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Before today's program starts, let me ask you a question: Do you think Chinese civilization has a history of 5,000 years?
As an orthodox history book, the first part of the "History" is the "Five Emperors Benji".
The Five Emperors Benji writes: "The Yellow Emperor, the son of Shaodian, surnamed Gongsun, was known as Xuanyuan. ”
The "Records of History" records a history of more than 3,000 years from the time of the Yellow Emperor in ancient times to the four years of the first four years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
And from the time of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty to today, it is more than 2,000 years,
Therefore, the saying that Chinese civilization has been up and down for 5,000 years has begun to penetrate the hearts of the people.
However, most of the historical materials describe the period of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors and The Tang Yao Yu Shun, which are full of mysterious colors.
It's hard to tell if it's history or myth.
Therefore, there is another way to say that before the Xia Dynasty, even the Xia Dynasty was a legendary era, not a civilization.
The true Chinese civilization should be counted from the beginning of the Shang Dynasty, that is, 3700 years.
So up and down 5,000 years is our nation self-congratulatory, or is it really a thing?
Myths and stories, are they myths or historical facts? Today's video may give you some inspiration.
The story begins in 1936 with a geology and mineral resources assistant at the West Lake Museum in Hangzhou, Shi Xin.
In that year, Shi Xin participated in the excavation of the Gudang site in Hangzhou organized by the museum.
It is a relic of the late Neolithic period. During the excavation, Shi Xin saw a rectangular stone axe with holes.
It seems that I have seen it in the area of my hometown Liangzhu Town. Suddenly, he felt a thread in the darkness pulling him:
Will there be any connection between the archaeological excavations in Gudang and the town of Liangzhu in Yuhang, Hangzhou?
In order to verify his ideas, Shi Xin immediately returned to his hometown liangzhu and ran between the fields all day long, not thinking that he was bitter.
When it comes to archaeology, sometimes it takes luck.
On November 3, 1936, Shi Xingen was passing through a pond that had dried up due to irrigation pumping.
I stumbled upon several pieces of black shiny pottery. Soon, with the support of the West Lake Museum,
Shi Xin presided over three excavations and unearthed a large number of stone tools, pottery and jade in Liangzhu Town.
However, because it was on the eve of the outbreak of the War of Resistance, the excavation work was forced to end hastily.
In 1938, Shi Xin wrote a 50,000-word archaeological excavation report "Liangzhu".
The pale yellow cover and mottled handwriting of the archaeological report are now on display at the Liangzhu Museum.
In 1939, the year after the report was written, Shi Xin, 28, contracted scarlet fever and died of peritonitis.
He would never know what the ancient site he had originally discovered meant.
In 1959, the famous archaeologist Mr. Xia Nai officially named the ruins "Liangzhu Ruins" according to the modern name of the place where it was found.
Unfortunately, in 1936, the Liangzhu site was only a small head, and this silence was half a century.
Anti-Mountain King Mausoleum
After the reform and opening up, the archaeological work was fully restored, and the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology was established in 1979.
As a result of Shi Xingen's Liangzhu report, the excavation of the Liangzhu site has become one of the key archaeological tasks in Zhejiang Province.
In 1986, township enterprises arose. Liangzhu Changsheng Township Agricultural Machinery Factory was converted into production, preparing to build a material factory,
The location was selected for a large area of land around the anti-mountain of The Pheasant Village in Changming Township.
At that time, the anti-mountain looked like a mound about 6 meters above the ground, 120 meters long from east to west, and 40 meters wide from north to south.
But an archaeologist living in the village of Yanshan is in the fault around this mound,
Some small red-burnt soil particles and charcoal particles were found, and occasionally some small pottery pieces were seen, which obviously showed traces of artificial stacking.
Intuition told him that this mound was not simple. His institute of archaeology immediately submitted an application for excavation to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
On May 6, 1986, the archaeological team officially entered The Anti-Mountain to start construction, and soon Tomb No. 12 of the Anti-Mountain was excavated.
This is the first Liangzhu tomb dug up by the Anti-Mountain King Mausoleum and the highest specification today.
The most famous Yu chun and yu yu kings in the Liangzhu cultural sites have been unearthed here.
The jade symbolizes divine power, the jade symbolizes the kingship, and archaeologists speculate that the owner of the tomb is most likely the monarch of Liangzhu.
Another famous artifact was also unearthed from Tomb No. 12 of Anti-Shan, an inlaid jade lacquer cup.
However, because the acidic soil in the south is not conducive to the preservation of organic matter such as lacquerware, the inlaid jade lacquer cup has turned into a beach when it is unearthed.
However, you can still see the lacquer on the surface of the cup and the 141 jade grains embedded in it.
This is a reconstructed picture of an inlaid jade lacquer cup. This inlaid jade lacquer cup is made of wood, jade,
Lacquer art and other exquisite skills in one, but also became one of the signs of the identity and rank of the tomb owner.
