Trace the archaeological discovery process of the "Yudu Yangcheng" site of Dengfeng Wangchenggang in Henan
Text Photo / Fang Yanming Hao Hongxing
From the 1950s to the beginning of the 21st century, after the efforts of several generations of archaeologists, the mystery of the ruins of The City of Wanggang in Henan Province, which is more than 4,000 years old, has finally been unveiled: this is the starting place of China's Xia Dynasty - the capital of Dayu "Yangcheng"!
Dayu Zhishui is an immortal legend, is it true in Chinese history? Who built the Xia Dynasty? Is it a carp? Is it Yu? Or Kai? It is said that "Xia Cang is a city", so can you find out one or two of the city? If you can't find the city, can you find the "Yudu Yangcheng" or "Qiju Huangtai" that are recorded in the historical records? These are all things that historians and archaeologists want to make clear to the public. Now it seems that the burden on the shoulders of archaeologists is heavier, and they hold the key to open the door of Huaxia.
"Yu du Yang City" is now in place
In 1951, in order to cooperate with the Zhihuai Project, the Henan Provincial Cultural Relics Preservation Committee began to conduct cultural relics surveys in Zhengzhou, Dengfeng, Yuxian and other places in Henan to ensure the safety of above-ground and underground cultural relics. The Site of Bafang (i.e., the Site of Wangchenggang) is one of the most important discoveries in this cultural relics survey, thus laying a cornerstone of the archaeology of the Xia Dynasty.
The Bafang site is located on the gentle slope of the hill on the north bank of the Yinghe River of the Huai River, and its north is the Daling Ridge that stretches from east to west in the southern foothills of the Song Mountains, the eastern end of the ridge is commonly known as "Wang LingJian", and in the west there is a small Bafang Village, and its east is deeply cut by the Wudu River, a tributary of the Yinghe River.
In April 1959, Mr. Xu Xusheng began the exploration of the famous "Summer Ruins" in the archaeological history of New China. He recorded: "There are tuzhais around the town of Gongcheng, the road passes outside the east gate, half a mile out of the west gate to the Wudu River, and about half a kilometer across the river to Bafang Village." The terrain is high in the north and south in the south. The ruins are west of the Wudu River, east of Bafang Village, on the north bank of Yingshui, and the southern edge is eroded by Yingshui. Ancient pottery tablets can also be seen in the town. ...... Most of the ruins are on the north side of the road from completion to Bafang, and a small part is on the south side. According to the materials of ground surveys and drilling, we preliminarily believe that the eastern part seems to be dominated by Longshan, which has both relics of early Yin, and the western part seems to be dominated by Yangshao; but both the east and the west have pottery pieces of Yangshao and Longshan. Stone tools collected include stone knives, stone axes, and stone hammers. The pottery has Longshan Ding foot, jar rim and bottom, cup, bean, bowl, pot, ornamented with checkered pattern, basket pattern, rope pattern, additional pile pattern. Yangshao has bowls, pots, and feet, and is decorated with faience, scratches, and checkered patterns. Early Yin has cans and manes. ”
Subsequently, Xu Lao and his party of six people investigated several important sites in the north and south of Songshan Mountain, including Shiyangguan in Dengfeng, Yan Zhai and Gushuihe in Yu County, and Erli first in Yanshi, and wrote a preliminary report on the investigation of "Summer Ruins" in western Henan in 1959. In the text, Mr. Xu discusses the relationship between Yangcheng's diwang and Xia Yu, and points out that Cang's original fiefdom was at the foot of Song mountain, and Yu inherited the family business, and it was most appropriate to live in the yang of Song Mountain. As a result, Xu Xusheng opened up a new path for archaeology to study the history of the Xia Dynasty.
WangchengGang is now a twin city
In 1975, in order to explore the Xia culture, the Henan Provincial Museum Cultural Relics Task Force (the predecessor of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) formed a working group for exploring the Xia culture headed by Mr. An Jinhuai, focusing on the area around Bafang Village, to carry out archaeological investigation, drilling and test excavation.
