Why Tunpu Archaeology? What is Tunpu Archaeology? How to carry out Tunpu archaeology? On August 29, at the panel discussion of the seminar "Historical Value and Contemporary Significance of Tunpu Culture", Li Fei, director of Guizhou Provincial Museum, spoke about the "three whys", which brought Tunpu culture into the field of archaeological vision, which was unanimously recognized and endorsed by the participating experts and scholars.
Why Tunpu Archaeology? "Tunpu archaeology is an important method and means for the study of Tunpu culture." Li Fei said.
Li Fei introduced that to carry out the archaeology of Tunpu, it is necessary to return to the historical site of the Ming Dynasty, take Tunpu and related Ming Dynasty relics as the starting point, make a scientific explanation of why Guizhou, and respond to the major practical concern of the Ming Dynasty on the founding role of Guizhou. The Guizhou Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has carried out a series of active explorations.
"In the eleventh year of the Ming Dynasty (1413), Guizhou became a new provincial-level administrative region, and the soil and flow were ruled together, and the Weisho was implemented, which had a wide and far-reaching impact on today's Guizhou. How are these impacts reflected? This is precisely the question that Tunpu archaeology aims to answer. ”
"The main line is the impact of the establishment of the Weisho and its gradual prefectureization on the pattern of Guizhou, many of which later became towns, and the peripheral tunpu became villages, which has a real impact on the pattern of towns and villages in Guizhou today; How immigrants integrate and change Guizhou is a secondary line, and the Weisho military families played the role of cultural builders and disseminators in Guizhou's Ming and Qing dynasty society, some of them have always maintained the identity of Han people, such as the Fuquan Ge clan, and some have "changed Han into seedlings", such as the Sanmentang Liu clan and the Huaxi Town Mountain Village Li clan. The ancestral home of Weisuo immigrants has a subtle impact on the surrounding people, and the ancestral origin of the Han land has become a common ancestral narrative of ethnic minorities in Guizhou, which is a very interesting phenomenon. ”
"In short, Tunpu archaeology is to give a scientific answer to how the Ming Dynasty shaped Guizhou." Li Fei said.
What is Tunpu Archaeology? "The archaeology of Tunpu as I understand it is a comprehensive research topic that combines multiple disciplines with Tunpu and other Ming Dynasty relics with distinct regional characteristics as the main object and archaeology as the main means of exploration. It is intended to answer the practical question of how the Ming Dynasty shaped today's Guizhou, and is part of the so-called 'Ming archaeology'. Here, Tunpu and archaeology are taken in a broad sense, that is, based on the object of Tunpu and the means of archaeology, but not limited to this. Li Fei said frankly.
The Ming Dynasty was an important period in the history of Guizhou and had a profound impact on today's Guizhou. There are three key words: soil flow and governance, health office first, and province and rule.
Tunpu is a historical relic of the Weisho system in the Ming Dynasty, in other words, the Weisho system is the soul of Tunpu. As a geographical unit and a place of tunshu, the guardhouse is an important town for the garrison, and outside the wall of the guardhouse, there are military facilities such as shops, passes, forts, and villages, and the tunbao is the grassroots society of the guardhouse. During the social changes of the Ming and Qing dynasties, some of these military facilities evolved into market towns, and some villages where the descendants of the Weisuo Tunjun gathered formed Tunbao villages with distinctive characteristics. "In this sense, the key to the archaeology of Tunpu should be the exploration of the guardhouse. From the perspective of archaeology, the first is the investigation, excavation and research of the remains of Guizhou Wei. Li Fei said.