The discovery of Tomb No. 12 of the Anti-Mountain led to the 10 tombs in the back, showing the arrangement of the north and south rows.
The high mound of anti-mountain is actually a high-platform cemetery artificially built by the ancestors of Liangzhu.
Start by laying a 1.5-meter-high layer of grass-coated mud on the ground.
Grass-wrapped mud is a piece of silt wrapped in reed flute stems and thatch, which can effectively prevent the infiltration of groundwater.
It is then covered with a layer of sand on the grass-shrouded mud, and finally a 3-meter-thick loess soil is piled on the sand layer to form a high-platform cemetery.
There are more than 1,200 groups of burial jade, stone tools, ivory tools, inlaid jade lacquerware, pottery, etc. excavated from 11 tombs in Anti-Mountain.
In terms of a single piece, there are nearly 4,000 pieces, of which 90% are jade.
According to the specifications of the tomb, along with the number and type of burial items, archaeologists analyzed, in addition to tomb No. 12 of the anti-mountain,
The owners of the remaining 10 tombs are at least liangzhu nobles.
It can also be seen that there was already a hierarchical social structure at that time.
Antic altar
The discovery of the Anti-Mountain King's Tomb has set off a wave of research and collection of Liangzhu jade at home and abroad, which has not faded so far.
At the same time, it stimulated the tomb robbery activities of the Yuhang generation in Hangzhou.
In 1987, villagers in Xiaxiwan Village, Anxi Town, Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, dug up jade at the top of Yaoshan Mountain near the village.
This ensued in a frenzy of excavations. Things soon alarmed the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology,
In May 1987, archaeologists rushed to Yaoshan to carry out rescue excavations.
The cleanup of more than 10 tombs was completed in less than a month.
Judging from the burial items in the tomb, the Yaoshan tomb belongs to the same period as the anti-mountain tomb.
Similar to the anti-mountain, the Yaoshan tombs are also distributed in two rows, north and south.
Tombs No. 7 and 12 in the south row and Tomb 11 in the north row are the highest in rank, and the law of burial funerary products is more obvious.
When the tombs of Yaoshan and Anti-Mountain were excavated, the skeleton of the owner of the tomb had basically turned into a pile of sewage.
Only a few tombs have teeth left, so it is not possible to identify the sex and age of the tomb owner.
However, judging from the law of the burial items of yaoshan tombs, the use of the weapon is only available in the tombs of Nanpai.
Spinning wheels and weaving utensils are only found in the north row tombs, so it is speculated that the south row tomb may be male and the north row tomb may be female.
In addition to more than ten tombs and a large number of exquisite jade objects, Yaoshan also found an altar of Liangzhu culture for the first time.
Yao Mountain is a small hill with an altitude of about 35 meters, which is both an altar and a tomb of nobles.
The ancestors of Liangzhu flattened the top of the mountain and built a square earthen platform, which was in the shape of a bucket-like structure, which was in the direction of the north and south.
The area is about 400 square meters, which has been carefully cut by hand to level it.
The most puzzling thing is that at the top of the altar there is also a zigzag gray earth frame constructed by digging a trench to fill the soil.
The outer frame is about 11 meters long from north to south and about 10 meters wide from east to west; The inner frame is about 7.6 meters long from north to south and about 6 meters wide from east to west;
The stucco frame is about 1.7-2.1 meters wide and 0.65-0.85 meters deep.
Archaeologists were at first puzzled about the use of this zigzag groove.
Until 1991, at Huiguan Mountain, 7 kilometers away from Yao Mountain, another altar with a very similar shape and structure was found.
The Huiguanshan altar is larger, nearly 1500 square meters.
To the west of the top of the altar, a zigzag groove was also made by digging a trench to fill in the soil.
By measuring the orientation of the four corners of the trench, archaeologists found that there was a lot of mystery in it.
The direction pointed by the four corners of the zigzag groove of the altar of Yao Mountain and Huiguan Mountain is surprisingly consistent,
They are all 45°, 135°, 225° and 305° east-north, respectively.
On the day of the summer solstice, the direction of the sunrise coincides with the northeast corner of the two altars,
The direction of the sunset coincides with the northwest corner of the two altars. On the winter solstice, the sun rises from the southeast corner and descends from the southwest corner.
The sun on the day of the spring and autumn equinoxes rises exactly to the east of the altar and sets from the west of the altar.
Such a law obviously cannot be explained by the word "coincidence".
That is, this circular groove at the top of the altar should be used to observe the sun for dating.
It can be seen that the Liangzhu people at that time already had a certain astronomical knowledge.
After the excavation of a series of tombs and sacrifice sites such as Anti-Mountain, Yao Mountain, and Huiguan Mountain was completed,
Archaeologists began searching for a place where the tomb owner lived. At this time, Mojiao Mountain, located on the east side of the Anti-Mountain, caught their attention.
