All-media reporter Huang Cui zhang qiong
2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of modern Chinese archaeology.
"One history of Henan, half history of China." Henan is a large province of cultural relics and a strong province of archaeology.
From December 17 to 18, the 2021 Henan Archaeological Work Achievements Exchange Conference was held in Nanyang.
Xiazhuang cemetery unearthed chema pit (file photo)
53 archaeological reporting projects, 53 major discoveries, telling a volume of the story of the Central Plains civilization. This exchange meeting is not only a summary of the key archaeology of Henan in 2021, but also a display of new achievements in the fields of field archaeology, cultural relics protection, and scientific and technological archaeology in 2021, but also the first node of Henan archaeology in the past century, opening a new journey for the next century of archaeology, and highlighting the style of Henan.
Centuries of archaeology, archaeology in Nanyang. The reason why this exchange meeting was chosen to be held in Nanyang, Sun Yingmin, president of the Henan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Association, said that it "has special significance": First, through archaeological work, it is possible to establish the important positioning of Nanyang in the process of Chinese civilization, provide cultural support for the integrated development of Nanyang cultural tourism and build a sub-central city in Henan Province, and provide answers for the exploration of the source of Chinese civilization; second, in recent years, a series of archaeological excavations such as the Huangshan ruins in Nanyang, the xiazhuang cemetery, the ruins of the Fuya Xinmang Money Factory, and the ruins of sheqi Maotang have made major discoveries; third, In the pioneering period of Chinese archaeology, Nanyang appeared a number of figures who contributed to archaeology, Dong Zuobin, Xu Xusheng, Guo Baojun, etc., who were pioneers in cultural relics and archaeology, laying the foundation for the development of Chinese archaeology for a hundred years. Holding this meeting in Nanyang is a consolation to the sages, and also to report to the sages on the century-old archaeological process and brilliant achievements.
At the exchange meeting, archaeologists, experts and scholars from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Chinese Society of Ancient Ceramics, the Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Units of Henan Province, and some universities reported and exchanged the archaeological excavations and research results in 2021. Lots of highlights and exhilarating. Today, this newspaper has selected and issued some archaeological projects, not only to let readers understand the archaeological achievements of Henan in 2021, but also to show readers the roots and souls of their hometown Henan and Nanyang's "six links and four openings" of Yuwen Zhiyuan.
Artifacts excavated from the Taojiaying site (file photo)
The splendor of the Paleolithic period in Nanyang
The study of Paleolithic culture in Henan Province and Nanyang Basin plays an important role in the north-south spread of Chinese Paleolithic culture in the study of Paleolithic culture in China, especially in the study of the interrelationship between time and space.
From 2020 to 2021, the Nanyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, in cooperation with the School of Archaeology of Jilin University and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted a comprehensive survey of caves in Xixia, Huaichuan and Nanzhao respectively, and found a large number of Paleolithic remains and relics. These findings provide a possibility for systematic study of the paleolithic culture in Nanyang area, and with the deepening of follow-up investigation and research work, the study of paleolithic culture in nanyang in the upper reaches of the Han River Basin will be gradually deepened, which has important research significance and academic value for the distribution, migration and cultural and technological exchange of ancient humans in the Han River Basin.
8,000 years ago "Aspergillus flavours brewing"
"More than 8,000 years ago, the people of Xinzheng Pei Ligang have learned to use aspergillus flamingo fermentation to make wine, which is the earliest winemaking technology discovered in China." The Pei Li Gang site has the latest archaeological achievements.
The Pei Li Gang site in Xinzheng City, dating back about 8,000 years, is one of the earliest village sites in China. The important results of this latest archaeological study confirm that the PeiLigang people used aspergillus flamingo as a fermentation agent, mainly using rice, and adding mustard and wheat seeds as raw materials, which is the earliest known example of the use of this method. Previous archaeological discoveries have revealed that the winemaking method of the Yangshao culture is to use two winemaking techniques of germination grain and koji fermentation, both of which are later than the Pei Ligang culture.