Three big discoveries
In the spring of 1977, the Henan Provincial Museum Cultural Relics Task Force and colleagues from the Archaeology Department of the China History Museum conducted a key investigation and excavation of the completed Bafang site. They circled back and forth 560,000 square meters of land between Bafang Village and Wudu River, and made three major discoveries:
On the west bank of the Wudu River in the east of the site, a section of rammed earth wall more than 20 meters long from north to south was excavated, and a base trough was dug under the rammed earth wall, with a base trough width of 4.4 meters, a bottom width of 2.54 meters, and a depth of about 2.3 meters. Rammed earth is rammed from the bottom of the base trough upwards, each layer is 0.1 to 0.15 meters thick, and when the base trough is full, the rammed layer is widened to both sides to become a rammed earth wall. The rammed earth wall is no later than the late Longshan culture in Henan, providing an important clue for exploring the Xia culture;
Xu Xusheng (1888~1976), formerly known as Bingchang, pen name Xuansheng and Sui'an, was a famous Chinese historian and one of the pioneers of xia cultural exploration. In 1927, Xu Xusheng served as the head of the Chinese delegation, the first scientific expedition of Sino-foreign cooperation in Chinese history, the "Northwest China Scientific Expedition". From 1932 onwards, he began to explore the formation of the Chinese nation, focusing on the study of ancient Chinese history and legends, and wrote the book "The Legendary Era of Ancient Chinese History". In the summer of 1959, the 72-year-old Xu Xusheng personally went to the western Henan region to conduct on-the-spot investigation of the "Summer Ruins", inspected important sites such as Shucheng, Shiyangguan, Yan zhai, Gushuihe, and Erlitou, and wrote "Preliminary Report on the Investigation of the "Summer Ruins" in Western Henan in the Summer of 1959".
"The Legendary Era of Ancient Chinese History" book shadow
In the middle of the site, the northeast corner of a large building site was excavated, and several tombs and ash pits from the Erligang period of the Shang Dynasty broke the building foundation site, indicating that the age of the large building base site would not be later than that of the Erligang period of the Shang Dynasty, and should belong to the Erlitou culture or earlier architectural remains (in 2002, archaeology found that this building base site was only 1 meter away from the north wall of Wangchenggang Longshan, which unfortunately rubbed shoulders with the wall of Longshan Ayutthaya);
The stratigraphic superposition relationship between the remains of Erligang, Erlitou and the late Longshan culture in Henan in the Shang Dynasty was discovered, which can be called "new triassic layer".
Former site of Yangcheng
Using the trenching method, the task force dug a narrow trench perpendicular to the rammed earth wall at intervals, found the rammed earth wall at the bottom of the trench, and cycled back and forth to find the entire rammed earth wall. It took the second half of 1977 to find that this rammed earth wall was 94.8 meters long from north to south, and its southern end turned east, and the total length of the south wall was 97.6 meters, and the eastern end of the south wall was found to turn north, indicating that this may be a small mouth-shaped city.
Coincidentally, in 1977, archaeologists discovered a rammed earth wall on a sloped plateau north of the town. After investigation, the city is about 2,000 meters long from north to south and about 700 meters wide from east to west, like a city with a sun but no partition walls. Inside the city found a large-scale Warring States building site paved with water pipelines, outside the city found a Warring States cast iron site, unearthed pottery on the "廪" character stamp, bean handle, bean plate inside the "Yangcheng warehouse" stamp, it turned out that it is the historical and orderly Spring and Autumn Warring States Yangcheng site!
To the west of Yangcheng, across a river, there is a small city in the late Yongshan period of the inverted sun, will it be the source of yangcheng's name? In other words, is this small city The Yang City of Yudu?
