The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced at the end of 2018 that researchers have discovered the earliest and highest Paleolithic site on the Tibetan Plateau to date, which can prove that human ancestors have climbed the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at least 30,000 years ago. This study refreshed the academic understanding of the ability of ancient humans to adapt to high altitude extreme environments, and was published online in the internationally renowned academic journal Science on December 30 of that year.
This discovery deserves people's attention, it shows that the challenge and adaptability of our ancestors in the harsh living environment known as the "third pole" of the earth, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is our pride and glory, and it also gives us a lot of reference and reference value to our ethnological and anthropological research today. In the past, we said that on the Tibetan Plateau, there was no human existence for 5,000 years or more, but now it seems that this argument has been overturned and is wrong.
According to Gao Xing, a researcher at the Institute of Paleovertebrates of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the site named Niadi discovered is located on the shore of Naqu Cuo'e Lake in northern Tibet, at an altitude of 4600 meters, which is a Paleolithic wilderness site with a large scale, well-preserved strata, dense distribution of stone products, and distinctive stone tool technology characteristics; it is also the first Paleolithic site with exact stratigraphic and chronological basis found in Tibet, although the weathering and erosion is serious, but the evidence of human activities is difficult to preserve intact in the stratigraphic accumulation.
Today, we would like to share our knowledge and views on the prehistoric culture of this region in conjunction with our investigation in the Hexi Corridor and the Southern Xinjiang Basin of Xinjiang.
First, there is no opposition between the Yangshao culture in the Central Plains and the Yangshao culture in Gansu
According to the legend of the Great Flood, which originated from human distribution, in many historical books, our nation originated from the Pamir Gao. All the way to stop and go, to provide the ancestors with the road signs are what we call the Kunlun Mountains and Qilian Mountains today, so in the Tarim Basin and the Hexi Corridor Plain have our earliest footprints, some of them left some people to walk, and finally walked to the Yellow River Valley, and created a splendid culture and civilization there.
Anderson is a Swedish geologist and archaeologist. Anderson opened the curtain on the excavation of the Zhoukoudian Peking man site, he is known as the "father of Yangshao culture", he changed the face of modern Chinese archaeology, he was once evaluated by China as a "great scholar", also scolded as "an accomplice of colonialism and imperialism", but eventually returned to an accomplished scholar. Yangshao culture is an important Neolithic faience pottery culture in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, which lasted from about 5000 BC to 3000 BC (that is, about 7000 to 5000 years ago, lasting about 2000 years), distributed throughout the middle reaches of the Yellow River from today's Gansu Province to Henan Province.
Initially, Anderson regarded Yangshao culture as the ancestor of Chinese civilization. Later, under the influence of the views of some Western scholars, he accepted the saying that "Yangshao culture came from the west" and traveled to northwest China to look for relevant evidence. This is what we call Majiayao culture today.
The Majiayao culture is a late Neolithic culture in the upper reaches of the Yellow River. It dates from about 3300 BC to 2100 BC. Its ruins are located in The West Bank of the Tao River in Lintao County, Gansu Province, At the mouth of Mayugou Village, in 1924, Anderson discovered this ancient cultural site, named Yangshao Culture Majiayao Period, where a large number of faience pottery vessels representing Chinese culture in the ancient era were excavated.
For a long time, people have been accustomed to regard the Banpo type and the Miaodigou type as the Yangshao culture in the Central Plains, and the Majiayao type, the Mid-Levels type and the Horse Factory type are called the Gansu Yangshao culture, believing that although there is a difference between the two sooner or later, it is mainly a local difference, and even belongs to different cultural systems. In order to emphasize that the two belong to different cultural systems, even the "Yangshao culture in Gansu" is difficult to accept, and advocates changing the name that Comrade Xia Nai used in the 1940s to refer specifically to the type of Majiayao and call it Majiayao culture.
What does this passage mean? That is to say, there are two types of Yangshao culture in Yangshao, namely the Yangshao culture in the Central Plains and the Yangshao culture in Gansu, which penetrate and influence each other, but some people are reluctant to mention the concept of Yangshao culture in Gansu because of "Chinese culture in the west", and directly call it Majiayao culture. The theory behind this is based on the "theory of the local origin of Chinese culture", and calling the Yangshao culture in Gansu Majiayao culture is also to reduce the contradiction and opposition between the "Western Saying" and the "Local Theory".
For many years, this has been a heavy "knot" in the hearts of Chinese scholars. However, after the 1980s, a large number of archaeological discoveries provided a wealth of physical materials for reconstructing China's prehistory. The new discoveries not only made most archaeologists dilute the "Central Plains Center" theory, but also made them more and more aware of the historical fact that ancient Chinese civilizations grew and grew through cultural interactions between different regions.