"The microfiber remains were obtained by extracting microfossils, and it was found that the plant phloem fibers with dyeing characteristics in the ear perforation of the clay pot were most likely the remains of the use of the threading rope." Another groundbreaking discovery at the Pei Li Gang site provides an illustration of a more systematic study of textile residues in the future.
Excavations from the Wadian site (file image)
The earliest moats
The earliest wall and trench coexistence defense system found at the Lingbao City Smoke Site may have been a settlement based on pottery production; a large number of carbonized house wood components have been found at the Beiyangping site, which may have used the original tenon and tenon structure technique.
The Ruins of Chengyan and Beiyangping are both located in Lingbao City. In 2021, the Chengyan site excavated more than 350 ash pits, nearly 20 tombs, and 15 housing sites in various periods... These new discoveries reaffirm the fact that the Chengyan site is a site of a small settlement in the early Yangshao period with rich remains and relics, and that human activity still exists in the middle and late Yangshao. The discovery of rich Erlitou cultural relics shows that this area was inhabited by humans during the Erlitou period. There are also many typical ground-type buildings found in the site, which should be the earliest corridor buildings, which are more unique in the early Yangshao period, and provide rich information for the study of people's construction techniques and living styles at that time. In addition, the discovery of the earliest wall and trench coexistence defense system is of great significance for the study of the origin of cities and the origin of civilization.
Since September 2020, the Beiyangping site has excavated about 1,000 square meters, and found 5 house sites, 1 kiln site, more than 100 ash pits, and more than 30 Eastern Zhou tombs in the Yangshao period. One of the sites, with its grand scale, complex structure, complete preservation, and preservation of a large number of carbonized wood components, is unique to the remains of prehistoric architecture, which is of great value for the restoration of roof structure and the study of prehistoric building roof truss structure.
Huangshan original jade ware industrial system
5,000 years ago, when a "great king" during the Yellow Emperor period led his clan to breed, live, create here, and step on the footprints of the origin of civilization, it was destined that the dawn of Chinese civilization would rise here...
The Huangshan Ruins, located in Huangshan Village, Pushan Town, Wolong District, Nanyang City, are relatively large sites of great significance in the formation of Chinese civilization. Cultural relics are very rich, and the age span of the site is quite long, from pei ligang culture, Yangshao culture, Qujialing culture to Henan Longshan culture, the sequence is complete. The "first shovel of China" was excavated here; the jade-making "base" and "worker" jade processing sites of more than 5,000 years ago were found here; the bow and arrow in the left hand and the jade in the right hand were also found here, and a "great king" of the Yellow Emperor period was also found here; the discovery of a house site tells the story of the life of the ancestors... In recent years, these amazing discoveries have made the Huangshan site a national treasure in the archaeological community. "Treasures of China Once in a Thousand Years", "Civilization in Wan", "Nanyang is the core area of Chinese civilization exploration"... In the spring of 2019, more than 100 experts from the domestic archaeology and history circles came to Nanyang to investigate, discuss and demonstrate the Huaxia code in the Huangshan site.
Recently, there have been new important archaeological discoveries at the Huangshan site, "cleaning up the cultural layer 1 meter to 3 meters thick, clearing out 43 Yangshao culture, Qujialing culture, Shijiahe culture sites related to the production of jade tools, 150 tombs, 126 ash pits, 148 urn coffins, 1 artificial trench ('canal'), 1 harbor suspected dock, etc." Unearthed more than 40,000 pieces of diamonds, carving knives, grinding pier stone jade tools, jade artifacts, jade, stone, pottery, bone and other relics..." According to excavations and research, it can be determined that the Huangshan site is a large-scale central settlement site of the "base plus port" nature of jade ore collection in the late Yangshao culture and Qujialing culture period, and the large-scale production of jade ware in the Shijiahe cultural period is a major archaeological discovery to fill the gap in the original jade industry system The Huangshan site is a key period for the formation of the Huaxia Yanhuang civilization about 5,000 years ago, and is one of the core research objects of the origin of civilization and the cultural exchange and integration between the north and the south of the Jianghan and central plains; the Yangshao cultural workshop residential architecture and jade craftsman tomb group are well preserved in China, especially the late Yangshao culture "Qianfang Houju style" large-scale housing site wall is quite high, the internal relics are dazzling, reproducing the original scene of the ancients making jade, which is called an archaeological wonder.
