Zhenzhitang Ancient History Research: The Xinglongwa culture is one of the ancient cultural sites of the Neolithic era in China, which is extremely important for collectors of ancient jade. Because the jade excavated from the Xinglongwa site is the earliest jade artifact seen in China, dating back more than 8,000 years. The picture below shows the pig-headed stone dragon excavated from the Xinglongwa culture, which may be the earliest Chinese dragon.
Study of ancient history in Zhenzhitang: For a long time, the academic community has not studied the Xinglongwa culture enough. The same is true of the True Knowledge Hall. The reason for this may be because 5,000 years ago, there was a long dry and cold period in the world, and the Hongshan culture and Yangshao culture were all destroyed. The three hundred years of the Yellow Emperor, the five hundred years of the Yan Emperor period, and the years of The Emperor Huan, Di Yao, and Di Shun recorded in the historical records all point to the age of Fuxi, the ancestor of the Chinese Wen, to five thousand years ago, which just happens to be related to the time of the extinction of the previous generation of civilization. Therefore, when researchers are entangled in the descendants of Yanhuang and the five-thousand-year-old Civilization of China, the earlier Xinglongwa culture is easy to ignore.
After stepping out of the Central Plains Central Origin Model, Zhenzhitang focused its research on the northwest and north. Starting from the site of Shenmu Shi'an in Shaanxi Province, which is located in the Yellow River Loop area, as far as the eye can see, the lower culture of Xiajiadian seems to have become a breakthrough.
Xiajiadian lower level cultural faience pottery
In the Liao River Valley, why have so many magical ancient artifacts been discovered? Here, is it the Youzhou where Emperor Shun "flows and works together in Youzhou"? Or, or is it the Shuofang City of Emperor Yao's "Chengpi Shuofang"? Since it has little to do with this article, I will skip it for the time being. First, let's talk about the Xinglongwa Cultural Site.
Ruins of Xinglongwa
Zhenzhitang Ancient History Research: The site of the Xinglongwa settlement is located in the east of Ao Han Banner in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, on the right bank of the upper reaches of the Yaniu River, a tributary of the Daling River.
The Daling River is the largest river in western Liaoning Province. The basin area is more than 20,000 square kilometers. This river was called "Yushui" in ancient times, and was renamed "White Wolf River" during the Tang Dynasty.
In the Liao Dynasty, it was called "Linghe", and in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, it was changed to "Linghe" or "Lingjiang" (in the "Tongji Bridge Stele" in the Yuan to Zheng years, it is recorded: "Under the Helong Mountain in the east of the city, there is a water lingjiang"). The Ming Dynasty began to call it "DalingHe" to distinguish it from "Xiaolinghe".
From the phenomenon that the Daling River was called the White Wolf River in ancient times, it can be seen that the Daling River Basin should have belonged to the northern nomadic people in ancient times. In the "Bamboo Book Chronicle", there is a record of King Mu of Zhou's conquest of Inuyasha, or four white wolves and four white deer.
The Later Han Shu Xi Qiang Biography quotes the Bamboo Book Chronicle: "When King Mu arrived, Rong Di bugong, Wang Naixi marched on inuyasha, and obtained five kings, and four white deer and four white wolves, and the king moved to Taiyuan.
Zhenzhitang Ancient History Research: From the map, we can see that the Xinglongwa site is close to Chaoyang City in Liaoning Province and Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia, near the famous Liaoning Kazuo Bronze Ware Cellar, and the lower culture of Xiajiadian is in Chifeng City. The distance between the two places is only more than 100 kilometers.
Chaoyang, known as Dragon City in ancient times, but makes Dragon City fly in, does not teach Humadu Yin Mountain, and later found in this area (Niuheliang is less than 100 kilometers away from Chaoyang), the Red Mountain Culture Jade Dragon, from one side confirms the name of Dragon City, not out of thin air.
It can be seen that from more than 8,000 years ago to more than 4,000 years ago, the Daling River Basin (the Liao River Basin in a broad sense) has always been the place where our ancestors flourished. However, such ancestors should be mainly the ancestors of the ethnic minorities in the north, and the Han (or Huaxia) may not have been the original ancestors of this land before the Western Zhou.
From 1983 to 1993, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Ao Han Banner Museum have carried out 6 excavations of the site, exposing an area of more than 30,000 square meters, clearing out more than 180 semi-crypt-type housing sites, more than 400 ash pits, more than 30 living room tombs, discovering a large number of cultural relics, and on this basis, proposing the name of "Xinglongwa Culture" (8200-7200 years, one said 8000 years). The settlement is the first known prehistoric settlement in China to fully reveal all the inhabited remains of house sites, ash pits, trenches, tombs, etc.
