Daocheng, known as the last pure land on the planet, the "Shangri-La" in the heart of explorer Joseph Locke, the holy place that people go to at least once in their lives... Not only is there the oldest trace of nature left here, but also the clue of ancient human life - the ruins of Pirao in Daocheng, Sichuan.
The Pilo site makes Paleolithic archaeology boil, amazes Chinese archaeology, and even makes world archaeology rethink!
Located in Jinzhu Town, Daocheng County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, about 2 kilometers east of Daocheng County, with an average altitude of more than 3,750 meters, the Pirao Site is a tertiary terrace of the Pinghe River, a secondary tributary of the Jinsha River. The overall area of the site is about 1 million square meters, and nearly 10,000 stone products and many fire relics have been excavated in seven cultural layers no later than 130,000 years ago.
The Pirlo site is the most typical cultural remain of the late Ashel stage found in East Asia, and it is also the highest Ashelian technology product in the world that has been discovered.
It is the Paleolithic site with the largest area, the best preserved strata, continuous accumulation and rich cultural types on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and it is also the first time in the world that a typical Ashel technology system has been found at a high altitude.
The coherent and iconic 'Gravel Stone Tool Combination- Ashley Technology System -Stone Chip Stone Tool System' Paleolithic cultural development process in Sichuan and southwest China has been established.
Pirot's story, from here...
The discovery of the Pilo site began with the archaeological investigation of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway in March 2019...
According to Zheng Zhexuan, executive leader of the archaeological team of the Pirao site and researcher of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, it is based on the paleoenvironment and paleogological background data in Ganzi Prefecture, as well as two suspected hand axes found in the Ganzi area nearly a hundred years ago. When conducting infrastructure surveys, the archaeological team paid extra attention to and explored the topographical characteristics of the area with questions and reflections, and tried to find paleolithic remains.
"Climb the mountain without a road, think again without finding it, and continue to carry out dragnet investigations." Nevertheless, for more than a week at first, nothing was found, not only the Paleolithic tools were not found, but even the remains of the historical period were not found. Morale was at one point frustrated. Zheng Zhexuan, executive leader of the archaeological team at the Pirot site and researcher of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said.
The turning point of events took place in the town of Xinduqiao, east of Russia, and Zheng Zhexuan clearly remembered that it was March 31, before April Fool's Day. "We found a very iconic hand axe on a front convex staircase at the confluence of two rivers in East Oro! The follow-up team successfully completed the investigation of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, and at the same time, it continued to summarize the rules and actively investigated and discovered a number of Paleolithic sites. ”
The project eventually shifted from an infrastructure survey to an active Paleolithic archaeology survey. In the active investigation for about 2 months, the team entered Ganzi Prefecture several times and found a total of 23 Paleolithic sites in Kangding, Litang, Daocheng, Luhuo, Daofu and other counties, including a number of hand axe points.
This also confirms that the current infrastructure archaeology continues to strengthen the awareness of the subject, and the degree of refinement and standardization is increasing. Changing "passive" to "active" is no longer blindly completing tasks and cooperating with infrastructure, but always running through the topic, taking cooperation with infrastructure exploration as an opportunity to solve academic topics, and sparing no effort to deepen and thoroughly study. As Gao Xing, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, the work of the Pirao site is standardized, well organized, and has a clear sense of the subject. It can be said that the infrastructure survey project is a model work for transforming problem-oriented active excavation.
"Crazy Stone"
The reason why the Pirot site shocked the academic community was because of those "crazy stones". In particular, the unassuming Axe of Ashley made scholars ecstatic.
Speaking of the Ashel hand axe, we must first explain the Ashel technique. The Ashley technique got its name from the site of Saint Acheul, discovered in 1859 on the outskirts of Amiens, France. Combined with existing knowledge and new discoveries, Ashley technology originated in East Africa about 1.7 million years ago and continued to about 200,000 years ago, and in some areas it may continue later. The system of technology is distributed throughout much of Africa and Eurasia, and its common artifact portfolio includes hand axes, pickaxes, and thin-bladed axes.
Among them, the Ashley hand axe is the most famous, it is a large oval or teardrop shape, two-sided blade processing. The left and right sides and the front and back sides are basically symmetrical, one end is thinner, the other end is slightly wider and thicker, is the first kind of standardized heavy tools made on both sides and finely processed in the prehistoric era, it can be said that it represents the highest technical realm of ancient human evolution in the Homo erectus period stone tool processing, which can be described as an "ancient artifact". Through beating, balanced processing, thinning treatment, and finally formed a two-sided hand axe, its use is widespread, ancient humans hold this "iron like mud" artifact, slaughter, decompose animals, excavate, process wood and other activities.