The famous discovery in the history of Chinese archaeology refers to the discovery of the Triassic Layer of Yin Dynasty Culture, Longshan Culture and Yangshao Culture in the Hougang Site of Anyang in 1931 by Mr. Liang Siyong, which determined that the Longshan Culture was earlier than the Yin Dynasty Culture and later than the Yangshao Culture. At that time, it was generally believed that the Longshan culture was simple and the Yangshao culture was complex, so the Longshan culture predates the Yangshao culture.
The location of Spring and Autumn Yangcheng and Longshan Yangcheng is indicated
Inverted sun-shaped town
In November 1977, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held the "Henan Dengfeng Completed Ruins Excavation Site Meeting" at the excavation site, which was actually the first Xia culture seminar in the mainland, and the scholars attending the meeting competed with each other, spoke freely, and fully expounded their views on this site and Xia culture. Mr. Ahn Kim-wai provided strong evidence to the participants:
Mr. An provided information on Yangcheng in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, including such a layer of intention: Here is the only city site in the country named after Yangcheng, and no Yangcheng with inscriptions has been found elsewhere, don't you think that the Wangcheng Ganglongshan City in the southwest corner of the Spring and Autumn Warring States Yangcheng is the Yudu Yangcheng of the Xia Dynasty? Yangcheng moved from the west of the Wudu River to the east of the river, it is normal, see how Luoyang moved the city site around like a chess piece to become the ancient capital of the Thirteen Dynasties.
Although Mr. An initially believed that WangchengGangLongshan City may be Xiacheng and probably Yudu Yangcheng, such a preliminary theory is still a thousand waves with one stone. Whether it is or not, Wangchenggang Longshan City is the first recognized Longshan cultural ancient city excavated in Henan and even the whole country.
In the first half of 1978, the archaeological team excavated the northwest corner of the city by exploration method and found the north wall of the city, which was 1.8 to 4 meters wide at the bottom of the base groove of the north wall. When excavating the southeast corner of the city, outside the city corner, a section of more than 10 meters of east-west city wall base groove was accidentally found, which was at a right angle to the east city wall, which was an extension of the south city wall, and then descended steeply to the east, reaching the Wudu River. At this point, everyone finally understood that this was a small Japanese-shaped city that had been put down, and the first twin cities in China to share a wall were miraculously discovered.
Chronologically speaking, this small city is about 4100 years old, and Dayu is about 4200 to 4100 years old, the two coincide; in terms of location, ancient books record that Yu Duyang City is in the yin of Jishan and the yang of Songshan, and this small city is not in the yin of Ji and the yang of Song. For the sake of prudence, Mr. An Jinhuai did not publish the preliminary research results in Cultural Relics until 1983. In 1992, the archaeological report "Dengfeng Wangchenggang and Yangcheng" was published, which believed that the two city sites connected from east to west of the longshan culture phase II of Wangchenggang and many important relics and relics of the second phase of the Longshan culture in the city were a major breakthrough in the exploration of the Xia Dynasty culture. The location of the two city sites is very consistent with the geographical view of the Yangcheng City of the Xia Dynasty recorded in the literature, and it is initially believed that the two city sites of Wangchenggang may be the sites of the Xia Dynasty, and it is likely that they are the ruins of the Yangcheng City of the Xia Dynasty.
Excavated in 1978, the north city wall, the base trough bottom width of 1.8 to 4 meters, at that time it was believed that the narrow part of the city wall was washed away by the flash flood down from the tip of Wangling, and the excavation in 2004 only understood that it was the north city moat of Wangchenggang Dacheng that eroded the base trough of the north wall of the small city here. If you dig a few more exploration parties to the north that year, find that it is a large trench, and track it to the west, then the big city with an area of more than 300,000 square meters must have seen the light of day decades earlier, and how fortunate the academic community should be! History is like this, repeating helplessness, repeating regret.
Return to Wang chenggang
Nearly 20 years later, in 1996, the mainland launched the Xia Shang Zhou Dynasty Project, which is a huge systematic project, which should further scientificize and quantify the chronology of the Xia Shang And Zhou Dynasties, formulate a scientifically based chronology for the special historical period of the Xia Shang Zhou, and then lay a good foundation for the study of the origin and development of ancient civilizations on the mainland.
