Aerial photo shoots from the excavation area of the Shaochai site
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Bones excavated from the Site of Slightly Chai
The title of li Yipi's report of the Henan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology is "2021 Annual Archaeological Work Harvest of Gongyi Shaochai Site". The 2021 annual archaeological excavation project of The Xiaochai Site is a project of "Archaeological Chinese Xia Culture Research" jointly undertaken by our institute and the Gongyi Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. In fiscal 2021, a comprehensive exploration of the site was carried out using a combination of general exploration and key exploration, with a total exploration of 490,000 square meters and 500 square meters of excavation. Through the development of this year's archaeological work, we have a better understanding of the layout of the core distribution area of the Shaochai site and the framework of functional partitioning. For the first time, a large square ditch with obvious bends was found in the outer edge of the distribution area of the Xiaochai Xia Shang site, and a large number of tomb areas were found in the south and southeast of the village, and a number of important relics including white pottery mane and large bu bones were excavated on the site, which once again showed that the Xiao Chai site was a settlement site with a high grade in the Xia Shang period of the Yiluo River Basin, which had great value and status for the exploration and research of the Xia culture.
[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:
Gongyi Shaochai Ruins: Explore xia's code under the village
Henan Daily Client 2021-09-09
Henan Daily client reporter Zhang Tianyi Hu Chunna
Following the "trajectory of Xia", in the early morning of September 4, the reporter and his party drove all the way west from Zhengzhou to Xiaochai Village, Zhitian Town, Gongyi City.
Archaeologists from the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology are conducting archaeological drilling and investigation work here.
Unlike the common villages named after the surname and the location, although a little rustic, it exudes a different atmosphere.
Some people say that it may be related to the construction of the Song Tombs in the Northern Song Dynasty to burn the building materials of the tombs with firewood in the local area, which may have been called "Firewood Village" at that time, because of the homophony, it was later written as "slightly chai", and there were three Song Tombs in Zhitian. Some people also say that there are many kilns in the Gongyi area of the Tang Dynasty to burn Tang Sancai and white porcelain, and a little chai may be related to the burning of Tang Sancai.
Slightly chai ruins
Although the Tang and Song dynasties were brilliant, the purpose of our trip was the more ancient Xia Dynasty and Xia people.
The history books record that the Xia people were active in the western Henan region of present-day Henan. The Chronicle of the Bamboo Book states that "Emperor Taikang ascended the throne, JuJuju (居斟鄩, 畋于洛表; Yi entered Juju (居斟鄩;............" The Chronicle of The Land of Gu di (括地記) says: "The ancient city of Yucheng is fifty-eight miles southwest of Gong County, Luozhou. The Ancient Texts of Kizuka says: "Taikang juju 鄩, Yi Yi juzhi, 桀又居之." The "Chronicle of History" says: "From Luo wei to Yi Wei, there is a summer residence." In addition, there are many records in the "Book of Kizuka Zhou", "Shi Junzhi", "Former Han Book", "Han Zhi", "Water Classic Notes", "Henan Fu Zhi", "Gong County Chronicle" and so on. The Xia capital is located between Yiluo, and the Gongyi area has become one of the main activity areas of the Xia people in the historical records.
Under the guidance of Li Yipi, the excavation team leader of the Shaochai site of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, we saw two "Xiaochai Site" protection monuments on the side of the road of the site, one is a provincial cultural relics protection unit, which was erected in the 1980s, and the other is a national key cultural relics protection unit monument erected in 2013. On the back of the monument, a brief description of the ruins of The Little Chai is written.
A little chai explains the cards
In the literature, it is said that Xia Du was caught in the woods. There are many place names related to The Village of Xiaochai, including Exi, Shang'e, and Xia, which is one of the origins of the surname. The origin of the name of the Wuluo River is also worth studying, people often say that "the water flows east", and the water of the Wuluo River flows to the northwest. There are many ruins from the Xia and Shang dynasties on both sides of the Iloilo River near the site of Xiaochai.