Huangshan Ruins Site (File Photo)
Jintangzhai prehistoric city site
Nanyang is an important channel for cultural exchanges and integration between the north and the south. From the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, fangguo was lined up, and to the Qin and Han dynasties, it became one of the economic and agricultural developed areas in the country, and there were many ancient city sites such as county towns and county towns in the territory. In 2021, after field investigation and research, the relevant cultural relics departments have newly discovered many large and small ancient city sites in Fangcheng and Nanzhao, such as Ancient Fangcheng, Jintang Village, Guanzhuang Village, Ancient Nanzhao, Tianma Village, Sacred Well Temple, Jiebei Village, and Zhaishang Location. The era of these sites is prehistoric, pre-Qin, Han Dynasty, Tang and Song dynasties, Ming and Qing dynasties, which last a long time; the scale is large, medium-sized, and small, and the city sites are different in rank. Among them, Jintangzhai Village, Guzhuangdian Town, Fangcheng County, jintangzhai is a prehistoric city site, rectangular from north to south, 387 meters from east to west, 430 meters from north to south, with an area of 166,410 square meters, according to the rammed layers and relics found, indicating that it has been used for a long time, may be a large settlement since the Neolithic Age, and the cultural development has a strong continuity.
These new discoveries fill in the blank areas of urban development in the Nanyang Basin, have a deeper understanding of the geographical distribution, era and cultural connotation of ancient city sites, and have a new understanding of the development and exchange process of ancient civilizations in the Nanyang Basin area.
City walls and trenches of the Yongsan period
Wadian ruins are located in Wadian Village, Huolong Town, Yuzhou City, is a super-large Longshan cultural site in Henan Province, has been included in the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project, Chinese Civilization Source Exploration Project, Archaeological China, Yellow River Culture, Xia Culture Research and other major archaeological projects, has carried out many archaeological excavations, and achieved fruitful archaeological results.
In 2021, in the southeast of the Wadian site, there were large ruins of the city wall and trench of the Longshan period, in a northwest-southeast direction, of which the city wall was built in the late Longshan culture, and has undergone many repairs and construction processes, and the construction method is stacked. The trench was 35 to 40 meters wide and about 7.5 meters deep at its maximum, and was built at the same time as the city walls, but the discarded accumulation inside it could reach the upper erligang period. In the Donggaogang area of the site, a site area with yellow cushion earth platform and large-scale water ditch as the main combination was found, and the yellow cushion earth platform and water ditch also showed a northwest-southeast direction. In the Donggaogang area, there are also tombs, urn coffins, ash ditches, ash pits, stoves and other relics of the Longshan period, and a large number of relics of different textures such as jade, bone, mussels, and pottery have been excavated. An area with suspected paddy fields found in the northwest of the site ... These new discoveries are not only an important material for understanding the layout of the Wadian site in the late Longshan culture, but also enrich the research content of the use and continuation of the site, which plays an important role in further restoring the ancient social appearance of the Wadian site.
127 "Xia cultures" crack the key to prehistoric civilization
The study of Xia culture is a crucial major academic research topic in the study of the formation and development of the entire Chinese civilization, and it is also the key to deciphering the characteristics of early Chinese civilization.