In 1996, I (Fang Yanming) undertook the special topic of "Research on Chronology of the Xia Dynasty - Research on Early Xia Culture" of the Xia Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project, and returned to Longshan City in Wangchenggang to take samples, mainly to uncover the Foundation Pit of Longshan Culture, an important relics excavated in the 1970s, and collect human bone samples for dating. After thorough preparation and a little luck, we successfully found the base point used for the tablet measurement in that year, a telephone pole standing in the middle of the Wangchenggang site. With this center, it was effortless to find the foundation pits that were ready for sampling.
In order to ensure the integrity of the sampling specimens, we opened the complete workstation warehouse and turned over all the excavated pottery pieces of that year, and the samples that could be measured for dating were extracted. During the period when the newly collected samples of Wang Chenggang were sent to Beijing for testing, we discussed the archaeological chronology of Wang Chenggang samples many times with Qiu Shihua and Cai Lianzhen, researchers of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chen Tiemei, Yuan Sixun, and Professor Guo Zhiyu of Peking University, and thus realized how much scholars from different disciplines need exchanges and collaboration. In the "Report on the Achievements of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project 1996-2000 (Simplified Version)" published in 2000, the first year of Xia is 2070 BC, which is based on the carbon fourteenth century measured by the dating samples of the Wangchenggang site we provided.
Wangchenggang Longshan big city, small city location indication
From the beginning of the excavation of Wangchenggang Longshan City in 1977, to the publication of the briefing in 1983, and then to the publication of the archaeological report in 1992, the nature of Wangchenggang Longshan City has not been determined. In the big picture, the archaeological community has always had different views on how archaeological culture corresponds to ethnic groups or historical dynasties, and whether the late Longshan culture in Henan is an early remnant of the Xia culture is also inconsistent; in micro terms, the area of Wangchenggang Longshan City is too small, whether it is Yudu Yangcheng, many people have doubts. We were one of the excavators of the small city and the author of the report, and we also had many questions about the material we saw at that time: Is there a big city in Wangchenggang besides the small city? The use of the small city in the second phase of the Wangcheng Ganglongshan culture, after the small city was abandoned, the third and fourth phases are still prosperous, for whom and for whom is it prosperous? How big is the area of Wangchenggang Longshan Cultural Site? In the upper reaches of the Yinghe River during the Longshan period, what was the status and role of the Wangchenggang site in the evolution of Chinese civilization? These issues need to be explored in depth.
A millennium city for China
From 2002 to 2003, the "Pre-study of the Source Exploration Project of Chinese Civilization - Investigation of Longshan Cultural Sites Around the Ruins of Wangchenggang in Dengfeng" was grandly launched, and the task of the special group was to drill and excavate the ruins around the small town of Wangchenggang, explore the relationship between these relics and the small city, and then explore the role of the Wangchenggang ruins in the process of Chinese civilization and other issues. In October 2002, we and Professor Liu Xu of the School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University led an archaeological team to start an archaeological survey in Wangchenggang. Wangchenggang site area is larger, the site is rich in connotation, in the 1970s and 1980s carried out a number of archaeological excavations, exploration, relic numbering using the old method, considering that the Wangchenggang site needs long-term protection, research, this excavation needs to be accurately recorded, we have carried out accurate mapping of the Wangchenggang site and its surrounding environment. According to the four to four sites of Wangchenggang, the site is divided into 6 excavation areas of 400 × 400 meters square by mesh method. The excavations are divided into two columns, east and west, each with 3 districts, the west column is numbered W1, W2 and W3 from south to north (W is the beginning of wangchenggang's first character pinyin), and the east column is numbered W4, W5 and W6 from south to north.
Excavation site in 2002
In late October, rammed earth was found in three exploration parties in the W2 area, the southern edge of the rammed earth has been exposed, the nature and age of the rammed earth are unknown, and we have compiled this rammed earth as house foundation F2. To this end, we discussed opening three more exploration parties in the north to find out its northern boundary, trying to find out what this rammed earth is for.
