On the morning of March 26, 2022, a seminar with the theme of "Late Liangzhu" was held at the Liangzhu Site Archaeology and Protection Center of the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Zhejiang Province. Affected by the epidemic, this seminar was conducted in a combination of online and offline methods. The participants offline participated in the seminar mainly from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Hangzhou Liangzhu Site Management District Management Committee, with more than 100 online participants.
The conference was chaired by Professor Liu Bin of the School of Arts and Archaeology of Zhejiang University. There are five reports, including "Three Qianshan Yang Cultural Period Sites Discovered in Zhejiang" by Ding Pin of zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, "Lateral Flat Foot Ding and Related Problems of Late Liangzhu Culture" by Dr. Li Na of Northwest University, "Rethinking on the Late Later Period of Liangzhu Culture" by Chen Minghui of Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, "Re-discussing the Remains of the Late Neolithic Period in the Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River" by Chen Jie of Shanghai Museum, and "Archaeological Excavation Progress and Chronological Analysis of Sidun Sites in 2019-2020" by Yu Chenlong of Nanjing Museum.
Liu Bin presided over the discussion
Reporter
Ding Pin, a researcher at the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Zhejiang Province, introduced the excavation and finishing of three sites in the "Qianshan Yang Culture" period in Zhejiang, namely Cixi Maoshan, Tonglu Chengtanggang and Shaoxing Xianren Mountain. The Ruins of Maoshan Mountain in Cixi, Ningbo are located at the southern foot of Maoshan Mountain in Dongbutou Village, Zhangqi Town, Cixi City. Surveys and test excavations were conducted in November 2018. From April to July 2021, a small-scale excavation was carried out on the Maoshan site, and the remains can be divided into three phases, the first phase belongs to the late Songze period, and the second and third phases belong to the first and second phases of the Qianshan Yang culture. Excavations have proved that the site should have been a small settlement site in the first phase of the Qianshan Yang culture, and evolved into an artificial terrace protected by multiple stone homs in the second phase of the Qianshan Yang culture. The remains of the two phases of the Qianshan Yang culture at the Maoshan site have obvious differences and show a continuous development inheritance relationship. In the cooking utensils, the remains of a type of residue in which the side flat foot ding accounts for the absolute majority are earlier than the one type of remains characterized by the large coexistence of the side flat foot ding and the arc back fish fin foot ding, and should be earlier than the typical Qianshan Yang culture in which the arc back fish fin foot ding accounts for the absolute majority (taking the first phase of the Qian shan Yang site as an example). The ruins of Chengtanggang are located at the top of the hill at an altitude of 253 meters, and the existing cultural accumulation is mainly in the shape of incoherent pits of different sizes, with an area of about 4500 square meters. The chengtanggang ruins are a relatively simple ruins of a small settlement in the Qianshan Yang period. The geographical location of the Chengtanggang site, the special settlement pattern, the pottery, stone tools and other relics excavated from the site have enriched the connotation of Qianshan Yang culture and provided valuable materials for the comprehensive study of Qianshan Yang culture. Researcher Ding Pin also briefly showed the Shaoxing Xianren Mountain site excavated in October 1985, the second layer of the site belongs to the Qianshan Yang culture period, and of the various types of Ding feet excavated in this layer, the lateral flat feet account for 51%, the arc back fish fin foot accounts for 39%, and the other Ding foot accounts for 10%. The artifacts unearthed in the Qianshan Yang culture period include clay pottery beans, circle foot plates, pots, pots, etc., and the pottery has decorations such as pat embossed rope patterns, basket patterns, string broken rope patterns, staggered rope patterns, basket patterns and checkered patterns, stripes and so on.
Qianshan Yang period pottery found at the Maoshan site
Arc-backed fish finned feet excavated from the Chengtanggang site
The site of Xian Ren Shan excavated all kinds of Dingzu from the Qianshan Yang cultural period
Ding Pin believes that the remains of the late Liangzhu period of the Liangzhu site group (that is, the remains of the late Liangzhu culture as Chen Minghui called), the remains of the first and second phases of the Maoshan Qianshan Yang culture, and the typical Qianshan Yang culture relics represented by the Qianshan Yang site all belong to the Qianshan Yang culture, and according to the hierarchical relationship of the Maoshan site and the proportion change of the lateral flat foot and the large fish fin-shaped foot on the arc back, the Qianshan Yang culture is divided into three phases. The first phase is represented by the remains of the liangzhu late liangzhu period, sanmuli, maoshan qianshan yang culture phase I and jianshan bay 6th layer of the Liangzhu site group, the second phase is represented by xianren mountain, jianshan bay 4-5 layers, Chengtanggang, Maoshan Qianshan Yang culture phase ii, and the third phase is represented by the qianshan yang cultural relics of the Qianshan Yang site.