Although Mojiao Mountain is also called "mountain", it is actually an east-west length of more than 670 meters,
A large flat earthen platform about 450 meters wide from north to south. From 1992 to 1993, after 10 months of exploration, on the top of Mojiao Mountain,
Three sites, Little Mojiao Mountain, Big Mojiao Mountain and Turtle Mountain, have emerged one after another.
Among them, Damojiao Mountain is the largest, with an area of nearly 20,000 square meters.
These sites are all artificial rammed earth palace pedestals, all made up of mud and sand layers, with the highest places reaching up to 13 floors.
The thickness of each layer is inconsistent, and the sand layer gradually thickens and the mud layer gradually thins in order from bottom to top.
At present, the mainstream speculation is that this should be a large palace area of Liangzhu culture.
In the eastern slope of the Mojiao Mountain terrace, a large amount of carbonized rice accumulation was also found, and after analysis, it was 26,000 catties.
Thus it was judged that there should have been a large granary in the Palace Area of Mojiao Mountain at that time.
In 2007, archaeologists used GIS (Geographic Information System) to build digital elevation models (DEM).
Discover the outer walls of the ancient city of Liangzhu. The so-called "digital elevation model",
In layman's terms, it is to paint objects of the same height on the map with the same color.
In this way, even if a wall breaks into scattered small sections, because the basic height is the same,
The same color appears on the map, so that the veins of the city walls can be clearly seen.
The discovery of the outer wall of Liangzhu Ancient City marks that the Liangzhu site has entered a new stage of Duyi archaeology.
It is called "stone breaking" by the academic community.
As of 2007, in addition to Anti-Mountain, Yao Mountain, Huiguan Mountain, Mojiao Mountain,
Archaeologists have excavated more than 100 Liangzhu sites such as Tangshan, Wenjiashan and Bianjiashan.
At this point, the whole picture of Liangzhu Ancient City has gradually emerged in front of the eyes of the world.
Liangzhu Ancient City
Like the ancient Egyptian civilization in the Nile Valley, the Sumerian civilization in the Two Rivers Valley, and the Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley,
The ancient city of Liangzhu is also located in the mysterious 30° north latitude.
In the Yuhang District of Hangzhou, there is a C-shaped basin with an area of 1,000 square kilometers. The ancient city of Liangzhu is located in the northern part of the basin.
The basin is backed by the Tianmu Mountains, and on the east side is the Hangjia Lake Plain of the Ichima Pingchuan River, which is at the intersection of mountains and plains.
Rich water systems and fertile land intertwine, along with a warm climate, forming an excellent crop ecosystem,
It also provides material conditions for the development of Liangzhu culture. Liangzhu Ancient City is surrounded by four walls,
It is about 1910 meters long from north to south, about 1770 meters wide from east to west, and the circumference of the city wall is more than 6000 meters long. The total area is about 3 million square meters.
The city wall divides the entire Liangzhu ruins into a triple structure of the palace district, the inner city and the outer city.
The palace area is located in the center of liangzhu ancient city, consisting of the ruins of Mojiao Mountain and the terrace of The Imperial Tomb Mountain and the Terrace of Chizhong Temple on the south side.
The total area is about 400,000 square meters. The inner city was inhabited by a non-agricultural population such as rulers, nobles, and craftsmen.
To the west of the palace area is the Anti-Mountain King Mausoleum Area and the Jiangjiashan and Mulberry Head Noble Tomb Areas. To the east is the Zhongjiagang Workshop District.
The workshop area is distributed along the river, producing and processing jade, lacquered wood, bone ware and large wooden components.
Provide information for the production and life of the Guliangzhu people. A total of 51 large and small ancient rivers have been found in the inner city, most of which are artificially excavated.
It can be said that the ancient city of Liangzhu is born of water and prospers because of water.
The city's water lanes are winding, and the houses are built by the river, as if it is a dream city on the water.
There are 9 gates on the wall separating the inner city and the outer city, of which 8 are water gates, and the east, west, south and north are 2 each.
Only to the south is there a land gate. It shows that transportation at that time mainly relied on bamboo rafts and small boats for water transportation.
At the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists have successively discovered sites such as the Southern Bian Family Mountain and the Eastern Beauty Land located outside the city.
The total area of the inner and outer cities of the ancient city increased to 8 million square meters. The outer city is mainly a residential area for ordinary people and agricultural populations.
Between 2003 and 2006, the Bian Jia Shan site in the outer city was excavated three times and 66 tombs were cleared.
Individual tombs have well-preserved human skeletons, and molecular biologists have unearthed the Y chromosomes of human bones through sampling.
And SNP detection analysis was carried out, speculating that Liangzhu person high school, etc., the face is round, the cheekbones are not prominent, and the almond-shaped eyes,
The hair is dark and straight, and the average life expectancy is between 30-40 years. This is a map of the facial features of Liangzhu male and female reconstructed by experts.
