Researcher Liu Guoxiang (right) presided over the opening ceremony of the Third China Frontier Archaeology Forum. Photo by Sun Zifa, a reporter from China News Service
Beijing, December 19 (Reporter Sun Zifa) As a star in the "starry sky" of the origin of Chinese civilization, the archaeological excavation research of the xiajiadian lower culture related sites of the important prehistoric culture in northern China, which is about 4000-3300 years old, has always attracted much attention.
"In the late Hongshan culture, northern China entered a primary civilized society, and the lower-level culture of Xiajiadian has entered a high-level civilized society." Liu Guoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who has long been committed to the study of hongshan culture and xiajiadian lower culture, believes that the lower cultural society of Xiajiadian emphasizes layout and planning, orderly management, and clear hierarchy, and has entered the early national stage.
The 3rd China Frontier Archaeology Forum sponsored by the Chinese Archaeological Society and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was held online and offline in Beijing from the 18th to the 19th, and researcher Liu Guoxiang made an academic report on the "Research on the Lower Cultural Settlement of Xiajiadian in Chifeng Erdaojingzi and Related Issues" at the forum, disclosing the latest progress in the archaeological research of the lower culture of Xiajiadian and the comparative research results of related cultures.
Data map: Researcher Liu Guoxiang introduced painted pottery and jade excavated from the Erdaojingzi site. Photo by Sun Zifa, a reporter from China News Service
The site selection layout of the settlement is strictly planned and designed
Liu Guoxiang said that the Erdaojingzi site is the best-preserved Xiajiadian lower cultural settlement revealed by archaeological excavations, which provides valuable materials for exploring the morphological layout and social relations of early Bronze Age settlements in western Liaoning.
The Erdaojingzi site is 190 meters long from north to south and 140 meters wide from east to west, with a total area of about 27,000 square meters, and is composed of a house site, a cellar cave, and a courtyard wall. Among them, there are 149 housing sites, except for 2 of which are semi-crypt type, the rest are ground type buildings. The flat shape of the site is mainly circular, and the area is generally 30-60 square meters, and the maximum can reach 110 square meters.
Archaeological findings have shown that the Erdaojingzi settlement has been strictly planned and designed from the beginning of construction, and from the early to the late period, it has been laid out with the large-scale housing site F8 located in the center as the core. Around F8 there are squares that can be used for gatherings, and other housing sites are built in areas other than the square, and the same family lives within their own boundaries. The buildings in the northwest have a sacrificial function, and the upper ground in the east has a sentinel-like building.
In the early days of the settlement, most of them were single housing sites, and with the passage of time and the advancement of construction technology, the structure of the housing sites tended to be complex, and the auxiliary facilities gradually increased. In the late stage, there were groups of courtyards with little difference in area and roughly the same structure, and the courtyards were connected by alleys, which were both independent of each other and did not lose contact, and the planning was neat and orderly, reflecting the internal social relations of neighbors and harmonious coexistence.
Judging from the overall layout of the settlement, at the beginning of the construction of the Erdaojingzi settlement, the natural gullies and rivers on the east, south and north sides of the site were first transformed into trenches, and then the artificially built trenches were connected to them to form a defensive trend around the surrounding ring trenches. The outer moats, the city walls and the houses inside were repaired and rebuilt many times.
Liu Guoxiang pointed out that through the investigation of the 20 kilometers around the Erdaojingzi settlement, there is basically a Xiajiadian lower cultural site distributed every 5 kilometers, indicating that the society at that time had a fairly strict organization, not only the interior of the site had clear layout requirements, but also the site selection between the settlements was also planned.
In addition, this emphasis on planning and design is also clearly reflected in the cemetery, Dadianzi cemetery is currently the largest and the largest number of tombs found in the Xiajiadian lower cultural cemetery, its tomb owner head is facing the northwest, the interval between the tomb and the tomb is orderly and basically not superimposed to break the relationship, indicating that the surface of the ground should have the signs of the location of each tomb at that time, and the cemetery was used in an orderly, managed, and uninterrupted manner for a long time. The entire cemetery can be divided into three major districts of north, middle and south, and the major districts can be divided into several communities according to the relatively concentrated situation, and the interior of each community can be further subdivided into several families according to the differences in the shape of the burial pottery and ornamentation.
