Reading Cultural Relics Narrating History (Watchman)

Pictured: Wei Xingtao consulting information. Pictured: Fan Ting scrapes the surface. Pictured: Li Xiaoyan scraping the surface. Pictured: Lu Guohao observes pottery pieces. Pictured: Li Shiwei studies strata. Photographed by Wang Zhe, a reporter of this newspaper

Character business card

The Yangshao Cultural Archaeology Team of the Henan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology is responsible for the excavation of Yangshao cultural sites in Henan Province. Over the past few decades, they have adhered to the field archaeology and completed the excavation of many Yangshao cultural sites such as the southern intersection of Sanmenxia, the western slope of Lingbao, Beiyangping, and Yangshao Village in Shichi.

Among them are experienced elderly people, the backbone of the archaeological work responsible for the site, and young students who have just entered the excavation site. Through hard excavation and meticulous research, they tell the changes of history with cultural relics one by one...

"Every excavation is like a journey across time and space"

Wei Xingtao, a researcher and vice president of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, who has been engaged in cultural relics and archaeology for 30 years, still adheres to the front line of archaeology, and travels between Sanmenxia and Zhengzhou several times a month.

"When I first came into contact with archaeology, I felt very advanced, but I fell in love with it when I learned it." Seeing the reporter, as soon as Wei Xingtao opened the conversation box, he talked about that youthful era.

In 1991, Wei Xingtao, who graduated from graduate school, came to the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology (now the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) to come into contact with Neolithic archaeological research such as Yangshao culture. Plain face ornamentation, early rice remains, clay pottery..." Every excavation is like a journey across time and space. Wei Xingtao said that over the years, he has undertaken more than 30 archaeological investigation and excavation projects, and the most impressive is the excavation of the Sanmenxia South Junction site. The experience of crossing mountains and wading through mountains and wading through rivers with crutches more than 20 years ago seems like yesterday.

In July 1997, the Luoyang-Sanmenxia section of the "Lianhuo Expressway" was planned and built, and the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology cooperated with the construction of the project to carry out field archaeology, and Wei Xingtao chose the archaeological task of the Sanmenxia South Junction site. In the middle of the summer of 1998, it rained heavily in western Henan. The excavation site at Nanjiaokou was forced to stop work. As the project leader, Wei Xingtao was very anxious. He simply put on a straw hat, rubber shoes, a hand shovel and a drawing book, and led the team to the nearby mountains to conduct archaeological investigations.

Wei Xingtao had been gone all day, and when he returned, the soles of his shoes were all worn out; at night, when he arrived at the camp, he used the emergency light to record the results of the investigation. In just a few months, his footprints have traveled to Yangshao cultural sites such as the Northern Liang Ruins, Zhujiagou Ruins, and Lujiadian Ruins, and obtained a wealth of first-hand information, stacked up as high as a desk.

In 2007, in conjunction with the Zhengzhou-Xi'an railway passenger line to excavate the LingbaoDi Dong site, Wei Xingtao returned to the South Junction, and the strata and ruins drawn that year are still clear. Wei Xingtao led the team to select 8 ash pits in the middle of Yangshao for soil sample collection. Through the comprehensive analysis and identification of the collected flotations, the proportion of rice and millet in crops in the middle of Yangshao and its development and changes were presented.

Now, Wei Xingtao is most worried about the Yangshao culture excavation site of lingbao Beiyangping, Chengyan and Shichi Yangshao Village, "I can stay at the excavation site for a while, excavate and clean up on the spot, and my heart is solid." ”

"Out of the scene, we must do our best and leave no regrets"

On the day of the establishment of winter in 2021, Lingbao City, Henan Province, ushered in the first snow since the beginning of winter. At dawn, Li Xiaoyan came to the excavation site and led the team to pick up the shovel and start shoveling snow.

"Studying archaeology, I have also been confused. During the internship, I also went to work in sales for a few days, but I found that I still couldn't give up my love for archaeology. In 2017, Li Xiaoyan, a graduate student, joined the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the Beiyangping site was the first archaeological project she participated in.

Love to ponder, diligent hands, in the field excavation, Li Xiaoyan can always come up with a variety of methods. "Soil methods can sometimes play an unexpected role." When cleaning the pillar holes of the large housing site of the Yangshao culture, the holes were deep and narrow, and it was inconvenient for hand shovels to dig deeper. Li Xiaoyan tried various round utensils and finally chose a soup spoon. She tied the spoon to a stick of different lengths, lay on the ground, and dipped her arm into it to clean it.