The number and proportion of lateral flat feet and arc-back finned feet excavated from sites of different stages of the Qianshan Yang culture
Through combing and analyzing, Dr. Li Na believes that the lateral flat foot ding in the Taihu Lake area first appeared in the late Songze culture, disappeared in the core area of the Taihu Lake in the middle of the Liangzhu culture, and then reappeared and gradually became popular in the late Liangzhu culture under the influence of local inheritance and Factors in the Qiantang River basin. The development process of the late Liangzhu culture has undergone two stages: the "quantitative change" of gradually increasing the number and the "qualitative change" that finally replaced the T-shaped foot ding of liangzhu culture.
From the perspective of cultural outlook, a new type of relics formed after the "qualitative change" represented by the side flat foot ding should belong to the early relics of Qianshan Yang culture. Dr. Li Also analyzed the reasons for the reappearance of the lateral flat foot ding in Liangzhu, and believed that it may be the inheritance of local factors that appeared in the core area of Taihu Lake since the late Songze culture and the early Liangzhu culture; another important clue is the Tangshanbei site located in the Qiantang River basin. Judging from the late ruins of the Liangzhu culture on the excavated side and the new remains formed after the qualitative transformation, they are all concentrated in the ancient city of Liangzhu and its surrounding areas, and this qualitative change process may have occurred internally, and first appeared in the ancient city of Liangzhu and its surrounding areas. Later, the prehistoric ancestors on the south and east shores of Taihu Lake were strongly radiated and influenced by the Longshan culture of the yuhui village type from abroad, and merged into the typical Qianshan Yang culture represented by the arc-backed fish fin-shaped foot ding, and quickly spread to all parts of the Taihu Lake, thus accelerating the integration into the civilization process centered on the Central Plains.
The late Liangzhu site with the side flat foot (Ding) excavated in the Taihu Lake area has been excavated
Evolution map of the flat foot ding on the side of the Taihu Lake area
Chen Minghui pointed out that since the discovery of the ancient city of Liangzhu, a number of new remains have been found in the uppermost layer of the city river and the living accumulation of the inner and outer settlements of the western city wall, and the most prominent of such remains is the change of the Ding foot, that is, the original T-shaped Ding foot was replaced by the lateral flat foot. In addition to Ding, many of the other clay pottery still inherit the style of the late Liangzhu period. Based on this change in cultural phenomenon, he believes that the whole process of the late Liangzhu period should be divided into two stages, the first stage is from the fish fin-shaped foot to the T-shaped foot stage, and the latter part is the stage of the lateral flat foot. It also introduces important sites related to the later period of Liangzhu Period, including the four walls of Liangzhu Ancient City, Mojiao Mountain, JiangjiaShan, Zhongjiagang River Channel, Lishan Mountain, Wenjia Mountain and Zhongjia Mountain in Liangzhu Ancient City, Biantan Mountain outside Liangzhu Ancient City, Meirendi and other sites, etc., which are quite commonly distributed. In addition, there are also excavated late Liangzhu artifacts from xiaoshan thatched hill, Sanmuli, Cicheng Xiaodongmen, Ningbo Daxie and other sites. Chen Minghui believes that the "late Liangzhu culture" originated from the Liangzhu culture and eventually merged with the Qianshanyang culture, and in general, the late Liangzhu culture was earlier than the typical Qianshanyang culture, but there was a brief coexistence between the two, and there was also coexistence and exchange with the Haochuan culture. He also mentioned the issue of naming, the relevant names mentioned so far include the remains of the late Liangzhu period, the end of Liangzhu, the early Qianshan Yang culture, the late Liangzhu culture, the Bian Jiashan type, etc., but due to the small number of restored artifacts, insufficient dating data, and not many typical sites, there is still a lot of room for discussion in the naming of this stage, but as a general stage around the Taihu Lake area, it seems that a consensus can be reached.