In addition, in addition to the 26,000 kilograms of carbonized rice found on the eastern slope of the Mojiao Mountain terrace,
In 2017, archaeologists found a pile of discarded carbonized rice with an area of more than 5,000 square meters in the Pond Temple terrace.
Weighs up to 200,000 pounds. This shows that there are a large number of grain storage in the ancient city of Liangzhu.
But in the city and in the suburbs, no rice fields have been found, and no more concentrated rice farming tools have been found.
Therefore, archaeologists have judged that the grain should have been transported by water from outside the city to the city.
Later, at the ruins of Maoshan Mountain, 26 kilometers northeast of the city site, the remains of liangzhu rice fields with an area of up to 80 acres were found.
This view is also confirmed. Nobles and craftsmen lived in the city, peasants lived outside the city,
It shows that Liangzhu culture has a clear urban-rural division and social division of labor.
Astonishing astronomical knowledge, hierarchical social structures and highly developed craftsmanship,
So what stage is the Liangzhu culture located in the torrent of history?
According to the phased and carbon-14 dating of excavated artifacts, grass mud, carbonized rice, etc. at archaeological sites,
The Liangzhu culture is determined to have existed in the millennium, which dates from about 5300 to 4300 years ago.
This is 670 years earlier than the Shang Dynasty and 200 years before the Xia Dynasty. Is it true that the Liangzhu culture is the legendary ancient period?
Regarding the identity of the Liangzhu people, we will discuss it later.
First, let's take a look at a carving that frequently appears on Liangzhu jade, also known as the Liangzhu Divine Emblem.
Liangzhu Divine Emblem
Liangzhu culture is famous for jade, and the number of Liangzhu jade excavated over the years has exceeded 15,000.
Rich in variety and exquisitely carved. Among them, the most concerned is the Jade King and the Jade King excavated from tomb No. 12 of The Anti-Mountain.
The Jade King is a yellow-white square cylinder with an inner circle and an outer square, a height of 8.8 cm, and a weight of 6500 grams.
The upper and lower ends are rounded shots with a diameter of 17.1 to 17.6 cm. There are pairs of drilled round holes in the center, with a hole diameter of 4.9 cm.
As a sacrificial tool, the jade contains the world view of the ancient Liangzhu people.
The inner circle of the Qun represents the heavens and the earth, the perforation in the middle represents the communication between heaven and earth, and the cylinder passing through the hole is the pillar of heaven and earth.
It also has the meaning of ladder. The four faces of the Jade King's body are all divided in two by a straight groove in the middle.
Inside the four straight grooves, there is an image of "Divine Man and Beast Face Pattern" carved on the upper and lower sides, a total of eight, which is also known as the "Liangzhu Divine Emblem".
The convex surface of the four corners of the body is divided into four sections by the horizontal groove, and each of the two sections is engraved with a set of simplified emblems.
The angle is the central axis that unfolds to both sides, symmetrical to the left and right. After the excavation of tomb No. 12, the anti-mountain tomb, the archaeologists realized that
The so-called "animal face pattern" that they thought appeared frequently on Liangzhu jade before,
It is actually the image of a half-human, half-beast deity wearing a feathered crown. He held two large beast eyes with both hands,
In the flat mouth, fangs protruding outwards can be faintly seen, and the lower limbs are two curved claws.
However, some scholars believe that the Liangzhu Divine Emblem depicts a sacrificial wizard riding on top of a sacred beast.
However, no matter how it is interpreted, the conclusion that the pattern is the worship of God by the ancestors of Liangzhu has become the consensus of the current academic community.
It is worth mentioning that the Jade King, which represents military power and royal power, is also engraved with the liangzhu god emblem.
It shows that at that time, kingship and theocracy were integrated, and the king was also the spokesman of God.
The most incredible thing about the Liangzhu Divine Emblem is its carving process, which is so subtle that it is almost indecipherable to the naked eye.
Some scholars have measured the pattern of the divine emblem on the Jade King, and there are almost 5-6 fine lines carved in almost every millimeter.
Such a carving process is difficult to reproduce even with modern high technology. This is determined by the jade's greenness.
Within a millimeter of the width of the jade, several parallel lines are made, and the occurrence of cracks is almost inevitable.
Not to mention the era of five thousand years ago when there were no metal tools.
How did the Liangzhu people carve such a complex divine emblem in the range of 3 to 4 centimeters square?
It's still an unsolved mystery.
If you think that's already powerful, then what I'm going to say next is bound to amaze you.
Liangzhu water conservancy system
In March 2016, the Liangzhu site brought another astonishing discovery: a large water conservancy system located in the northwest of the ancient city.
The water conservancy system consists of 1 long causeway, 6 high dams and 4 low dams.
The area of the basin that can be controlled and affected is more than 100 square kilometers.
The total earthwork volume of the Liangzhu water conservancy system is about 2.88 million cubic meters, and the total amount of water storage can reach 46 million cubic meters.
