Zhang Huazhen of henan provincial institute of cultural relics and archaeology reported that the title of the report was "New Harvest of Archaeological Excavations at The Wadian Site in Yuzhou in 2021". In 2021, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology continued to carry out "Archaeological Chinese Xia Culture Research" at the Wadian site. In the southeast of the site, there are large remains of the city wall and trench of the Longshan period, the direction is northwest-southeast, 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 about 35-40 meters wide and 7.5 meters deep at its deepest, and was built at the same time as the city walls, but the abandoned accumulation inside it could reach the upper erligang period. In the Donggaogang area of the site, a site area with a yellow mat earth platform and a large-scale ditch was found, and the yellow pad earth platform and 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 has been found in the northwest of the site, and archaeological work is underway. The above 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.
[The report was published at the "2021 Henan Archaeological Work Achievements Exchange Meeting" held in Nanyang, Henan on the afternoon of December 17, 2021]
Extended Materials:
Henan: There are major discoveries at the Wadian site in Yuzhou
2021-12-07 Source: CCTV
Zhengzhou, December 7 (Reporter Wang Yongsheng) On December 7, the reporter learned from the Henan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism that in order to explore the Xia culture, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology restarted the excavation of the Wadian site in Yuzhou in 2020 and made major discoveries. On December 4, experts participating in the 2021 Summer Culture Forum visited the archaeological excavation site of the Wadian site.
Wadian Longshan Cultural Site has a total existing area of 1 million square meters, 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.
Since 2020, archaeologists have explored the site area and found that there are multiple ditch-like accumulations that divide the site into different areas, and found that there are urn coffins, tombs, snail shell accumulation and other phenomena. In 2021, archaeologists conducted further archaeological excavations in the Donggaogang area of the site based on the results of exploration. The donggaogang area is deeply piled up, and more urn coffins have been found, and the urn coffins are buried with jade. Row houses and tombs were also found in this area. The reporter saw at the scene that the tomb was either under the foundation or next to the foundation, the vertical pit, arranged in an orderly manner, all in a southeast-to-northwest direction, reflecting the concept of people living and burying at that time. Fang Yanming, a researcher at the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that according to current exploration and clues, there are at least three rows of houses here. In addition, in some areas, there are also phenomena such as waist pits and martyrdom of dogs. In the southeast of the site, archaeologists excavated and dissected a trench, the section clearly visible in the Longshan period of the city wall accumulation, has been proven to be nearly 200 meters long, in the north of the site also found other trenches on the inside of the exploration of similar city wall accumulation. This discovery breaks through the previous understanding of the overall pattern of the Wadian site and provides an important clue for the in-depth understanding of the planning and layout of the Wadian site settlement.
Fang Yanming said that according to the literature, since Yu and Qi, Yuzhou has become one of the main activity areas of the Xia people, and this area was mostly called Xia land in ancient times. The discovery of city walls, large ring moats, and groups of sacrificial relics has once again determined that the Wadian site was the central settlement of the Longshan period, and is likely to be related to the Yang Zhai City of Yu and Qi or the Juntai Zhi.
The Wadian site in Yuzhou, Henan Province, has undergone four excavations in 42 years
Elephant News December 2021
Elephant News Reporter Zhang Jiayi Henan News Broadcast cheng bingbing and Gu Yanmin
"Around 4,000 years ago, it was probably a cosmopolitan settlement because we found multiple cultural factors that reflected the migration of people in the area." Liang Fawei, vice president of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said.
In December 2021, a year and a half after the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology restarted the excavation of the Wadian site in Yuzhou, many major discoveries were released through everyone's efforts.
Why did the Nevadian site restart 4 times in 42 years?
The existing total area of Yuzhou Wadian site is 1 million square meters, is a super large Longshan cultural site in Henan Province (Longshan cultural site refers to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in China, a type of cultural relics of about the late Neolithic period, composed of several site groups, with an area of 3 million square meters), in May 2006, the State Council approved the Wadian site as the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
"After the discovery of this site 42 years ago, three excavations have been carried out before and after, and this restart is the fourth." Liang Fawei said that archaeologists discovered the Ruins of Wadian in Yuzhou during a survey of the Xia culture in 1979, and in the early 1980s, the first phase of excavation and archaeological work was carried out, when many exquisite artifacts were unearthed mainly to understand the connotation of the Xia culture.
In order to study the age of the Wadian site in Yuzhou during the Xia culture period, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology launched the second and third phases of excavation and archaeological work in 1997 and 2007, "mainly to analyze the excavated animals and plants to explore the specific age of the Wadian site, and the sacrifice area was also found at that time." ”
"This time a complete disclosure of the sacrificial area has been made." Liang Fawei told Elephant News that the Yuzhou Wadian site is a key part of the early start of the archaeological Chinese Xia culture research project, so the fourth excavation work was restarted in June 2020.
Why can the Wadian site find tombs of different regional cultures?
In excavations that restarted in 2020, archaeologists found rows of house building remains and large urn burials in the site. In some tombs, types of tombs of different regional cultures have emerged. For example, the tomb culture of the Jade Tiger Head, which mainly appears in the Hubei region of Hunan, and the tomb culture of Zhangya in Shandong.
"The Wadian site can be said to be the convergence of multiple cultural factors, and the demographic composition is complex." Liang Fawei, vice president of the Henan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, explained that the capital Beijing, for example, will be much more complex than the population composition of other cities, because it gathers people from all over the country, and the Wadian site may be a cosmopolitan settlement.
"We also found and dissected a trench in the southeast of the site, and the wall accumulation of the Yongsan period can be clearly seen on the cross-section." Fang Yanming, a researcher at the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that similar wall accumulations were also found on the inside of other trenches in the north-central part of the site.