Soon, an Eastern Zhou tomb was found in the exploration party to break F2, indicating that the foundation of the house would not be later than the Eastern Zhou Period. Can it be as early as the Shang Dynasty, as early as Erlitou, or as early as the Longshan period we want? A few days later we found a landfill well in another expedition, which local villagers said they had used. This well just happens to penetrate the rammed soil, and after digging a certain depth under the fill soil in the well, scraping the well wall with a shovel, it is accurate to see that the rammed soil is 0.78 meters thick, and the raw soil is under the rammed soil. In order to understand the direction of rammed earth, we drilled and found that this rammed earth is less than 100 meters long from east to west and more than 10 meters wide from north to south. If no pillar holes and wall base grooves are found on the rammed earth, it cannot be a house foundation or a gallery foundation, but a city wall! So, we changed the house foundation F2 number to the city wall number Q1.
When dissecting the city wall, a piece of Jomon pottery piece was found in the rammed earth of a probe, the pottery piece was very small, it was difficult to see the shape of the instrument, from the tire color, it may be something from the Erlitou or Longshan period. In late November, we started drilling. In the drilling to the west, several incoherent sections of the city wall were successively found, and there was a trench parallel to the city wall 7 to 8 meters north of the city wall, with a mouth width of 8 to 10 meters and a depth of 6 to 7 meters, extending west to east. In the eastward drilling, two questions need to be paid attention to: First, what is the relationship between this long and wide city wall Q1 and the small city of Longshan in Wangchenggang? Second, what impact will the trenches that go all the way to the east affect the small town?
In early December, drilling eastward, the trench on the north side of the wall Q1 had reached the Wudu River. Drilling westward, the trench continued westward into bafang village.
Wangchenggang North City Moat
Just as the north trench leads directly to the Wudu River, the west trench also goes south to the Yinghe River. The restoration of the west trench is more than 500 meters long, the north trench is 630 meters long from east to west, and the intermittent north city wall is 370 meters long. At this point, there were initial results: Wangchenggang was high in the northwest and low in the southeast, and there was a big city in the west of the small city, which surrounded the small city in the big city. The scale of the city site is 600×500 meters, the area is more than 300,000 square meters, and the era is no later than the Erligang culture.
Excavators in 2004
In 2004, the northern city wall and the northern moat were excavated
In 2004, a rammed earth specimen of the city wall was excavated
From 2004 to 2005, the special group of "Chinese Civilization Source Exploration Project - The Age, Layout and Settlement Form of the Surrounding Areas of the Wangchenggang Site" once again visited the Wangchenggang Site to conduct archaeological investigation, drilling and excavation work. The goal of this work: The Wangchenggang site has played an important role in the evolution of Chinese civilization, studying its age, city site content, and settlement form, and providing important information for the Source Exploration Project of Chinese Civilization. In September 2004, we came to the wangchenggang site, and planned to solve the problems of structure, relationship and age of the big city and the moat in the W2 district, and to understand the relationship between the big city and the small city in the W5 district. After more than 10 days of excavation, the city wall Q1 was found in the newly excavated exploration party, and the "Yongsan Cultural Layer" was found superimposed on the rammed earth wall.
In late October, we looked at the pottery pieces excavated from the strata stacked on the Q1 of the city wall at the completion workstation, and learned that the age of the big city was not earlier than the second phase of the Wangcheng Ganglongshan culture, not later than the fourth phase of the Wangcheng Ganglongshan culture, and the use period was in the third phase of the Wangcheng Ganglongshan culture, and at the same time looked at the excavations in the north trench of the city wall, knowing that its age was the same as the city wall.