Social hierarchical conflicts exacerbate defensive enhancements
Liu Guoxiang said that the xiajiadian lower cultural period sites are densely distributed, the population has grown rapidly, the level of productivity has increased significantly, the agricultural economy has dominated, the livestock breeding industry has developed by leaps and bounds, the social division of labor and social differentiation are obvious, the internal management system and security system of society are strong, and in foreign relations, the war factor is very prominent.
In terms of the social differentiation and hierarchy within the settlement, the landmark building F8 in the central position of the Erdaojingzi settlement is huge, the wall is thick, the structure is complex, and the workmanship is exquisite, which looks extremely tall and majestic under the surrounding square.
The phenomenon of differentiation in the cemetery is also obvious, and a total of 804 tombs have been excavated in the Dadianzi cemetery, which can be divided into three categories: large, medium and small according to the size of the tomb, and most of the two well tombs are small tombs. Dadianzi M726 tomb has the largest burial area in the cemetery, and 20 pieces of burial items have been excavated, of which 9 are painted pottery, representing the highest grade tombs in Dadianzi. A total of 268 tombs have been excavated in the Erdaojingzi Cemetery, and only 3 pieces of painted pottery have been excavated in the niches of the M138 tomb, which is also the largest of the cemeteries.
These two cemeteries not only show that the social differentiation of the lower cultural period of Xiajiadian is becoming more and more obvious, but also show whether the changes in the number and combination relationship of the burial painted pottery and the burial painted pottery can accurately reflect the difference between the tombs, which is an important basis for dividing the level of tombs in the lower cultural period of Xiajiadian.
In terms of the enhancement of the defensive function of the social conflict intensification system, Liu Guoxiang believes that the Xiajiadian lower cultural period in the western Liaoning region entered the early Bronze Age, social contradictions and conflicts intensified unprecedentedly, one of the signs is the emergence of a large number of fortified cities, compared with the Neolithic ring trench settlement, the Xiajiadian lower cultural settlement pays more attention to the defensive function, generally built on the near-water highlands that are easy to defend and difficult to attack, usually digging deeper and wider ring trenches, and the settlements with higher specifications have thick and tall walls.
One of the archaeological physical evidences of the intensification of social conflicts is the excavation of a large number of well-made bone and stone hammers, mainly bone hammers. A large number of bone hammers were found in the Erdaojingzi settlement, most of which were made of animal bones. Among the xiajiadian lower cultural sites that have been excavated before, 20 bone and stone hammers have been excavated from the Fengxia site, 9 bone cymbals have been excavated from the Spider Mountain site, and 9 bone cymbals have been excavated from the Yaowang Temple site.
It can be seen that the excavation of bone hammers in the lower cultural settlement of Xiajiadian is an extremely common phenomenon. Judging from the shape of the bone, the front blade section is positively triangular, and the rear end is easy to install the arrow shaft, which has the characteristics of long range and deep spike, and the lethality is stronger. Liu Guoxiang said.
He said that from the perspective of archaeological culture, the social changes in the lower culture of Xiajiadian are very significant, three-legged pottery has replaced the flat-bottomed barrel pottery that has lasted for thousands of years, a large number of large stone city sites that focus on defensive functions and large sacrifice centers built on the top of mountain beams have appeared, the Red Mountain culture and the small river along the cultural period of the faience pottery have disappeared, the rise of painted pottery, and the number of metal products continues to increase.
These changes all show that the lower culture of Xiajiadian has entered the early stage of hierarchical, standardized etiquette and enhanced external defense, and with the development and further rise of this culture, the western Liaoning region has entered a high-level civilized society, which also has an important impact on the cultural pattern of the Bronze Age in northeast China.
