In daily life, we are full of curiosity about the ancient society, especially what the life of the ancients in the primitive social period was like, could they eat enough and dress warmly? In fact, the answer to this question is in the Lajia ruins, because experts unearthed a bowl of noodles, two ingredients in which we have a new understanding of the life of the ancients. If you are also curious, let the editor reveal the secret to you from the beginning.
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Located in Lajia Village, Minhe County, Qinghai, the Lajia Ruins are a Neolithic human settlement site with a history of more than 4,000 years. In the 1970s, when local villagers were digging up arable land here, they could often dig out some ancient pottery and stone tools, and sometimes even find remains. Later, as soon as the matter was passed on to ten or ten hundred, it was known to the county cultural bureau, so they arranged several archaeologists to investigate lajia village and protect the area where the pottery was found. After in-depth research, experts determined that it was a prehistoric site, but because it was not available for excavation at that time, it was not known until 1999 that the Lajia site was known.
Since 1999, experts have excavated and cleaned up the Lajia site, and to everyone's surprise, there are thousands of ancient remains under the soil layer of the Lajia site, which have been forensically identified as unnatural deaths. Experts speculate that perhaps a disaster occurred 4,000 years ago, completely destroying the settlement of the Lajia family, and this disaster was sudden, many people had no time to escape, so experts also thought of the famous "Pompeii" in the West, and since then the Lajia ruins have also been known as the "Pompeii of the East".
In addition to the remains, experts have also cleared out a large number of house ruins, unearthed pottery such as clay pots and bowls, and found a large number of animal remains, indicating that the La family had begun to keep livestock in captivity at that time. It is worth mentioning that when experts were cleaning up the ruins of a house, they found a pottery bowl that was upside down in the ground at the door, which was smaller than the bowl we use now, and the expert carefully picked up the pottery bowl, and as a result, a lump of things fell from half of the bowl. So, the experts crouched on the ground and carefully observed, and found that there were several beige substances clearly visible on the top of the lump, which were later chemically identified as noodles, but different from the noodles now.
Experts said that this bowl of noodles is made of rice noodles, which is our daily life yellow rice noodles, usually used to make pastries or wine, because the taste of yellow rice noodles is not good, so we do not use it to produce noodles now, but mainly use wheat noodles. At that time, the ancients did not have wheat, so they could only use rice, but what puzzled experts was what the taste of this bowl of noodles was.
It is indeed rare that a bowl of noodles can be preserved for more than 4,000 years, so experts have also studied it in depth, and the results have later found that there is a large amount of animal fat in the noodles, which shows that the ancients added broth to the noodles, otherwise how can there be grease? In this regard, experts have said that this is not an ordinary bowl of clear water white noodles, but a bowl of fragrant broth noodles. Not only that, the experts also found some gray and white hard objects in the noodles, which were determined by laboratory tests to be broken bone slag, and it was also wild boar bones, but unfortunately the experts did not find meat, indicating that at that time they separated the meat and soup, the meat was eaten directly, and then the meat was cooked in broth, during which the broken bone residue may be accidentally poured into the noodles.
The discovery of broth and bone residue also gave us a new understanding of the life of the La family at that time, they could not only eat enough, but even eat well, and from their captive livestock, they could also show that there was never a shortage of meat, and perhaps some people were even obese. We can think of a person who cooked a large bowl of broth noodles, stood in the doorway while basking in the sun, and took a big bite of fragrant noodles, thinking about the plan for a better life in the future. Suddenly, a wave of shaking broke his plan, followed by an earthquake disaster, he hurriedly dropped the bowl in his hand and ran, but unfortunately did not run far before he fell into a crack in the ground, leaving only the bowl buried by mud and sand, until more than 4,000 years later by experts to find out the light of day.
In any case, the noodles of the Lajia ruins are a great discovery, and it is also an important source for experts today to study the Lajia ruins, or other sites in the same period, because it is the most real and direct reaction to the life of the Lajia family, revealing the living standards of the ancients at that time, and also letting us know more little-known historical mysteries.
Resources:
"Oriental Pompeii" by Wang Renxiang, Publisher: Shaanxi Science and Technology Publishing House
Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Liu Lijiang's