Late Liangzhu artifacts excavated from the Liangzhu grapeface site
Some artifacts excavated from the Daxie site in Ningbo (the upper column belongs to the late Liangzhu period, and the lower column belongs to the typical Qianshan Yang culture)
Through typological analysis of the basic materials of Liangzhu, Haochuan, Guangfulin and other sites, Chen Jie, deputy director of the Shanghai Museum, concluded that there is a cultural development lineage of "typical Liangzhu culture - Bian Jiashan stage remains - Qianshan Yang stage remains - Guangfulin culture" in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River from the typical Liangzhu culture to the Guangfulin culture. At present, the remains of the Qianshan Yang stage have been relatively clear, and the understanding of the remains of the Bian Jia Shan stage is not sufficient. Taking the Haochuan cemetery as a reference, he proposed that the early Haochuan cemetery can be comparable to the late Liangzhu culture, and the late main body is earlier than the Qianshanyang stage remains that are now known, but there are also very few tombs that are comparable to the remains of the Qianshanyang stage. He mentioned that many of the Neolithic sites in the Lower Yangtze River around the Taihu Lake area have remains that are different from the remains of the late Liangzhu culture and the remains of Qianshan Yang, such as Bian Jia Shan and Wenjia Mountain in the Guangfulin and Liangzhu ruins group, which put forward new requirements for the naming of cultural types between the late Liangzhu culture and the Qianshan Yang stage.
He pointed out that the remnants of the Bian Jia Shan stage are characterized by side-mounted flat square foot dings, large skeleton beans, weeping beans, short-necked and medium-high-necked pottery mane, shallow abdominal circle foot disc, and tube flow cup. The remains of this stage are obviously different from the remains of the Qianshan Yang stage, and the typical units that have been found to be relatively clear in the Qianshan Yang stage are rare or basically missing, and in some sites with relatively clear stratigraphic relationships, the relics of the Bian Jia Shan stage are also rare in the relics left over from the Qian Shan Yang stage. Finally, he pointed out that archaeological remains are an objective existence, but archaeological culture is a certain degree of subjectivity in grasping the collective characteristics of archaeological remains from the perspective of researchers. In the case of insufficient materials, it is necessary to carefully judge the problem of cultural attributes. Since the late liangzhu culture, a large number of foreign cultural factors have entered the Liangzhu cultural circle and become the catalyst for the cultural evolution of the region.
Comparison of the remains of the fifth phase of the Haochuan Cemetery (left) with the remains of the Qianshan Yang stage (right).
Relics excavated on the 10th floor of the Guangfulin site
Yu Chenlong of the Nanjing Museum focused on the excavation results of the Temple Dun site from 2020 to 2021, including the re-unveiling of the aristocratic tomb area represented by M1, M3, M4 and M5 excavated in the early years, and the newly discovered 8 Liangzhu culture tombs and 6 Songze culture tombs. In 2019-2021, the northern and southern edges of the terrace where The Temple Pier M3 is located were learned through field archaeological excavations, and in 2022, the excavation confirmed the speculation on the western edge of the terrace where the noble burial area was located, and the pottery jar with two carved symbols similar to the Dawenkou culture was excavated in the late Liangzhu G17. Finally, he also introduced the chronology of the relics of the Songze culture and the Liangzhu culture that everyone is very concerned about. The remains of the Songze period belong to the late Songze period, dating from 5348-4987 years ago, and the remains of the Liangzhu period belong to the late Liangzhu period, dating between 4879-4526 years ago. He pointed out that in the past, it was believed that the liangzhu period represented by the temple pier M3 was late and belonged to the late stage of the late Liangzhu period, but this time the dating showed that its upper limit or earlier than the previous understanding.
The ruins of the noble burial area of the temple dun site are distributed
The ruins of the temple pier M14 are illuminated and excavated artifacts
Dating of the temple pier site and the corresponding typical artifact combination
The seminar with the theme of "Late Liangzhu" took a number of sites in the Taihu lake area in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River as the material, fully explored the relationship between the late Liangzhu culture and the Qianshan Yang culture, and initially formed the chronological sequence of the relevant relics, that is, the late Liangzhu culture in the early liangzhu culture (some scholars call it the late Liangzhu relics, the Bian Jiashan type, and the Qianshan Yang culture phase I) Typical Qianshan Yang culture (that is, Mr. Ding Pin believes that the Qianshan Yang culture phase II and III). It provides an important basis for clarifying the relationship between Liangzhu culture, Qianshan yang culture and Haochuan culture.
Author: Zhang Yixin
EDIT: Mao Mao
Review: Zheng Jiali
Reprinted from: Zhejiang Archaeology