Nanyang is an important distribution area of Xia culture. Looking for the Xia and pre-Xia civilizations, Nanyang has always been a fertile land for archaeology and historiography. In the past two years, through investigation, excavation, cleaning and screening, a total of 202 sites related to Xia culture and Xia culture have been found, some of which are rich in Chinese, long in age, large in area and widely distributed. Such as: Fangcheng Bali Bridge ruins, Zhenping Song Xiaozhuang ruins, Dengzhou Yanggang ruins, etc.; some sites are small in area, but cultural relics are very rich and concentrated. Such as: Fangcheng County Youfangzhuang ruins, Wolong District Hezhuang ruins, Xinye County Ma'anshan ruins, Yahe Gong District Lotus Pond ruins, high-tech zone Xiaowangchenggang ruins, etc. In 2021, 6 sites related to Xia culture were found again: Nanyang Suzhuang Ruins, Nanyang Jade Emperor Temple Ruins, Nanyang Fanying Ruins, Sheqi Tanying Ruins, Nanyang Quzhuang Ruins, and Nanyang Zhangzhuang Ruins. Through the identification and identification of the selected relics, 127 sites in the same period or chronology of the Xia culture were selected, which were the Shijiahe culture, the Longshan culture (including the wangwan phase III), the Xia culture (Erlitou culture) or the Xia and Shang dynasties.
Settlement sites that perfected the cultural sequence of the Shang Dynasty
Located in the northeast of Anyang City, the Taojiaying site began rescue archaeological excavations in April this year, and initial exploration found that the site was rectangular in plan, about 560 meters from east to west, 330 meters from north to south, and a total area of about 185,000 square meters. Excavations in the southwest of the site have cleared out ash pits, tombs, trenches, pottery kilns, rammed earth foundation sites, wells and other remains, and preliminary statistics have unearthed a total of 172 pieces of bronze, pottery, jade, bone, mussels, shells and other utensils. The Taojiaying site was contemporaneous with the capital city huanbei shangcheng in the middle of the Shang Dynasty, and there are remnants of internal and external double ring trenches, tombs, ash pits, pottery kilns, cellars, rammed earth foundation sites, etc., which are preliminarily judged to be a high-specification settlement site with defensive properties in the Shang Dynasty. From the perspective of the sequence of cultural development, the upper culture of The Upper Erligang is closely related to the culture of the Baijiazhuang period. The excavated cultural relics show that they have a mutual influence with the culture of the northern grasslands and Shandong and other places at the same time, and open up the glorious Yin Ruins culture downwards. The discovery of the Taojiaying site has further enriched and perfected the cultural sequence of the early, middle and late Shang Dynasties, and has important archaeological value.
Superb and unique bone making technology
Anyang Huanbei Shangcheng is located in the northern part of the Dongyin Ruins Conservation Area, and to its southwest is the traditional Yin Ruins Site, which overlap slightly. More than 30 large-scale rammed earth foundation sites have been found in the palace area of Huanbei Shangcheng, of which the largest one has a total area of 16,000 square meters, which is the largest single building site of the Shang Dynasty found so far. Archaeology has newly discovered a large number of bone-making and pottery workshop remains and relics, filling the gap in the mid-Shang Dynasty Capital City Hand Industrial Park, showing superb and unique pottery technology. Found the central area of the bone-making workshop, laid the foundation for in-depth discussion of the layout and connotation of the hand industrial park; after preliminary collation and research, it was found that the unique stripping method of the Huanbei Shangcheng period and the kiln construction technology in the cooked soil area constituted the unique technical style of Huanbei Shangcheng; the bone-making and pottery workshops were closely adjacent, and the production areas overlapped with each other, and it was the production management, employees and production processes that made the two related.