It is also the earliest, largest and best-preserved Neolithic primitive settlement site known to China. Its discovery clearly shows that the LiaoHe River Basin and the Inner Mongolia Region are also the origins of Chinese civilization like the Yellow River Basin in the Yangtze River Basin.
In addition to the Xinglongwa site, archaeologists have also excavated the sites of Linxi Baiyin Changhan and Fuxin Chahai. Thus, the three types of Xinglongwa, Chahai and Baiyin Changhan of the Xinglongwa culture were determined.
There are more than 150 house ruins, all of which are semi-crypt buildings, with rounded or rectangular corners, and there are stove sites in the houses. The picture below shows the rows of house sites that revealed the Xinglongwa site in 1992, which is spectacular.
The tombs are all earthen pit vertical burials, one of which is a human pig burial, and the owner of the tomb is wearing a mussel skirt, which is the oldest human costume found in China.
The mysterious phenomenon of the Xinglongwa tomb
Study on the Ancient History of Zhenzhitang: It is said that the Xinglongwa culture has a stone mound similar to the later Hongshan Niuheliang culture, but Zhenzhitang has not found relevant information. Nevertheless, the phenomenon found in the ancient tombs of the Xinglongwa culture is already very peculiar.
First, people at that time buried their ancestors in the houses where they lived, which experts called living room tombs.
This example of having burial facilities in houses is also seen in the Nathuy culture, centered in the Siar levant region. The age of this culture is around 12500 BC to 8000 BC. It is mainly distributed in Syria, Palestine and Lebanon.
Scholars believe that this custom is to worship ancestors and maintain family unity. The reason why the two places are so far apart that they have the same funeral customs is thought-provoking. However, zhenzhitang could not open his mouth to say that the Xinglongwa people came from the distant West Asian region for the sake of eyeballs.
Second, Tomb No. 7 at the Xinglongwa site. The owner of the M7 is a male of about 25 years old, with a piece of jade on the left shoulder and a right humerus, and a plaque made of a human skull on the chest and right wrist.
Zhenzhitang Ancient History Research: Regarding the Xinglongwa culture Yujue, we will talk about it later, it is worth noting that the male tomb owner has two signs made of human skulls, see the red line and wrist part. The red line sign is a shield-shaped skull, between the chest and abdomen of the tomb owner, it should be an accessory, and the skull on the hand is round, which should be a piece of bone armor. The owner of the tomb was a young adult, 25 years old at death, and it was inferred that he should belong to the warriors of the tribe. If there are still two precious jade objects on the body, their status should be higher.
Using human bones as armor or ornaments, it can be seen that its cultural connotations, these two skulls, use the Tianling cover, that is, two people, is this the enemy or its ancestors or clansmen?
In connection with the thick burial of ancestors at the site, it is unlikely that the two skulls were of their own people or ancestors, but should be the bones of enemies or slaves.
If this speculation holds, it will make people think. We know that the ancient Cypriots all had the custom of hunting the heads of enemies as drinking utensils, is this custom of the Xinglongwa people related to the ancient Cypriots?
Tombs Three and Four found a little girl wearing a jade collar and earrings. It can be seen that her status is very high, but what is surprising is that her eye socket is inlaid with a jade seal, and when it is unearthed, the skull is erect. See figure below.
Study of the Ancient History of The True Knowledge Hall: This is very puzzling. This little girl, experts study is only a few years old. She can wear such a valuable jade, which shows her noble status. Why is there a piece of jade in the skull? Also, when unearthed, why was her head not on her neck, but on the edge of the skeleton?
After studying it, Zhenzhitang believed that this little girl should have a noble status, but she was a victim of an ancient sacrifice. Possibly because of a natural disaster or for other reasons, the clan sacrificed her (it may be the daughter of a chief, or it may be a foreigner).
Before the sacrifice, he also cruelly gouge out one of her eyes and fill the hole with a jade seal. After that, his head was cut off. Finally, the skull and skeleton are buried together. It's creepy to think about.
Fourth, in the large tomb of Xinglongwa No. 118, there is a tomb of a leader burying a pig and an unknown creature, as shown in the following figure.