In the center of the site, there are several well-preserved carbonized wood components. The dark and shiny wooden pillars tell the wisdom of the ancients in building roofs. In fact, these few intact carbonized wood components were "blown" out by Li Xiaoyan and the team members.

How to "blow"? It turned out that during the scraping, some team members found black charcoal marks embedded in the soil layer. Li Xiaoyan and the team members used a small brush to clean the soil layer, and there was still a small amount of dirt attached; they had to lie on the ground, blow away the soil on the surface with their mouths, and "blow" for several days in a row, "Our goal is to restore the original appearance of these rarely well-preserved wooden components." ”

For Li Shiwei, the person in charge of the fourth excavation of the Yangshao Village site, the most impressive thing is that when cleaning the bottom of the cellar, a large piece of faience pottery appeared, and a large number of faience pieces with the same pattern began to be found around. They cleaned up the faience pieces and used plastic wrap to package and extract the excavated cultural relics as a whole. After taking it back to the laboratory, drawing, taking pictures, cleaning and stitching, and finally bonding with fixing glue, a nearly complete faience pot was restored.

"When you go out on the scene, you have to do your best and leave no regrets." At that time, there was still a piece of pottery at the bottom of the unearthed faience, and Li Shiwei cheered everyone up. Subsequently, everyone selected and compared all the excavated pottery pieces in the cellar, and finally found the missing piece of pottery. When Li Shiwei glued the pottery pieces at the bottom tightly, his teammates cheered. This faience pot with alternating parallel lines in his hand has also become the only relatively complete restoration of faience pottery excavated from the fourth archaeological excavation at the site of Yangshao Village.

In Li Shiwei's view, although archaeology is in dialogue with history, the integration of modern science and technology can often produce many wonderful chemical reactions. During the conversation, Li Shiwei took out his mobile phone and logged on to the "Geographic Information System for Archaeological Excavations" to enter the progress of the excavation. "The cultural relics information we unearthed in Shichi can be analyzed and processed in a timely manner at the Zhengzhou Research Institute on the same day."

Multidisciplinary residue analysis of the bottom of the bottle, electrochemical detection of soil samples... "Archaeological methods are changing rapidly, and scientific and technological means have been widely used. Li Shiwei said.

"The immersion experienced by digging down a shovel is more real than reading historical materials"

Fan Ting, a master's student in cultural relics and museums at Henan Normal University, went to the Beiyangping site for the first time under the archaeological site.

On the first day of arrival, the leading teacher arranged for Fan Ting to draw the soil layer. Scraping and scraping, Fan Ting found that the distinction between soil layers in practice was not the same as what was said in class. The book says that the distinction is based on the color texture, "I thought it was easy, but when I look at it in the field, it is almost difficult to distinguish." "Fan Ting did not stop using a shovel to feel the delicacy of the soil layer, to distinguish between different inclusions in soil of similar colors... After a period of tempering, coupled with the teacher's on-site guidance, she gradually mastered the method of identifying the color of the earth.

Fan Ting looks weak and weak, but every day when she goes to the scene, she is particularly motivated. She enjoys chatting with the villagers and listening to them talk about the local customs and culture. "Archaeology is my favorite thing to do, and it will be more practical to work on the spot."

Lu Guohao is a master's student in archaeology at Henan University, and the excavation site of the Yangshao village site is the third site he has interned at.

"Excavating the site" is Lu Guohao's main task this time. During previous excavations, they found long strips of remains in a probe and unearthed a turquoise wall skin floor. "This is likely to be a wall of the site that deserves careful study and excavation." Lu Guohao said.

Lu Guohao set his sights on the wall near the west wall of the exploration party and began to scrape the wall as a whole. As the work progressed, he guessed that there was virtual soil below. From 7:30 a.m. to the afternoon when the sun set, Lu Guohao blew for two consecutive days and finally had a harvest. His initial judgment was confirmed.

Lu Guohao shares a workshop with 5 teammates. A single iron bed and a simple wooden table are all the "belongings" of each archaeological team member. At night, by light, everyone bagged the pottery pieces unearthed during the day. "The conditions are tough, but it feels like every day is fulfilling." Lu Guohao said.

"Only at the archaeological site, there will be a feeling of ten thousand years, a shovel to dig down to experience the sense of immersion, more real than reading historical materials." As soon as Lu Guohao had time, he stood on the edge of the probe and kept imagining: if there was another corner, whether it would be another house, why was there a pillar hole next to the ash pit... Placing yourself in a thousand years of time and space, your heart constantly retraces the scenes of historical evolution.

This edition is drafted by Zhang Danfeng

People's Daily ( 2022-02-10 06 edition)