These numerous trenches divide the entire Wadian site, there is a clear regional division, Fang Yanming said, the current discovery of the trench can further study the working partition in the settlement, this discovery broke through the previous understanding of the overall pattern of the Wadian site in Yuzhou, and provided an important clue for the in-depth understanding of the planning and layout of the Wadian site settlement.
Liang Fawei said that according to the area, artifacts and population composition of the Wadian site in Yuzhou, it is likely that this is the settlement site with the highest research level of the early Xia cultural site, "According to the literature, the site is likely to be related to the Yang Zhai City or Juntai of Yu and Qi." ”
Yuzhou, Henan: The Wadian site is expected to become a research base for early Xia culture
Source: Xuchang.com 2021-01-18
Ancient, Xia, Shang and Zhou are the beginnings of Chinese history. Evidence-oriented Western historians argue that chinese history before the Zhou Dynasty was nothing more than myths and legends. The search for the Xia Dynasty became the mission of Chinese archaeologists. Can Yuzhou City, Xuchang City, Henan Province, known as the "Capital of Xia", discover the capital of the Xia Dynasty? On January 9, 2021, the reporter took this question to the wadian site in Yuzhou City for an interview.
Wadian ruins indicating monument Lu Zhengzi photo
Cultural sites that are "poured out" on the watering ground
On the afternoon of November 29, 1979, an old man and a young man came to Wadian Village of Huolong Commune (now Huolong Town, Yuzhou City). The old man was called JiaoZhizhong, about 50 years old, and was then the director of the office of the Yu County Cultural Relics Management Committee; the young man was called Fang Yanming, who was in his early 20s and was a staff member of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics (now the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology). The two men marched along the Yinghe River from northwest to southeast.
The two rode their bicycles past the village of Wadian. "At that time, there were several women on the side of the road pouring the ground." After 41 years, the 91-year-old Jiaozhizhong still remembers the scene at that time. In the ditch where the water rushed out, several black and shiny fragments caught his attention. Jiao Zhizhong and Fang Yanming squatted down together to study. They preliminarily judged that these fragments were pottery pieces from the Longshan culture period.
Longshan culture, generally refers to a type of cultural relics of the late Neolithic period in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, belongs to the copper-stone and era culture, named after the first discovery in Longshan Town, Licheng County, Jinan City, Shandong Province (now part of Zhangqiu District, Jinan City), dating from 2500 BC to 2000 BC, and the establishment of the Xia Dynasty was 4000 years ago. The two excitedly reported the matter immediately.
In 1980, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and the Archaeology Department of the History Department of Zhengzhou University, with the cooperation of the YuXian Cultural Relics Management Committee, conducted a trial excavation of the Wadian site. The test excavation shows that it mainly contains the early, middle and late remains of the Longshan culture, and the late remains are the mainstay. The relics represented by the large-scale building foundation sites and foundation pits built on the ground, and the relics represented by exquisite pottery vessels, jade birds, jade bi, jade shovels and large bones all indicate that the specifications of this site in the late Longshan culture are very high. The excavated relics date back more than 4,000 years to the early Xia Dynasty.
In 2006, the Wadian site was approved and announced by the State Council as the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
The indiscriminate pursuit of the architectural pattern of the "Left Ancestor Right Society"
Sunlight shines on a north-south road north of Wadian Village. On the west side of the road there is a black stone stele with four big characters written "Wadian Ruins". Behind the stone monument is a vast field of farmland.
"This is the ruins of the tile shop." Jiao Fenglin, deputy director of the Yuzhou Municipal Cultural Relics Management Office, said that through decades of archaeological excavations, cultural relics workers have analyzed the shape, structure and inclusions of the two building sites at the Wadian site, and judged that it may be a relic related to the sacrifice activities.
In ancient times, the mainland had an architectural tradition of "left ancestor and right society". "Zuozu" is the Taimiao Temple, which is used to worship the ancestors; "Right Society" is the altar of Sheji, which sacrifices heaven and earth. The determination of the central settlement of the Wadian site in the early Xia Dynasty, the discovery of large ring trenches and sacrificial relics, and the excavation of high-grade relics with "royal spirit" indicate that Wadian was a political, economic and cultural center in the Longshan cultural period, and is likely to be related to the Yang Zhai City of Yu and Qi. Among the Ruins of Wadian, the symmetrically arranged sacrificial relics located in the southern part of the large ring trench enclosure area are also the indiscriminate architectural pattern of the "Left Ancestor And Right Society".
According to cultural relics experts, the Wadian site is expected to become an early Xia culture research base.
Clarifying the appearance of Yang Zhai is a breakthrough
In the impression of many people, the stone age humans drank blood. In fact, during the Yongsan culture, humans began to grow and eat vegetables.
"In 2009, archaeologists from Henan Province excavated the Wadian site again and collected a lot of mud. Plant seeds are burned and turned into charred substances that are not perishable. In order to find the seeds of carbonized plants, experts decided to use the very advanced flotation method at that time, using the flotation liquid to separate the seeds of carbonized plants hidden in the soil. Through experiments, experts found 12,190 carbonized plant seeds, many of which were vegetable seeds. Jiao Fenglin said that this shows that ancient humans not only made a living from hunting, but also planted vegetables and other crops that can fill their hunger. The most experts have analyzed are soybean seeds, which brings the history of soybean cultivation in China to 5,000 years ago.
On the evening of October 26, 2020, Li Boqian, chief scientist of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project and professor at Peking University, went to the Wadian site to see it on the spot and said: "The Wadian site is a treasure in Yuzhou and should be protected. In the past, there was little work, and if Yang Zhai's appearance was clear, it would be a breakthrough. ”