In early November, we began to dissect the wall Q1 and found that the characteristics of the rammed nest were exactly the same as those of the small town. At this point, the newly discovered Ayutthaya era of Wang Chenggang was finally finalized. At this time, the "Zhengzhou Mall 3600 Academic Seminar and the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Chinese Ancient Capital Society" that closed in Zhengzhou brought exciting news, and Zhengzhou became the eighth largest ancient capital, including Zhengzhou Mall, Xishan Ancient City, Yudu Yangcheng, Zhenghan Ancient City, etc. This is really: the eight ancient capitals spread good news, and Zhengzhou came first. King Yu has passed on jiazhi for thousands of years and has not been an archaeologist in vain.
In mid-November, we took advantage of the clear blue sky and clear vision in late autumn to investigate the sites of Longshan and Erlitou in Dengfeng and Yuzhou for more than a month, and continued to excavate the Wangchenggang site. During the investigation and excavation, archaeologists and natural scientists from Peking University, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Shandong University and other units went to the Wangchenggang site for scientific expeditions and samples, and scholars from different disciplines had a heated discussion on issues of common interest and exchanged views in depth. The multidisciplinary comprehensive research on the Wangchenggang site has become the focus and highlight of our archaeological work, and the research carried out in plant archaeology, animal archaeology, physical anthropology research, process and technical analysis of stone tools and pottery, experimental archaeology, and series of sample dating has achieved fruitful results, which provides solid information for discussing the social complexity of the Wangchenggang site in the process of civilization evolution and the close relationship between population, resources and environment.
In 2006, based on the new discovery of the Wangchenggang site, I (Fang Yanming) proposed in an article that the small city of Wangchenggang may be "Xia Cang zuo cheng" and the big city may be "Yu Du Yang City". In this regard, the academic community responded enthusiastically.
The northern wall and rammed nest of Wangchenggang Ayutthaya
Wang Chenggang - Archaeologists explore the epitome of Xia culture
Since the discovery of the Wangchenggang site in the 1950s, several important archaeological investigations, excavations and research work have become a microcosm of the exploration of Xia culture by the mainland archaeology community.
Looking for "Summer Market"
According to the literature, the central area of xia activities is in the upper reaches of the Yiluo River and yinghe River centered on song mountains and in the south of Shanxi, so there is Mr. Xu Xusheng's 1959 trip to the "Summer Market", when the east ruins of Bafang Village discovered at that time are called "Bafang Ruins". In the following decades, Henan cultural relics archaeologists diligently carried out continuous archaeological investigation and excavation of the site. In 1977, a small city of Longshan, a foundation pit, bronze fragments and characters were found on the banks of the Wudu River, which was the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China that the site of the late Longshan culture was discovered on the mainland, which attracted the attention and attention of the academic community. The excavation site meeting held in Dengfeng for this year was a grand meeting to study Xia culture, and under the presidency of Mr. Xia Nai, a group of famous archaeologists in China, such as Zou Heng and An Jinhuai, had a heated discussion on the nature of Wangchenggang Town and the issue of Xia culture. Director Xia Nai pointed out at the conclusion of the meeting that Wangchenggang Castle belongs to the late Longshan culture in Henan, and whether the castle is a relic of Xiadu is another question, because whether the late Longshan culture in Henan is a Xia culture, everyone disagrees. Mr. Xia Nai believes that the meaning of Xia culture "should refer to the culture of the Xia people during the Xia Dynasty", which is an accurate and scientific concept and has important guiding significance for the later exploration of Xia culture.
Exploring the Source of Chinese Civilization
In 1996, the "Xia Shang Zhou Dynasty Project - Early Xia Culture Research" special group excavated and sampled in Wangchenggang Xiaocheng, and the measured carbon FOURTEEN data and studies showed that the age of Xiaocheng (Wangchenggang Phase II) was close to or entered the scope of the Xia Era, and the dating values of the third, fourth and fifth phases of Wangchenggang had entered the xia age range. The dating data from Wang Chenggang directly led to the launch of the first year of the Xia Dynasty, which shows the academic value of Wang Chenggang in the study of Xia culture.