The ratio of engineering quantity to water storage is about 1:16, even when measured by modern hydraulic engineering standards,
The Liangzhu water conservancy system is also very efficient.
In the construction of the dam, the Ancestors of Liangzhu used the way of grass wrapping mud and piling up vertically and horizontally, and finally covering the loess soil.
As we mentioned earlier, the grass wrapping mud is wrapped in pieces of silt like a rice dumpling with reed flute stems and thatch.
Lashing is secure. By wrapping the grass can increase the strength of the soil by up to 6 times,
The bearing capacity of the crisscrossing pile is twice that of the seam.
The principle of grass wrapping mud is similar to the sandbags in modern flood fighting and rescue,
It can be seen that the Liangzhu people 5,000 years ago already had a very deep understanding of water conservancy engineering construction.
By extracting the residual carbon elements in the grass-wrapped mud, the age test is carried out,
Archaeologists have determined that these dams were built about 5100 to 4700 years ago.
The myth of dayu zhishui has always been passed down by word of mouth, which occurred about 4100 years ago.
That is to say, the Liangzhu water conservancy system is 600 to 1,000 years earlier than the legend of Dayu Zhishui.
This directly rewrites the history of water conservancy development in China and the world.
The Liangzhu Water Conservancy System was the largest in the world at the time and the oldest water conservancy project in China.
As we mentioned just now, the total amount of earthwork for all dam bodies is 2.88 million cubic meters,
According to the excavation, transportation and filling of each cubic meter of soil, it takes 3 labors to calculate,
About 8.6 million people were needed to build the 11 dams. If it were built by 10,000 people, it would take about two and a half years of continuous work.
If only 100 days of agricultural leisure time are used to participate in the construction, it will take nearly 9 years for 10,000 people to complete the construction of the water conservancy system.
If the ruins of Liangzhu Ancient City and the peripheral water conservancy projects are added together, the total amount of earthwork required is about 10.05 million cubic meters,
It is nearly twice the amount of earthwork required for the pyramid complex of Giza in ancient Egypt.
All this tells us that more than 5,000 years ago, there must have been a strong, organized governing body here.
Only in this way can we mobilize so many manpower and material resources to carry out continuous project construction and complete logistical support.
In addition, carbon-14 dating shows that the ancient city of Liangzhu and the dam were built in the early Liangzhu culture more than 5,000 years ago.
That is to say, as soon as the ancestors of Liangzhu gained a foothold here, they began to be ambitious to change the world.
The straight-line distance between the farthest dam and the ancient city is about 11 kilometers; The distance between high and low dams is 3.5 km;
Tangshan Long Causeway is the closest to the ancient city, about 2 kilometers north of the city, and the entire project is beyond the distance that can be seen by the naked eye.
Today we have GPS, remote sensing and mapping technology, and satellite pictures, but where did the Liangzhu ancestors get it
What about the "God perspective"? China is often ridiculed as today's 'infrastructure maniac', and I believe that this title liangzhu ancestors are also worthy.
Returning to the question just now, who is the Liangzhu people who have created so many miracles?
Warm reminder, the next part of the content contains a lot of myths and legends and speculations, do not like can skip.
Identity speculation one: the forgotten Tang Yu Dynasty
At present, mainstream historians believe that the Xia Dynasty was the first hereditary dynasty in Chinese history and the beginning of the "family world".
The Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project determines the beginning of the Xia Dynasty in 2070 BC.
Myths and legends also tell us that before the Xia Dynasty, there was also an ancient mythological era of three emperors and five emperors.
But in fact, between the Three Emperors and Five Emperors and the Xia Dynasty, there was also a period known as the "Reign of Tang Yu".
Ruled successively by Tang Yao and Yu Shun, it is known as the Tang Dynasty and the Yu Dynasty.
Of course, this Tang Dynasty has nothing to do with Li Shimin.
A small number of historians believe that "Tang Yu" should be the beginning of Chinese history. The Liangzhu culture is the Yu Dynasty that has been forgotten by history.
There are many ancient texts in the pre-Qin period that mention the Yu Dynasty.
In the Thirteenth Year of Zuo Chuan Chenggong, it is said that the princes of Zhengdong, Yu, Xia, Shang, and Zhou Zhiyin yìn and qin.
In the "Lü Shi Chunqiu Trial And Ying", it is said: There are no survivors of Jinyu, Xia, Yin, and Zhou.
The ruler of the Yu Dynasty, Shun, was the seventh grandson of the Yellow Emperor of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors.
"Han Feizi. In the Xianxue, it is recorded that "Yin and Zhou are more than 700 years old, and Yu and Xia are more than 2,000 years old",
"Now I want to judge the way of Yao and Shun before the age of three thousand." This means that the Yin Zhou period, as Confucianism calls it,
It's been more than seven hundred years now. The Yuxia period promoted by the Mo family has been two years now,
And Yao Shun's thoughts were more than 3,000 years ago.
