【Cultural Perspective】
Treasures on the land of Longyuan - a preliminary investigation of the nanzuo ruins and the ruins of the Yuanyuan River
Ruins of the Tsukikawa River
White-clad pottery was unearthed at the Site of Nanzo
Jade scepter head excavated from the Banpo type period of the Ruins of the Yuanquan River
Chen Guoke
The Loess Plateau region of Longdong and Longxi on both sides of the Longshan Mountains in eastern Gansu is an important area for the distribution of Yangshao culture, as well as a key area for exploring the social complexity and origin of early civilization in the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
In 2021, the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with Chinese Min University and other universities, conducted large-scale archaeological excavations at the Nanzuo site on the Loess Plateau in Longdong and the ruins of the Yuanquan River on the Loess Plateau in Longxi.
The Nanzuo ruins and the Yuanquanchuan ruins are both large settlements of triple ring moats, and the two sites represent two key stages of development in the early and late yangshao cultural development in eastern Gansu.
Ruins of Nanzo:
One of the largest settlement sites dating back about 5,000 years
The Nanzuo site is located in the south of Nanzuo Administrative Village, Houguanzhai Town, Xifeng District, Longdong Loess Plateau, on Dongzhiyuan between the Pu River and the Malian River, a tributary of the Jing River.
In 2021, excavations of 1,000 square meters of the Nanzo site will be carried out, excavations will be carried out on the palace area and the west side of the Rammed Earth Platform No. 1, and multidisciplinary research work will also be carried out.
Through excavations, researchers have discovered "palace areas" with clear priorities and large palace-like buildings. The remains of the "palace area" as a whole belong to the late Yangshao culture to the early stage of the second phase of Miaodigou. The large palace-like building F1 alone has an interior part of 630 square meters. The existing plan of Rammed Earth Platform No. 1 is close to rectangular, the remaining area is about 880 square meters, and the residual height is 2-3 meters. The trench on its western side is partially about 20 meters wide and about 10 meters deep. The pottery pieces produced in the trench belong to the late Yangshao culture.
After preliminary investigation and exploration, an "outer ring trench" was also found on the east, south and north sides of the site, dating from 5200 to 4600 years ago. The core area of the site is surrounded by nine large rammed earth platforms (referred to as "nine platforms"), and the huge volume of the "nine platforms" and palace-style buildings, as well as the huge scale of the trenches and rammed facilities outside the platform, are unprecedented. A large number of white heap pottery, white pottery, white pottery, black pottery, cinnabar painted pottery, large faience pots, flat-bottomed faience pottery vases with plugs and flared mouths were excavated from the F2 accumulation in the eastern part of the palace area, as well as a large number of rice remains, showing the high level of social development at that time.
The area of the "outer ring trench" of the Nanzuo site is about 6 million square meters, and the core area around the "Jiutai" is about 300,000 square meters, which is one of the largest settlement sites about 5,000 years ago, indicating that the Longdong region had entered an early state or civilized society at that time.
Ruins of the Ququ River:
Another central area of Yangshao culture
The ruins of the Yuanquan River are located in the southeast of Yanzhuang Village, Dayang Town, Zhangjiachuan Hui Autonomous County, Longxi Loess Plateau, at the confluence of the South River and the Songshu River, a tributary of the Wei River.
In 2021, more than 950 relics of the Yangshao, Qijia, Han, Song and Ming dynasties were cleaned up, of which more than 870 were relics units in the Yangshao period. It is confirmed that the remains of the Yangshao period cover an area of about 160,000 square meters, which continue from the early Yangshao period to the late Yangshao period.
A large ring trench settlement of the early Historian type of Yangshao was found, relatively well-preserved, with an area of about 80,000 square meters. The center of the settlement is a square, surrounded by groups of houses distributed in the centripetal direction, and the periphery is a near-circular ring trench, and there is a suspected pottery kiln area in the southeast outside the ring trench, and a suspected burial area in the northwest.
At present, more than 100 houses have been identified in the ring trench, and 60 have been excavated. The houses are all square semi-crypt type, composed of doorways, floors, walls, stove pits, earthen platforms, platforms, pillar holes, etc. Large houses are about 100 square meters, medium sized houses are about 20-50 square meters, and small houses are about 10-20 square meters.
The layout of the housing site is distributed in groups of three large houses in the east, south and north of the square, each group of houses is composed of 1 large house and 5-45 small and medium-sized houses, the doorway of the large house points to the square, and the doorway of the medium and small houses mostly points to the large house or square.
A large granary was found in the central square, a circular bag-shaped cellar with a volume of nearly 60 cubic meters, and the bottom contains the remains of carbonized millet. The relics excavated from Yangshao Settlement include pottery, stone, jade, bone, tooth, mussel shell, animal remains, and carbonized plant remains.
The Yangshao early historian type ring trench settlement area of about 80,000 square meters is one of the most complete and connotative early settlements of Yangshao culture found in the Yellow River Basin, and is another important archaeological discovery on the Loess Plateau in Longxi after the Dadiwan site, representing a key period in the development of Yangshao culture, confirming that the area is another center of Yangshao culture like Guanzhong and the Central Plains, and has an extremely important position in the origin of Chinese civilization.