It is also with these clues that archaeologists have discovered the site of Xiaochai after investigation.
Li Yipi said that the site of Xiaochai is located in The village of Xiaochai, 1.5 kilometers east of Xiaozidian Village, close to the Yiluo River to the north, and the Wuluo River flows into the Yiluo River from the southeast to the northwest of the site, and the site is on the terrace where the Wuluo River and the Yiluo River meet. In 1959, the Cultural Relics Task Force of the Henan Provincial Bureau of Culture (the predecessor of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) discovered this ancient cultural site while investigating the Xia cultural site. According to the investigation work at that time, the site was about 2,000 meters long from east to west, about 500 meters wide from north to south, and the total area was about 1 million square meters. The cultural layer is thin in the south and gradually thickens to the north, generally more than 3 meters, and the thickest point can reach 4 meters.
Li Yipi said that in 1960 and 1963, there were two excavations of the Shaochai site, although only 690 square meters were excavated, but the number of relics found was relatively large. The site contains relics of the Erlitou culture, the Erligang culture and other periods, and the cultural connotation is very rich. Mainly the remains of the Erlitou culture, the core accumulation is the accumulation of the first, second and third phases of the Erlitou culture, and the types of relics that have been discovered mainly include house foundations, ash pits and tombs, etc., and more than 500 pieces of various relics such as pottery, stone, bone, and mussels have been unearthed. In particular, the discovery of large-scale bones and primitive porcelain shows that the Xiaochai settlement has a high rank and occupies an important position in the settlement group of the Erlitou culture period and the Erligang culture period in the lower reaches of the Yiluo River, and is listed as an important research object of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project and the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project, and one of the key sites of the mainland Xia culture research.
Clay pots were unearthed at the Site of Slight chai
Li Yipi said that the current focus of work is to carry out all-round exploration of the site, the previous section of archaeological drilling work is very hard, not only hot, rainy, but also because the site is covered by modern villages, full of houses and hardened roads, drilling on the hardened road also has to use engineering hydro drilling rigs to drill a hole in the cement pavement, and then drill with a probe shovel. Fortunately, after drilling and harvesting, for the first time, a large ditch of several hundred meters in length was found at the edge of the distribution area of the Xia Shang remnants in the north of the village, because the northern part of the site was washed away by the Yiluo River, the specific length of the ditch is not known, and the nature of the ditch is still uncertain, but it is enough to prove that it was a high-grade settlement in the Xia Shang period.
Slightly chai ruins pottery beans
Talking about the relationship between the Ruins of Xiaochai and the site of Yanshi Erlitou, Li Yipi said that the ruins of Xiaochai are very close to the ruins of Yanshi Erlitou, and it is not far from the site of Wangjinglou XiaDai City in western Zhengzhou, the site of The Xia Dynasty of Eastern Zhao, and the site of the Ancient Xia Dynasty of Master, and it is exactly between Yanshi and Zhengzhou. Scholars generally believe that the Erlitou site was the capital of the late Xia Dynasty, and the Xiaochai site is located in the luoyang basin to the east of the traffic artery to communicate with the outside world. The site of Xiaochai is of a high level, located in the main activity area of the Xia people recorded in the literature and the core area of the distribution of the Xia culture in archaeology, and its location is extremely important, which is of great value and status for the exploration and research of the Xia culture.
Li Yipi revealed that the ancient culture of the Yiluo River Basin where the Xiaochai site is located has developed, and the surveys over the years have shown that there are many sites in the Yangshao to Erlitou cultural period in the Yiluo River Basin, and the distribution is dense. The next step will focus on expanding the scope of drilling and investigation, clarifying the scope and functional layout of the Site itself, exploring the relationship between the Site and the surrounding sites, thinking about the value and status of the Site in a larger space and time coordinate, and contributing to the exploration of Xia culture, the origin of the country, and the origin of civilization.