Xu Hongxiu, a professor of history at Shandong University, based on this account,
It is inferred that the Yu Dynasty should have existed between 3300 BC and 2100 BC. This coincides with the era of Liangzhu culture.
However, this view does not explain the succession of the Yu Dynasty and the Xia Dynasty.
The liangzhu culture, which flourished at the moment, suddenly died out in the southeast region around 4300 years ago.
This has always been a puzzle that has plagued academia.
According to the currently known archaeological findings, after the Liangzhu culture, the Maqiao culture appeared in the southeast region.
However, there is between the Maqiao culture (3800-3200 years ago) and the Liangzhu culture (5300-4300 years ago).
There is a gap of 500 years. Moreover, Liangzhu culture has formed the social structure of a chiefdom or country, with developed agriculture.
Advanced handicraft and construction industry. But then the Maqiao culture fell back to the economic state of self-sufficiency, hunting and picking.
It reverted to a more dispersed tribal society.
Therefore, it can be judged that there is no direct inheritance relationship between Maqiao culture and Liangzhu culture.
Regarding the mystery of the disappearance of the Liangzhu people, there are currently theories of climate deterioration, flood disasters, northward migration, and coastal invasion.
Expansion failure theory and several other different guesses. Among them, climate deterioration, flooding and northward migration are closely related.
Some scholars believe that around 4,000 years ago, the Earth began to enter a Xiaoice period.
Temperatures and precipitation vary greatly, and droughts and floods and other natural disasters occur frequently.
Although the Liangzhu people have built 11 dams, they are still unable to withstand the fierce floods one after another.
In desperation, the ancestors of Liangzhu chose to move north and came to the Central Plains.
It took root and multiplied here, and rose to prominence after the Xia Dynasty.
At almost the same time as the decline of Liangzhu culture,
The ruins of the Tao Temple and the Shiya ruins in the Central Plains have suddenly emerged a large number of Liangzhu cultural factors.
Unearthed the most liangzhu characteristics of jade ceremonial vessels such as jade and jade bi,
This at least shows one point: after 2300 BC, the group that created the Liangzhu culture did not completely disappear.
Even if they did not move north to the Central Plains, they must have had some kind of exchange with the many tribes in the Central Plains.
Not only that, most of the sites of the late Liangzhu period were excavated under the silt layer, and the volume of the silt layer is very large and exists for a long time.
This shows that the sudden decline of Liangzhu civilization is likely to have encountered serious flood disasters.
But as I said earlier, the flood theory and the northward migration theory are still in the stage of speculation.
If you want to hammer, you need more evidence to support it.
Identity speculation two: Xuanyu Jiuli tribe
Another speculation about the identity of the Liangzhu people is that it is a branch of the Youjiuli tribe of the god of war.
Chinese often refer to themselves as "descendants of Yan Huang", and here Yan and Huang refer to YanDi and Huangdi respectively.
Emperor Yan, of the Shennong clan, was the ruler of the Tribe of Jiang in ancient times. The Yellow Emperor was the ruler of the Huaxia tribe.
But in fact, in ancient times, in addition to the Jiang tribe and the Huaxia tribe, there was also a famous tribe, the Jiuli tribe.
And Xuanyu is the chief of the Jiuli tribe. Emperor Yan, Emperor, and Emperor Xuanyou are also known as the Three Ancestors of China.
Unlike the Jiang tribe and the Huaxia tribe, Jiuli is actually a tribal alliance.
It is composed of nine tribes living in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin and along the Yangtze River Basin.
Footprints throughout Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions.
There is a saying in the Book of Yizhou that Xuan You was once a secretary of Emperor Yan and was placed by Emperor Yan in Shaohao's fiefdom.
Shao Hao's jurisdiction was southwest of Lu, that is, the area south of the mountain.
Coincidentally, the area around Lunan and Northern Jiangsu (the area where southern Shandong is connected to northern Jiangsu) happens to be the archaeological Liangzhu culture
The northern boundary of the distribution. The activity area of the Jiuli tribe of Xuanyou, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, also coincides with the coverage of liangzhu culture.
In addition, the Chronicle of History. The Five Emperors and the Classic of Mountains and Seas. The Great Wilderness Of the North Classics are all recorded
An ancient war that took place about 5,000 years ago.
Legend has it that at that time, Xuan You disrespected the Yellow Emperor, and the Yellow Emperor competed for a place to live,
He went north to Zhuolu County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, and fought a fierce battle.
Emperor Yan was afraid of harming himself, so he and the Yellow Emperor allied with xuan you to start a war. This is the famous Battle of Zhuolu.
The coalition forces captured Xuan You and killed him in Jizhou.
Xuanyu was defeated, and part of his tribe was annexed to the Yanhuang tribe, and the other part moved south.
So is it possible that the Liangzhu people are one of the Xuanyu tribes?
