The discovery of the silk tree at the Shi'an site is why experts say it is important because it is the most suitable artifact for the dating

Among the ruins of the mainland stone barrier, archaeologists have found a special horizontal wood, which has proved to be the earliest wooden in the history of domestic architecture, and also has a very important use. What exactly is this use? If you want to know, let Xiaobian reveal the secret for you:

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During the Han Dynasty on the mainland, culture was once pushed to the climax of its peak. The Han Dynasty inherited the legacy of the Shang Zhou Dynasty and the style of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and its brilliance and dazzling degree can be called remarkable. It is worth mentioning that the cultural heritage of the Han Dynasty is not only reflected in the so-called "Four Books and Five Classics", but also its architectural style and techniques have also become a template for future generations to learn and emulate.

In the Han Dynasty, most of the buildings were mainly supported by walls, and the production method of the walls themselves also relied on slabs to build rammed earth, and a layer of scarlet fine silt was applied to the outside of the walls. Zhang Heng, the most famous literary scholar at that time, once mentioned the term "earth by Zhu Zi" in his "Xijing Fu", which shows the magnificent scale of the walls of the Han Dynasty at that time.

The walls of the Han Dynasty are built in a variety of ways, but "all changes are inseparable from their ancestors", and the most simple principle of its interior is still based on bricks and adobes, and with silk wood as an auxiliary structure. In the ruins of Chang'an City in the Han Dynasty, archaeologists have found a special wall, and in the wall, there are many remnants of wood.

At this time, many readers may be curious, what is the wood? Originally, the silk wood is a kind of wood placed horizontally in the wall, and its role is to strengthen the wall itself. It is no exaggeration to say that a section of paved wood wall stands on the spot, and it is difficult for an adult to destroy it using a steel braze.

Around 1976, when a professor from the Department of Archaeology of Northwest University went to Shanxi to investigate, he happened to hear some information about the Shenmu Stone Pass in the local area, so he specially dispatched manpower from the Beijing area, and finally through unremitting efforts, discovered the site of the Stone Pass. According to scientific research, the Shi'an site is the largest site of the late Longshan to early Xia Dynasty that has been found on the mainland, located in the hinterland of Shaanxi Province, belonging to the neolithic relics, about 4,000 years old, with an area of more than 4.25 million square meters.

After archaeologists discovered the site of Shi'e, they immediately launched a series of investigation activities on it, and obtained more precious materials, providing a lot of information for the treasure house of mainland archaeology and culture.

It is worth mentioning that in the process of cleaning up the ruins of Shiya, archaeologists accidentally found a section of the city wall with a great degree of damage, and used scientific instruments to chemically analyze it, extracting a large number of valuable items from the wall, including dry grass, bones, white ash, charcoal, etc., indicating that people at that time already had advanced technology for making earthen walls.

At this time, some readers may be curious, how did the ancients master this kind of wall-building technology? In fact, the answer to the question is also very simple, that is, the living environment of the ancients is quite harsh, and even at night, they will be attacked by wild beasts or enemies, so a strong wall will become an important barrier for tribal people.

What is more interesting is that within the wall, there are also many trees, the wood of the wood is generally the root of the tree inward, and the canopy outward, the neatness of the placement is very amazing, and the thickness and size specifications are similar, determined to be the product of strict manual screening. Archaeologists believe that the role of the wood found in the Shi'an site this time is also very obvious, that is, it acts as a "steel bar" and provides a reliable support skeleton for the wall itself.

As we all know, wood is only wood after all, completely inferior to the corrosion resistance of steel, so once the tree leaves the root system, the shelf life of its wood will be greatly shortened, as short as a few years, more than twenty years, the wood will rot and deteriorate due to the erosion of wind and rain. From this, we can draw a relatively accurate conclusion, that is, the ancients generally used it as soon as possible after cutting wood, rather than waiting for a long time. It is precisely because of this that archaeologists can roughly locate the age of the walls in the stone site according to the age attributes of the stone tree itself.

Sure enough, archaeologists examined the wood using carbon-14 technology, and it was found that the tree was cut down from about 2200 BC to 1900 BC. In other words, the buildings in the Shi'an site were also built around this time. From this, we can also find that the emergence of the tree provides a very reliable basis for determining the dating properties of the Shiya site.

Speaking of this, we have to sigh that the wisdom of archaeologists is infinite, and human civilization is also brilliant and vast. A small piece of silk wood can travel through thousands of years of time, bring the oldest memory to modern people, and also interpret the great architectural masterpieces of people of an era, and its own historical value cannot be underestimated, and it is more worthy of everyone's study and deep thinking. More importantly, we can find a truth in this, that is, for archaeologists, the value of any cultural relic is not only its commercial value, but its contribution to history, to mankind, and to society.

References: Archaeological Records by Zhang Jinlong published by Jilin Publishing House

Wen xiucai, editor-in-chief of Wenlan Hairun Studio, written by: Special history writer: Changshan Zhao Zi worm