We know that the division between the rich and the poor, the formation of classes is one of the hallmarks of civilization. In the same period, in mainland China, at this time, it still belonged to the group burial, and there was no division between rich and poor. The xinglongwa cemetery clearly shows the emergence of private property. The owner of the tomb buried a pig, and some unknown creatures, see the lower right corner.
Some people say that it is two pigs, but judging from its slender lower limb bones, it should not be a pig, it may be a creature like a deer. But no matter what kind of creature it is, the owner of the tomb can use such a valuable two-headed animal to accompany the burial, which shows his noble status. In the Shandong region during this period, in order to show wealth, more pigs were buried with jaw bones. Pork, or live people eat. Compared with the two, the wealth of the Xinglongwa culture is higher.
Fifth, it is the jade we know. In the autumn of 1992, the first pair of jade ornaments was found from the Xinglongwa site, excavated on both sides of the skull of Tomb No. 117, according to which it was confirmed that the early jade ornaments were earrings. As shown in the following figure.
Zhenzhitang Ancient History Research: The jade of Xinglongwa, experts have tested, the results show that they belong to amphibolite jade, which is what we usually call nephrite jade. The so-called nephrite refers to tremolite, a type of jade of the yangqi stone, which is mainly produced in the Xinjiang region of China. However, in recent years, studies have shown that most of the Hongshan cultural jade is bleene jade, but the tremolite content is not as high as Xinjiang jade, but its texture is still very hard, and it is very difficult to make.
In ancient times, people's life was not easy, mainly relying on fishing and hunting and gathering to maintain their lives, and they could spend a huge amount of time making this kind of jade with high processing difficulty, which showed that their living level was relatively high, and they had time to process this luxury item. Xinglongwa jade is the originator of ancient Chinese jade, and later southern jade, such as Lingjiatan jade, was more or less influenced by Xinglongwa jade.
Cultural jade from Xinglongwa. The color is mostly light green, yellow-green, dark green, milky white or light white, and the body is small. The main types of instruments are, daggers, bending strips, pipes, axes, hammers, chisels and so on. The largest number of excavations of Yujue, often appearing in pairs around the ears of the tomb owner, should be the earrings worn by the tomb owner before he died. One is circular and the other is lowly columnar, with a narrow notch on the side of the body. The number of dagger-shaped vessels unearthed is second only to that of Yu Jue, and it is also one of the typical types of jade in the Xinglongwa culture. The body is a long strip, one side is slightly concave, the other side is curved, and a small hole is drilled near the middle of one end, mostly from the neck, chest or abdomen of the tomb owner, which should be the necklace worn by the tomb owner or the embellishment on the clothes.
epilogue
Zhenzhitang Ancient History Research: Xinglongwa Culture, the latest Nature magazine published a cover article "Triangulation supports agricultural spread of the Transeurasianlanguages", with the help of linguistics, archaeology and ancient DNA comprehensive research, proposed that the pan-Eurasian language family (formerly known as the Altaic language family) originated from the Xinglongwa culture of Liaoning, the Donghulin site in Beijing, northern China. It also spread to millet agriculture and peasant migration. Martine Robbeets of the Max Planck Institute for Human History is the author of this article.
That is to say, Western scholars have proposed that the Altaic language family in Indo-European culture originated from the Xinglongwa culture in northern China and later spread. This paper, Zhenzhitang has not yet had the opportunity to see, but the theory proposed by it does have a certain help for the study of the formation and spread of lushi culture, and the picture shows the flat-bottomed pottery group excavated at the site of no. 10 and a half crypts in Xinglonggou East District.
Why did the Daling River Valley in ancient times produce so many peculiar phenomena?
The emergence of jade, the differentiation of rich and poor, indicates that classes may appear. The appearance of ring trenches and human bone ornaments indicates the existence of war. It wasn't just the beasts that threatened the Xinglongwa people, but others. Who are they? Is the little girl used for sacrifice a Xinglongwa or a foreigner?
These are unsolved mysteries that need to be further interpreted by archaeologists. The picture below shows a schematic diagram of the ring trench of the Xinglongwa cultural settlement.
In any case, 8,000 years ago, there was indeed a division between rich and poor (class), war, sacrifice, cultural art (jade), even if there was no king, but there were chiefs, no cities, there were already trenches dug for war, and the dawn of civilization had appeared.
From this point of view, Chinese civilization is more than 5,000 years old, and the dawn of civilization should have appeared in the Liao River Basin around Liaoning and Inner Mongolia 8,000 years ago. What do you think?
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