Part of the ashel remains of the Piluo site (Photo courtesy of Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
"The stone tools of the Ashley technical system found at the Pilo site are the most typical, most exquisitely made, most completely combined, and most mature set of systems we have seen in East Asia, which should be the late mature technical system of Western Ashel. The controversy over whether there is a real Ashel technical system in China and East Asia has been completely resolved. Gao Xing stressed. This is still the highest assheli technology system found so far, and it has not been found in Africa, Europe, or India. ”
Not only is the altitude high, but the "value" of the Ashley hand axe at the Pirro site is also very high. Xie Fei, a researcher at the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Hebei Province, commented: "The Axe of Asheli is very wonderful, beautiful in shape, and has unique features in thinning technology. This discovery has just unveiled the tip of the iceberg of Sichuan's paleolithic archaeological work, and the future can be expected. Wang Shejiang, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, suggested: "The delicate flatness of the hand axe should also fully consider the characteristics of the raw material, which may be the result of the stripping of the siliceous slate raw material, rather than the processing technology of the late Ashley hand axe body thinning." ”
With the continuous discovery and research of the Ashel site in China, on the one hand, it strongly proves the diversity and complexity of Chinese paleolithic technology, and on the other hand, it provides valuable materials for discussing the cultural transmission and exchange of early humans in China and the West. "On the whole, Sichuan's materials are very critical. If you can see the context of the chronology and the transmission route, it is very helpful for understanding the overall pattern. Wang Shejiang said.
Cut the Morvis Line, which splits the Old World in two, through Pilo
Another concept associated with the Ashel axe is the Morvis line. This is a famous "line" that cannot be avoided when talking about the early relationship debate between China and the West. It is not limited to the description of the appearance of the stone tool industry, but further rises to the understanding of the development of Paleolithic culture and the overall pattern of human evolution in the Old World.
What exactly is the Morvis Line? Simply put, it split the Old World in two.
In the 1940s, the concept of a hand axe was used by H.L. Movius, an archaeologist at Harvard University in the United States, who boldly proposed the "Morvis line". He believes that in Africa, Europe and West Asia, the Ashel cultural tradition represented by the hand axe prevails, while East Asia lacks this combination, but instead the world of the long-standing smasher tradition.
As a result, the early Paleolithic was extended by the "Morvis Line" into two cultural circles: advanced and backward. To the west is a kind of hand axe that masters advanced technology and can make a hand axe with complex craftsmanship, representing the "hand axe cultural circle" of advanced culture; to the east, another kind of "hand axe culture circle" that does not have such ability and can only make crude choppers and uses unprocessed stone chips represents the backward "chopper culture circle". Moreover, some scholars have falsely dismissed early humans on the Asian continent east of the Movis Line as "conservative," "backward," and "poorly adapted."
The best way to fight back against the Morvis Line is to find strong archaeological evidence. In recent years, the latest domestic archaeological materials have had a wave of impact on this argument, and scholars have begun to rethink the "Movis Line".
From the Hundred Colors hand axe on the cover of Science magazine, to the Ashel stone tool combination concentrated in the Lonan Basin...
Previously, a combination of tools with Ashel technical factors in China has been found in a number of regions, including the Baise Basin, the Luonan Basin, and the Danjiangkou Reservoir Area. Some scholars believe that from the perspective of stone tool technology and morphology, the hand axe in the Lonan Basin is the closest to the typical Ashley hand axe in the West.
Gao Xing said bluntly: "The hand axe found at the Pilo site, symmetrical and balanced processing and thinning treatment on both sides (sides), can be completely comparable to the remains of the late Western Ashel, which can be said to be the mature stage of the typical Ashel technology." This completely resolved the debate about the Mauvis line. The controversy will settle. I feel like the 'Morvis line' can be erased off. ”
As for the source of these Ashelis techniques, it is also the focus of discussion among scholars. Was it the migration or spread of technology directly from the western side of the Old World, or was it convergence due to ecological adaptations, etc.?
Scholars investigate the Pirot site
Some scholars believe that the ancient population using this technology spread from the West, or that the communication between the ancient population between China and the West from the early to the late Paleolithic period was uninterrupted, and the same technical tradition between the East and the West is the result of the two-way migration, exchange and integration of the ancient population across the continent many times. Gao Xing frankly said: "People do not need to avoid the problem of Ashel technology coming from west to east. In the distant Paleolithic Age, the population is in a state of migration and flow, there is no so-called east and west boundary, the earth is the common home of mankind, crowd migration, cultural transmission must be multi-directional, complex. In the words of Professor Wang Youping of the School of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University, "The Pirot site is just at the junction of South Asia and East Asia, and its discovery has connected the hand axe of the East and the West, once again proving that the early cultures of the East and the West were connected to each other." ”
No one is an island. Looking at the whole earth, this is true of people, and it is also true of regions. Prehistoric human beings have a harsh living environment, there is no concept of settlement, they take the earth as their home, the sun and the moon as the lamp, do not rely on, do not fear. When you are hungry, go foraging for food; when you are sleepy, take a nap.
At all times, cultures should interact and communicate widely, starting with our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago, in fact, accepting these foreign things with an open mind. In the process of migration, human beings continue to run into the natural environment to form a variety of human beings, which is the result of the integration of human beings and nature, and cannot represent the excellence between various human beings.
Human nature has a migratory nature, and the division of regions and peoples has its objectivity and necessity, but it is not intended to create estrangement. Fate is shared, almost human beings are born with. This process also reveals a historical logic of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Edit | Zhang Xiaozhu
Review | Guo Xiaorong
Final Review | Li Zheng