The study of "Pre-study of Chinese Civilization Source Exploration Project - Investigation of Longshan Cultural Sites Around Dengfeng Wangchenggang Site" and "Chinese Civilization Source Exploration Project - Age, Layout and Settlement Form of Surrounding Areas" began in 2004 have promoted significant progress in the investigation and excavation of Wangchenggang Ruins, and a large city site with an area of more than 300,000 square meters has been newly discovered. At the same time, important relics such as sacrificial pits, jade stones and white pottery were found, as well as a large number of pottery, stone, bone and mussel vessels.
"Archaeological Discoveries and Research of Dengfeng Wangchenggang (2002~2005)"
Publication of the report
From 2005 to 2006, I (Fang Yanming) presided over the compilation of the excavation data of Wangchenggang and the preparation of the archaeological report "Archaeological Discoveries and Research of Dengfeng Wangchenggang (2002-2005)". In the report, the age and nature of the Wangchenggang site, the value of the Wangchenggang site in the study of Xia culture, the theory of the destruction of the Wangchenggang site by the flood and the beginning of the Xia culture are discussed. In September 2007, the archaeological discovery and research report of Wangchenggang, which took less than 3 years and embodied the countless painstaking efforts and wisdom of archaeologists, was successfully published.
Experimental archaeology
Geological Survey
Fruitful
Through the re-investigation of the Longshan Cultural Site in Henan, Wangchenggang, the area of the site was expanded from 400,000 square meters known in the past to 500,000 square meters. The walls and moats of Wangchenggang Dacheng, with a restored area of 348,000 square meters, are the largest of the known Longshan Cultural City sites found in Henan.
The late Ayutthaya moat of the Longshan culture in Wangchenggang, Henan, broke the stratigraphic relationship of the western small city wall, proving that the big city and the small city were not at the same time, the small city was built late in the first phase of Longshan, and the second phase of Longshan was abandoned. Ayutthaya was built in the second phase of Longshan, and continued to be used until the third phase of Longshan was early, and the third phase of Longshan was also in decline.
The age of the Longshan cultural town of Wangchenggang, the upper limit is not earlier than 2200 BC ~ 2130 BC, the lower limit is not later than 2100 BC ~ 2055 BC, we take the middle value, about 2122 BC. The upper limit of the Ayutthaya city wall is no later than 2100 BC to 2055 BC or 2110 BC to 2045 BC, and the lower limit is not later than 2070 BC to 2030 BC or 2100 BC to 2020 BC, taking the value of which is about 2055 BC, which is basically consistent with the Xia Dynasty year 2070 BC presumed by the Xia Shang Zhou Dynasty Project.
Through the study of animal remains at the site of the late Longshan culture in Wangchenggang, it is proved that pigs, dogs, cattle, sheep and other animals have been domesticated at that time, and the way to obtain meat resources has entered the development stage.
The excavated plant remains prove that in addition to the traditional millet crops planted at that time, there was a certain amount of rice and soybeans, indicating that the residents of the late Longshan culture in Henan Province had gradually shifted from the single planting system of planting millet crops to the multi-variety crop planting system including rice and soybeans, and the human diet had become more diverse.
According to the survey, the site of the late Longshan culture in Wangchenggang is the largest and highest-ranking central settlement site within tens of kilometers around the upper reaches of the Yinghe River, and the big city of the late Longshan culture in Wangchenggang is the center of the political entity that emerged in the area at that time and can be regarded as the prototype of the country.
Through a comprehensive study of the geographical outlook, chronology, hierarchy, cultural relationship with Erlitou and the relevant literature records such as "Yu du Yang Cheng", the big city of the late Wangchenggang Longshan culture should be the Yang City of "Yu Du Yang City", the Eastern Zhou Yang City should be named after the "Yu Du Yang City" that is nearby, and the small city of wangcheng Gang Longshan culture that preceded the big city may have been built by Yu Father, thus finding a starting point for the Xia culture.
(The author Fang Yanming is a researcher at the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology; Hao Hongxing is a researcher at the Zhengzhou Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
Popular Archaeology, No. 2, 2017