The final conclusion was as follows: the cultural interaction of ancient Chinese civilizations began in China, that is, in the Central Plains, and gradually developed outwards, and eventually formed the exchange of Chinese culture with The western culture west of China's Xinjiang region. This truth is obvious, that is, in recent years, more and more archaeological data confirm that the contact between Eastern and Western cultures was already very close long before the opening of the Silk Road. There is really no need to explain too much about this, because no culture in the world can be an isolated existence, and human beings have had cultural exchanges between major civilizations for a long time, and this has always accompanied the growth and growth of human beings.
Therefore, as far as culture is concerned, there is no contradiction between "Western" and "local theory", and there is no opposition between The Central Plains Yangshao Culture and Gansu Yangshao Culture.
2. Who are the ancient Qiang people? The collective title of the Shepherd of the West
Sima Qian said in the Chronology of the Fifteenth and Sixteen Kingdoms in the Chronicle of History: "Yu Xing was in the Western Qiang, Tang was raised in Bo, the King of Zhou was also in Feng and Pickaxe, the Emperor of Qin used Yongzhou Xing, and Han Xing was from Shu Han." "Dayu, as the leader of the Xia Hou clan and the founding king of the Xia Dynasty, was a sage emperor with the same name as Yao and Shun in the ancient Chinese legendary era, and his most outstanding merits have always been praised, that is, after controlling the monstrous flood, he demarcated the territory of China as Kyushu.
"Shi Ji" is our first general history, telling the 3,000-year history between the emperor and the Emperor Wu of Han, and now, when some of us read it, we actually can't understand anything, and we are very self-righteous. For example, if some of the archaeological results we have recently discovered are different from the records of the "Records of History", or even completely different, these people will say that Sima Qian is thinking about history at home, nonsense, very face-slapping, and serious.
What we want to say is that the "History" not only wrote about our 3,000 years of history, but also wrote about our politics, systems, etiquette, culture, and other aspects, and even wrote about the cognitive norms and behavioral norms of people in that era. The building is there, the cornerstone is stable, and the decoration of half of the houses has some small faults, so I use it to nitpick, which is a manifestation of no culture and no heart, very boring, very nihilistic, and ridiculous.
This record in the "Records of History" at least reveals such a historical information - Yu Xing yu XiQiang. That is to say, Xia arose in the northwest, and there are also ancient Qiang people who have an inseparable relationship. So, who is Qiang? For this question, we are not interested in the earliest definition of history, but in the Sui Book of Them, that is, the people at that time referred to the people living in some mountains and ravines in the northwest region and could not distinguish between specific races or ethnic groups. Therefore, this Qiang should be a big concept, it is not a simple sense of race or ethnicity, but a regional concept of the population.
Think about it, when did the Sui Dynasty arrive? But at that time, people were still dividing the nation in this way. It cannot be said that this division at that time was simple and crude, but one thing is worth affirming, that is, this geographical division is closer to what we call the concept of nationality and national integration today. It should be believed that in ancient times, this should be the best means of dividing the nation, although it is almost helpless, but it fully respects the connotation and expression of the region and its culture. Therefore, we cannot measure the things of ancient times in terms of modern habits today.
Now back to Qiang. The ancient Qiang is different from what we call the Qiang now, it is an ancient ethnic group in western China, and it has a wide and far-reaching impact on the historical development of China and the formation of the Chinese nation. Modern archaeology proves that the ancient Qiang people first lived in the Changtang area, and in subsequent history, Qiang developed into a generic term for the nomadic tribes living in western China, somewhat like the Book of Sui referring to those who cannot be identified as Qiang. Around the Time of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the Qiang people in the northwest were forced to carry out large-scale and long-distance migrations under pressure from the Qin state.
Many scholars talk about this migration the most is the eastward migration, and few involve the westward migration, according to the discovery of our ancestors who climbed the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau 30,000 years ago and called the shepherds living in the west as Qiang in ancient history, then this group of people, at least after history, has always existed in our historical texts as Qiang. We are now imagining that a part of the Eastward Advance was later integrated into the Central Plains, and what if the remaining part was forced by the pressure of war? The answer is simple, only to extend to the alpine region, which is what we mean by westward migration or westward migration.
But what if there is no pressure of war, what if they move west? The answer is also very simple, that is, to come back, to the original place of residence. And this has the history of the Qiang people in history who have gone down the plateau again and again and competed with the Central Plains Dynasty for the Hexi Corridor and the Western Regions, which is the case with the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty. During the Western Han Dynasty, it was Zhao Chongguo who faced this matter, and Deng Xun in the Eastern Han Dynasty; during the Tang Dynasty, it was stable here for a while, but in the late Tang Dynasty, the Hexi Corridor and the Western Regions once again fell into the Tufan Dynasty. In addition to the large number of Qiang ruins and cultural relics found in this area, the most able to explain this series of historical events may be the "Jin Gui Yi Qiang King" golden seal, which should be the Qiang King Seal awarded by the Jin Court to the Shun Jin Dynasty.