The rare "Tianzi driving six" car horse pit in China
43 meters × 41 meters of "no-seeing tomb", 75 meters long carriage and horse pit, "Tianzi driving six", or the architectural remains of "Xiangtang", all kinds of indications show that the owner of the "missing tomb" tomb is very prominent, or "king" level... Xiazhuang Cemetery is located in Longwo Village, Shiqiao Town, Wolong District, Nanyang City, and the common people call the location occupied by the cemetery "Dragon Head", commonly known as "No Tomb", which is a high-level aristocratic cemetery in the Warring States period. Because of its involvement in the study of the "Prince Dynasty with zhou dian benchu incident", which is an ancient unsolved case, "No Tomb" is famous all over the world.
In 2021, there was another major discovery in the archaeology of "Missing the Tomb": "Tianzi Driving Six" turned out to be a major discovery that is rare in China and immediately caused a shock in the Chinese archaeological community. This "Tianzi Driving Six" chariot horse pit, the main tomb funerary pit, is about 75 meters long and about 9.8 meters wide. The fact that the funeral carriage and horse are so regulated shows that the identity of the owner of the tomb is extremely noble, or "king" level. The discovery of the "Tianzi Driving Six" carriage and horse pit, in the form of physical objects, cracked the historical mystery of the ancient Tianzi driving six and driving four, confirming the correctness of the ancient document "Tianzi driving six, princes driving four, and soldier driving two"; it provides new archaeological data for the study of the public opinion system, funeral system and the confirmation of the Wangcheng Mausoleum area in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which has become one of the important discoveries of the archaeology of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in the 21st century, and is known as "the treasure of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, unparalleled in the world". The "Invisible Tomb" and "Tianzi Driving Six" scales are the same as the "Tianzi Driving Six" in Luoyang, which is 4.5 meters long, and people can't help but wonder, what kind of identity does it have that enjoys such a high-level funeral system?
In addition, in the funerary tomb near the main tomb, 5 funerary car and horse pits were also found. There are a total of 110 funerary tombs, of which 55 are in 8 rows of funerary tombs on the north side and 55 in 8 rows on the south side, which are neatly arranged and strictly laid out. More than 1,000 cultural relics such as bronzes, pottery and jade rings such as dings, pots, duns, swords, ge, spears, crossbows and other bronzes, pottery and jade rings have been unearthed. One of the most attractive is a pair of pottery figurines and still sharp bronze swords, arrows, ge and other artifacts with typical characteristics of the Warring States period.
Deciphering the "Tomb of the Eastern Han Emperor"
The tombs of the Eastern Han Emperors are an important part of ancient Chinese mausoleums and have always been a weak link in academic research. The Tomb of the Eastern Han Emperor of Luonan is located in the ancient mausoleum of Pangcun Town, Yibin District, Luoyang City, and is newly discovered at the site of the Eastern Han Cemetery in Baicaopo, with major remains such as courtyards, drainage canals, rammed earth walls, roads and rammed earth platforms. Through a series of investigations and excavations, the shape of the eastern Han emperor's mausoleum and the layout of the mausoleum have a clearer understanding, which provides important reference materials for future research on the connotation and evolution of the mausoleum system in the Eastern Han Dynasty, as well as further exploring the ownership of the tomb owners.
Rare Yuan Dynasty mural tombs
Two Tombs of Yuan Dynasty murals were found in the Qinyang Science and Technology Innovation Park. One is a domed brick chamber mural tomb, and the other is a four-corner pointed brick chamber mural tomb. These two frescoed tombs are brick chamber tombs of vertical pit tombs, similar in shape, and can be roughly divided into three parts: tomb passage, Yongdao and burial chamber. In addition, cultural relics such as epitaphs, brown-glazed porcelain pots, white-glazed porcelain plates, and Yuan Dynasty coins have also been unearthed.
The discovery of these two Yuan Dynasty mural tombs is relatively rare and well preserved in the province, and its discovery will provide valuable physical information for Henan Province to study the local economy and culture, burial customs, and burial systems of the Yuan Dynasty.
Editor: Feng Changshun
Review: Li Ping
Final Judgment: Bai With Snow