Interact closely with surrounding cultures
What is the relationship between the lower culture of Xiajiadian and the surrounding culture?
Liu Guoxiang pointed out that on the basis of inheriting the local Neolithic archaeological culture, the lower xiajiadian culture was widely absorbed and developed from various factors such as Erlitou culture, pre-Shang culture, Yueshi culture, etc., becoming the archaeological culture with the highest level of development in Northeast China at that time and the earliest to enter the Bronze Age. During the same period, the lower culture of Xiajiadian had close exchanges and interactions with the Erlitou culture in the Central Plains and the Shi'a culture in the northwest region, and had an important impact on the Shang culture.
He said that the 24 pieces of pottery, jue, and cups unearthed from the Dadianzi cemetery are similar to the similar artifacts excavated at the Yanshi Erlitou site and the Luoyang Dongmagou site, and should be based on the Erlitou cultural homogeneous artifacts produced locally. Copper, pottery, jue, and cup are typical wine vessels of the Erlitou culture, while the tombs of the pottery mane, jue, and lu excavated from Dadianzi belong to the high-grade tombs of the middle of the lower culture of Xiajiadian, indicating that since the middle of the lower culture of Xiajiadian, there has been a cultural exchange relationship between the social rulers of the two places.
In recent years, excavations at the Shenmu Shi'an site in northern Shaanxi have shown that there is an extraordinary exchange relationship between the lower culture of Xiajiadian and the vast western region: dozens of exquisite stone carvings have been found in the Tainan parapet of the Imperial City of Shi'an, and the curly patterns in them are the same as the "C" and "S" shaped curly patterns in the Dadianzi painted pottery, and they are all an important part of the animal face pattern; the many "eye pattern" stone carvings in the Imperial City Terrace can also be found in the Dadian Zicai painting cases, including the lower culture of Xiajiadian. The mouth springs found at many sites in western Liaoning are influenced by the bone springs of Shi'an.
Liu Guoxiang pointed out in particular that unlike the communication mode between the Central Plains and western Liaoning, the cultural output of Shi'e has more expansion and war factors, such as the discovery of a number of sacrificial pits where the heads of beheadings are found in Shiya city and outside the East Gate, and through physical anthropology and ancient DNA research, some of the individuals may be from the lower culture of Xiajiadian.
Comparative studies also found that the painting style of the lower culture of Xiajiadian directly affected the Shang culture: the bronze animal face pattern of the Erligang period appeared in a very similar Dadian Zi color drawing; the round eye or "subject" glyph eye and cirrus cloud pattern in the bronze ornament of the Shang culture also originated from the lower culture of Xiajiadian; the four pieces of jade artifacts found in the tomb of the late Shang Yin Ruins, namely, the hook-shaped vessel, the Gouyun-shaped jade pendant and the tooth bi, belonged to the typical Liaoxi jade style, which should belong to the jade relics in the northern grassland area, which were obtained and imported into the Yin Ruins by the lower culture of Xiajiadian.
In addition, the divination technology and painted pottery design and production process developed by the lower culture of Xiajiadian also spread to the Central Plains, especially the painted ornaments may have an important impact on the animal face patterns of the Xia Shang bronzes in the Central Plains.
Liu Guoxiang said that combined with the analysis of plant and animal archaeological evidence and production tools, the lower cultural and economic form of Xiajiadian is mainly based on the agricultural economy of millet farming, and the livestock breeding industry is used as an important auxiliary means of feeding. The developed agricultural economy has also become a solid foundation for the rise and development of xiajiadian's lower culture.
Xiajiadian lower culture has always played a leading role in the formation and development of northeast bronze culture, along with its development and growth, Xiajiadian lower culture has also continuously exchanged and interacted with the archaeological culture of the surrounding areas, radiating its own advanced cultural factors to other regions, and playing an important role in promoting the formation and development of the Xia Shang civilization in the Central Plains. (End)