mountain, and on two occasions, by digging a well, I risked the mud collapse to dig up the rock at the foot of Tianluo Mountain covered with 7 or 8 meters of silt, and found very few artificial relics in the mud close to the rock. This small discovery gave me greater confidence and a better opportunity to make a real breakthrough in the study of the cultural origins of Hemudu. In doing so, it seems that the philosophical old saying that "opportunities are left to those who are prepared" is really fulfilled very quickly.
Decades passed quickly in the debate over the source of the River Crossing, and the timing of the puzzle was dramatically set in the second half of 2013. At that time, when the Hemudu site was discovered for a full forty years, the heavy rainfall brought by a typhoon after the National Day caused huge losses to the people of Yuyao and Ningbo, but unexpectedly, the JingtouShan site, which had been buried deep underground for more than 8,000 years, "surfaced" in the flood. The Jingtou Mountain site is located at the foot of the lush Siming Mountain on the south bank of Hangzhou Bay, and also close to the 30th parallel line north, close to the Hemudu site and the Tianluo Mountain site. Later, through the arduous and complex first phase archaeological excavation work of the Jingtou Mountain site in recent years, the "ceiling" of the history and culture of Ningbo was finally broken more than 40 years after the advent of the Hemudu site!
Not only that, the first prehistoric coastal shell mound site in Zhejiang and the Yangtze River Delta region, and the earliest and deepest buried marine cultural site in China's coastal age have entered our field of vision for the first time. In the excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site, a number of living relics such as food storage pits, fishbone piles, wood tools and knitting processing areas located near the ancient bay and simple and intelligent pottery, stone tools, bone tools, shellware, wooden utensils, and woven materials, as well as a huge number of mud cockles, conchs, oysters, clams, and other marine shell shells and fishing and hunting animal skeletons abandoned after the ancient people's life and utilization, have been excavated, and a large number of animal and plant remains, which truly record the daily life of the JingtouShan people (the earliest Ningbo people) in food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. It also proves conclusively that the Chinese ancestors did not ignore the sea since ancient times, and tenaciously and intelligently adapted to the sea and creatively opened up a rich and colorful marine life. What can be even more proud is that the Site of Jingtou Mountain is conclusively shows that Chinese adapted to the ocean, used the ocean, and lived on the sea, looking at the whole world is almost unprecedented.
The archaeological site of the Jingtou Mountain site
Scene of archaeological work at the Jingtou Mountain site
Excavations of various production tools and living utensils show that the JingtouShan site is another landmark Neolithic site discovered in the coast of Zhejiang province since the discovery of the Hemudu site nearly 50 years ago, and is a scientific example of the origin and rapid development of Chinese marine culture at least 8,000 years ago, further showing that ancient Chinese culture is not only based on the vast inland area dominated by the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin. Almost at the same time, the coastal areas of China, which have a long coastline, have been constantly adapting to the marine environment and developing. In this way, it constitutes a complete historical original appearance of the land and oceanic nature of China's ancient culture.
The reason for the discovery of China's earliest marine cultural sites in Ningbo should first have a lot to do with the uniqueness of its geographical environment. Ningbo's geographical environment has the following advantages compared with other coastal areas in China: superior location, located in the middle of the Chinese mainland coastline, the coast of the East China Sea, the foothills of siming mountains on the south bank of Hangzhou Bay, and the eastern part of the Ningshao Plain (region) in Northern Zhejiang; excellent climatic conditions (rich in hydrothermal resources and abundant); excellent environmental diversity, with oceans, streams, rivers and lakes, mountains, hills, plains, and tidal flats; disadvantages: the area is small, with a total area of less than 10,000 square kilometers; the terrain is broken, the geographical unit is narrow; it is often subject to typhoons. Heavy rain and other disastrous weather effects. It is more suitable for the survival and development of prehistoric humans, especially the ancestors of the Neolithic Age, and the Hemudu culture is its most important evidence.
Skeletons of marine animals excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site
Marine mollusk shells were unearthed at the JingtouShan site
Bone artifacts were excavated from the Jingtou Mountain site
At this point, it can be condensed into the following historical picture that seems to be alive:
A small ancient village where the Ruins of Jingtou Mountain are located, more than 8,000 years ago, bathed in warm sunshine and humid morning fog, backed by the remnants of Siming Mountain, which is covered with green trees and wild animals, stepping on the wetland beach where the sea is lapping, facing an ancient bay with calm wind and waves and flourishing fish and shells, dozens of ancestors of Jingtou Mountain in the village seem to live a paradise-like immortal life. The living relics and rich relics unearthed in the excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site truly record the daily life of the JingtouShan people (the earliest Ningbo people), and also prove that the Chinese ancestors did not ignore the sea from ancient times, and tenaciously and intelligently adapted to the sea and creatively opened up a colorful marine life.
Therefore, the discovery of the Jingtou Mountain site solves this big question about the origin of the Hemudu culture, then, as the saying goes, there is no feast under the heavens, so the next question is, how did the Hemudu culture disappear and transform after flourishing for such a long time in more than 7,000 to 5,000 years?
This distant problem cannot be recorded in any historical document, but must also be solved by relevant archaeological discoveries and studies. Therefore, it is necessary to continue to look for typical sites with breakthrough academic value in the field discoveries, especially those with well-preserved late remains. Secondly, in areas where archaeology is weak, such as the Zhoushan Islands, the Xiangshan Peninsula, and the junction area of Yongtai, targeted field archaeological surveys and the selection of key sites for disclosure can help the real breakthrough in important issues such as the distribution range of Hemudu culture and the direction of diffusion and dissemination.
Exterior view of the Hemudu Ruins Museum
Restoration scene of the village at the Hemudu ruins
Around 2015, excavations at the Yushan-Turtle Mountain site in Zhenhai District revealed clear evidence of the transformation of villages in the late Hemudu culture to villages in the Liangzhu culture period nearly 5,000 years ago. The pottery living relics unearthed here, the earliest vessel shape obviously has the characteristics of the Hemudu culture, and then gradually appeared some factors influenced by the strong culture liangzhu culture in the Hangjiahu area, especially in the daily use of cookware more three-legged pottery ding, resulting in a rapid decrease in the number of the most popular pottery kettles in the Hemudu culture. Excavations at the Xiawangdu site in Fenghua District around 2018 unearthed a small village from the late Hemudu culture to the Liangzhu culture period, which is organically composed of wooden building residential areas, small cemeteries, and surrounding rice farming production areas, and the environment is located in the more central area of the Sanjiang Plain in Ningbo. Excavations at the Hejia site in Fenghua District in 2018 and 2019 unearthed wooden remains with typical dry-column architectural features from the late Hemudu culture and the Liangzhu culture period. With the discovery of such small-scale village ruins in the core area of Hemudu culture, it can be determined that at the end of the Hemudu culture more than 5,000 years ago, due to the degradation of the natural environment and the expansion of Songze culture and Liangzhu culture in the north of Hangzhou Bay, many new cultural features were generally accepted by foreign influences in social development. At the same time, it can also be seen from archaeological materials that some village ruins of late Factors of hemudu culture have been found along the coast of Taizhou and the northeast coast of Fujian, indicating that some of the ancestors of Hemudu gradually searched for new homes along the southeast coast of Zhejiang following the customs of coastal life.
We archaeologists are also tracking the traces of our ancestors, talking to them in the air, and carrying the dream of running towards a better life.
December 15, 2021
(Sun Guoping, the author of this article, is the director and researcher of the Prehistoric Archaeology Department of the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)