The gold seal is now in the collection of the Shaanxi History Museum. Gold, camel button, square printed face, seal book yin text "Jin Gui Yi Qiang King". At least it shows that the Qiang people were at war with the Han court during the Western Han Dynasty, and finally accepted the jurisdiction of the imperial court and were qiang people who were attached to the Han Dynasty. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Qiang people became stronger. By the end of the Western Jin Dynasty to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the ethnic minorities in the north took advantage of the chaos in the world and divided up to compete for dominance, and some Qiang leaders still believed that the Jin Dynasty was legitimate and belonged to the Jin Dynasty. History has become a testimony to the Golden Seal here.
It can be said that our current Xinzang Highway, Qingxin Highway, and the Aljin Mountain and the Biandukou of the Hexi Corridor where the Qilian Mountains and the Argin Mountains meet are all strategic passages for the Qiang people to roar down from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Third, it is normal for China to have white people, and it is not normal for people without white people
In our investigations and interviews in the Hexi Corridor and the Southern Xinjiang Basin, we found a very interesting phenomenon, that is, from east to west, in some sites and cemeteries, the white composition seems to be getting worse little by little. For example, in sites such as Minle Ash Mountain and Shandan Siba, the characteristics of Mongolian races are mainly based, and judging from the cultural type, they should be ancient Qiang people, but it is not excluded that there is a possibility of Western ethnic groups being mixed in. However, in the Jiuquan Huohuogou site (also belonging to the category of the Siba culture), fossil human bones with high noses and deep purposes have been excavated, and some people speculate that there may be signs of fusion between Western Caucasians and local ancient Qiang people during this period.
This situation is more common in the southern Xinjiang Basin of Xinjiang, such as the Loulan beauty and Xiaohe Princess that we are familiar with. Even, in Liushui Village, the source of Tian Yushi and me, we found a cemetery, that is, the Liushui Village Cemetery, which has a mixture of Mongolian and Tibetan ethnic groups. This cemetery dates back more than 3,000 years, and our ancestors had mutual exchanges and mixing in that era.
When it comes to white people, it may make some people sensitive, but we need to treat it with a normal mindset. Archaeologists today believe that the Yellow Emperor tribe, as the biggest victor, may have made a short stay in the Hexi Corridor, and the Zhou tribe that appeared in the later period was after the Yellow Emperor. There are also Yueshi, Wusun, Qiangqiang, and Xiongnu, but the emergence of these ethnic groups is only a side of the ethnic integration of the Hexi Corridor, but the main ethnic groups and cultures in the Hexi Corridor and even the southern Xinjiang Basin of Xinjiang are still the ethnic groups represented by Qiangrong constantly competing for this region, and then form the basis for the formation of ethnic groups in this region.
Is it weird? Not weird. Of course, there were caucasians in the Yueshi, Wusun, Qiang, and Xiongnu, and they certainly did not come from the West. And what if the so-called Caucasians or even the Aryans had been there? In ancient Chinese classics, there are dozens of words used to express the concept of "nation", including monophonic words such as "people", "ethnic", "species", "department", "class", etc., as well as two-tone words such as "people", "people", "people", "tribes", "tribes", "ethnic groups", etc. Therefore, the word nation should be a very modern concept, and it is obviously somewhat inappropriate for us to apply it to the ancient "people", "tribe", "species", "tribe", "class", etc.
Having said that, the concept we want to express is actually very clear, in the distant ancient times, in the northwest of China, the group of people who lived were called Qiang, although they were mainly Qiang, but there are still different "people", "races", "species", "departments", "classes", etc. Today, we have no way to distinguish them specifically, but they are undoubtedly Chinese. Although, among these people, there are yellow and white people, and modern archaeology has proved this. What we want to say is that at the moment when these people landed on the Tibetan Plateau 30,000 years ago, of course they would not have the concept of a state, and even in the period of 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, there was none, so even if they were different from the Qiang on the land of China, they could only be Chinese. If the whites are from other countries, where is their country? This is a ridiculous statement, and history is not treated this way and history is not studied in this way.
For this reason, we say that today's Xinjiang and Hexi corridors found one or two white skeletons, some people are surprised, just talk about this matter, it is really unnecessary. What happened to the appearance of white people? Historically, China with white people is normal, and China without white people is abnormal.
Now scientific research, through the determination of DNA, found that the ancient Han, Tibetan and Qiang are homologous, and our historical records are also recorded in this way. Our nation, clearly in prehistory, which we do not know very well, has completed a great integration of no small scale. (Text/Lu Sheng)
References: Xinhua News Agency, "Scientists Find New Evidence that Humans Have Set Foot on the Tibetan Plateau at Least 30,000 Years Ago"; 2018.11.30; Reporter Dong Ruifeng.