(The Classic of Mountains and Seas. The Great Wilderness Northern Classic records that "Xuan You made a soldier to attack the Yellow Emperor, and the Yellow Emperor was the wilderness of Jizhou that Ying Long attacked."
In response to the dragon livestock water, Xuan You asked the wind and rain master, and let the wind and rain blow. The Yellow Emperor was the daughter of the heavens, and the rain stopped, so she killed You.
The stingray shall not be restored, and the dwelling shall not rain."
The "History of the Five Emperors" says: "The clams are particularly chaotic, and there is no need for the emperor's orders."
Therefore, the Yellow Emperor was a prince of the Conquest Division, and fought with Xuan You in the field of Zhuolu, so he captured and killed Xuan You. ”）
Identity speculation three: Yu Republic of China
In the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Overseas Southern Classic, it is said that there is a Republic of Yu in the southeast, where the subjects have human heads.
But the face is long and narrow, like a bird, and the body is covered with feathers.
"Huainanzi" also says that people in the Republic of Yu can fly, but they don't fly far.
("Shan Hai Jing: Overseas South Classic", "Yu Republic of China is in its southeast, and it is a man with a long head and a feather.")
One is in the southeast of the bird, which has long cheeks. ”）
Coincidentally, the Liangzhu culture also has elements of bird worship. In the Liangzhu site, a number of bird-shaped jade objects were excavated.
One of them, like the Emblem of Liangzhu, is carved with a pair of glowing eyes.
Therefore, some scholars speculate that the divine beast in the Liangzhu Divine Emblem is actually a divine bird, or an image of a human-bird combination.
So will the Liangzhu people be the Yu people recorded in the Shan Hai Sutra?
Identity Speculation IV: The Mayan Civilization of the East
The last speculation about the identity of the Liangzhu people is extremely subversive.
In 1839, the American explorer John H. John Lloyd Stephens
Came to the village of Copán on the western border of Honduras in Central America.
Guided by a local guide, he walked through the dense forest and saw the ruins of a city annihilated by huge vines and vines.
Stephens was stunned by the pyramids, ruins, and various mysterious and strange stone sculptures in front of him. This huge site that he found,
It is copan Ruinas, the once capital of the ancient Mayan civilization, which is now famous all over the world.
The Copan ruins are located in a 13 km long and 2.5 km wide gorge, at an altitude of 600 meters above sea level, covering an area of about 15 hectares.
Surrounded by mountains and rivers, the land is fertile. The core part of the site is a religious building ,
There are mainly pyramid altars, squares, temples, stone steps, stone tablets and carvings.
In 2015, Chinese archaeologist Li Xinwei led a team to the Copan site for an expedition.
And this trip to Central America gave him an unexpected bonus.
He found many Figures of Liangzhu Culture at the Copan site of the Mayan civilization.
Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, the Mayan pyramids of the Americas are radioactive and have steps on all four sides.
Looking down from the air, the four-sided staircase intersects exactly in a cross, dividing the pyramid into four equal parts.
This is similar to the straight grooves on the four faces of Liangzhu Yuchun.
Liangzhu Yuqun is also divided into small sections by horizontal grooves, equivalent to the large stone steps of the Mayan pyramids.
To some extent, both the jade and mayan pyramids present a "four-square-center" structure (from four squares to center).
Although the use of the Egyptian pyramids has not yet been determined, the main function of the Mayan pyramids is to sacrifice and observe celestial phenomena.
In the Liangzhu culture, the jade is also an important sacrificial vessel.
In addition, the carving at the entrance to the Rosalila Rosalila Temple found at the Site of Copán also resembles the emblem of the God of Liangzhu.
Neither the Mayan nor Liangzhu city construction has found traces of the use of metal, both have a wealth of astronomical knowledge,
and incredible agricultural and handicraft levels. With so much in common, could it be that the Liangzhu and Maya were of the same ancestry?
Professor Zhang Guangzhi, a Chinese-American archaeologist, even proposed the concept of the "Mayan-Chinese cultural continuum".
Professor William H. Thompson of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Farsh William L. Fash also insisted that
Mayan archaeology must involve Chinese scholars to understand it more thoroughly.
But if these two cultures are really a continuum, who is their common ancestor?
Let's go back to the Battle of Zhuolu just mentioned.
Although the history of this war is a one-time experience, the Classic of Mountains and Seas has a detailed record.
The Shan Hai Sutra says that in that war, the descendants of the Yan Emperor of the Shennong clan, the Kwa Father Clan, chose to turn their backs on the Yan Emperor clan.
He stood with Xuan You and joined forces to fight against the Yellow Emperor Yan Emperor. The two sides fought for nine rounds, and it was still difficult to score.
In the end, the Yellow Emperor invited strong foreign aid to the Nine Heavenly Geniuses, and the Xuanyu tribe was finally defeated.
The body of the god of war, Xuan you, was dismembered into pieces. At this time, Father Kwa did not want his people to become cannon fodder and chose to evacuate.
In the process of covering the retreat of his people, He was captured and killed by Ying Long, and he was killed by blood.
But at the same time, the Kwafu clan also managed to escape eastward to the Weishui River Basin.
A few years later, the population of the Kwafu tribe in the Weishui River Basin grew, and the living space was threatened, so they had to choose to divert.
The new head of the Kwa father clan led some of his people on a journey to the area of present-day Lake Baikal.
This migration process is described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. It is also recorded in the Overseas North Classic.
("The Father is expelled from the sun and enters the day; Thirsty to drink, drink in the river; River Wei is insufficient, north drink Osawa.....")
I don't know how many years later, the new Kwapa clan leader set off again, along the Sea of Ohoci to reach the Kanchaga Peninsula;
Later, it crossed the Bering Strait, reached the Alaska region of North America, and then went east to the west coast of Canada.
In this way, the civilization of the East came to the Americas. Here's another phenomenon.
I don't know if you have noticed the feathered serpent god and the moon god in the Mayan civilization,
What about the surprising resemblance to Fuxi and Chang'e in Chinese mythology?
American Henriette. Mercz Henriette Mertz,
Spent years carrying a backpack on the desolate land of the American Midwest, using the most primitive method,
That is, their own footsteps, measuring the distance between mountains and mountains,
The conclusion reached is that the Classic of Mountains and Seas. The mountains, the main peaks, and the rivers described in the Dongshan Sutra and the Great Desolation of the Eastern Classic,
It's in the United States, not in China. No wonder some people say that the Classic of Mountains and Seas actually hides a lost history of the world.
The story goes a little farther, and we return to the Liangzhu site.
In July 2019, the Liangzhu site was granted to the World Heritage List, but the matter has attracted great controversy.
The key point of the controversy is not the application itself, but the Liangzhu, whether it should be called "culture" or "civilization".
Can it be regarded as an empirical evidence of China's 5,000-year civilization?
In 1968, British archaeologist Glyn Daniel wrote in The First Civilizations
For the first time, the concept of the three elements of civilization was proposed, namely the city, writing, and complex etiquette.
Daniel believes that a society with two of these three elements can basically be judged to have entered the age of civilization.
For the Liangzhu culture, they obviously already have a certain scale of the city, and complex sacrifices,
Worship, funeral rites. So does Liangzhu have writing? On many pottery and pottery fragments excavated at the Liangzhu site,
A large number of carved symbols were found. Some are like hoes, some are like rice ears, and some are like fish and shrimp.
As of 2015, relevant scholars have sorted out 656 Liangzhu carved symbols, distributed on 554 artifacts.
There are more than 340 kinds of symbols, and he has edited and published the book "Liangzhu Cultural Portrayal Symbols".
Whether these carved symbols can be called words is a matter of opinion.
But one thing is certain, these symbols are consciously portrayed, even if they cannot be fully acknowledged as a kind of writing.
It also already has the pictographic function of the text, which is an "initial form" of the text.
In 1985, the Chinese archaeologist Xia Nai proposed that the criteria for judging whether civilization has been formed should be cities, writing, and metallurgy.
All three are available. This has become the three elements of new civilization that are currently popular in Chinese and Western academia.
As we just said, Liangzhu does not have metallurgy, so according to this standard, Liangzhu is certain that it should not be called civilization.
However, we must know that there are many civilizations in the world that do not have the "three elements" at the same time.
For example, the Maya civilization, like the Liangzhu civilization, did not have metallurgy. The glorious Inca civilization was a civilization without writing.
It can be seen that these "three elements" are not standards of universal significance.
Another reason why many people are reluctant to recognize Liangzhu civilization is that if Liangzhu is regarded as the source of Chinese civilization,
Wouldn't that be to subvert the traditional understanding that "Chinese civilization originated in the Central Plains"?
People with such ideas ignore the fact that Chinese civilization itself is not of local origin.
Nor is it a single center, but multiple sources concurrently. Highly developed prehistoric culture, both existing in the Central Plains,
It is also distributed in western Liaoning, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the lower reaches of the Yellow River, Jiangsu and Zhejiang and other regions.
This is the "full sky and star bucket theory" proposed by Mr. Su Bingqi, a giant of archaeology.
Chinese civilization is in the process of collision and integration of different cultures,
Gradually formed today's colorful, inclusive and inclusive appearance.
Back to the original question of the video, is Chinese civilization 5,000 years old?
I believe that everyone has their own answer in their heart.
5,000 years ago, a group of hard-working and intelligent Liangzhu people created a brilliant Liangzhu culture.
5,000 years later, another Liangzhu man who loves archaeology and is wise and diligent, Shi Xingen, because of a stone axe,
It took us 50,000 words to write an archaeological report that gave us the privilege of reliving the miracles created by our ancestors.
This may also be a kind of inheritance.