"It is generally believed that the social turmoil of ethnic minorities in Guizhou was the key factor in the final formation of the Guizhou Weisho, so the early Weisho set up the Weisho wherever there was resistance. Then, he gradually realized the strategic significance of controlling the traffic line, and changed to a parallel setting model of post station and health station. Since then, the layout of traffic lines has become one of the important features of Guizhou Weisho. The post station has the difference between station, post, fort and shop, and the station is a military station and is responsible for carrying it; The post station is responsible for reception and escort; The fort is guarded at risk, checking pedestrians; The shop is responsible for the delivery of official documents and is a place to rest and have lunch. It can be seen that it overlaps with the forts, shops, villages, passes, etc. of the Weisho, and is often confused, which reflects the institutional arrangement set up in parallel between the post station and the guard house from one side, and also shows that the combing of the post station should also be the proper meaning of the archaeology of Tunpu. ”
"Simply put, the archaeology of Tunpu cannot be limited to the villages called Tunbao in the area of present-day Anshun, but should also include the combing of the Guizhou Weisho and post stations, as well as those villages that are not called Tunbao where the descendants of the Weisho military families gather, such as the Tianzhu Sanmentang Dong ethnic village (Dong ethnic group living in nine, Miao ethnic group living one) that is considered to be a descendant of the Liu family of the commander of the Bronze Drum Guard. Because of the implementation of the Weisho system, there is the emergence of Tunpu, and the archaeology of Tunpu should be a comprehensive study of the history of Guizhou in the Ming Dynasty with Weisho as the starting point. ”
How to carry out Tunpu archaeology? Li Fei introduced, the first is the combination of points, lines and surfaces. Noodle is to understand the operation of the Ming Dynasty Central Committee in Guizhou from the height of national strategy under the framework of institutional history, taking into account the three departments (Dusi, Buzhengsi, and Zhaochasi), Fuzhou County, Weisho, Post Station, Village and specific people, which is a three-dimensional presentation. The line is the two lines of the guard house and the post road. Point is to select some representative points to carry out in-depth work on the basis of sorting out the entire surface and two lines. The choice of points should take into account the guardhouse, post station and village.
"The second is the combination of archaeology, literature and word of mouth, or the combination of multiple disciplines. Archaeology, literature and word of mouth are the methodologies we proposed when exploring the Qing Dynasty Yingpan site of Fenggang Agate Mountain, and achieved good results. Li Fei believes that exploring the pattern, age, nature and connotation of sites such as Weisho is the strength of archaeology, and once in-depth investigation and excavation work is launched, there will be many new discoveries. There are already many documents in the Ming Dynasty, in addition to official documents such as "History of Ming", "Ming Shilu" and "Martial Position Selection Book", there are also Fang Zhi, personal literary theory, etc., while folk documents such as genealogy, inscriptions, and contracts should be collected with special attention in field work. Word of mouth is a text that flows between the mouths of local people, and it is also a very important research material, and the study of historical anthropology pays great attention to the collection of such texts, such as Wang Mingke's research on the Qiang region. In terms of materials, archaeological materials, documentary records and word-of-mouth legends are combined. In terms of disciplines, archaeology is the main means of exploration, combined with history, philology, ethnology, anthropology and linguistics, etc., in order to present a flesh-and-blood world.
"The third is the combination of practice and theory. Paying attention to theoretical exploration is the prerequisite for making breakthroughs in practice. In this regard, we have some accumulation in the archaeology of toast. The in-depth discussion of the concepts, theories and methods of Tunpu archaeology is bound to guide the practice of Tunpu archaeology to be targeted and have a wide impact like Tusi archaeology, otherwise our practice will not have universal applicability and attention. This seminar, I think, is an attempt to combine theory and practice, which is both retreat and pragmatic. ”
"The fourth is the combination of excavation, research, protection, display and publicity." Li Fei introduced that in the process of excavation and research, it is necessary to consider the issue of protection and display, so that the achievements of cultural heritage protection can benefit more people. "At some specific time nodes, we can come up with corresponding funds to support the display of archaeological results in Tunpu. In publicity, including the launch of academic achievements and media promotion, at present, you can consider editing and publishing a collection of inscriptions related to Weisho, and the "Selected Inscriptions of Guizhou Province" published by the Guizhou Provincial Museum in the early years has a considerable number of epitaph materials of Weisho military families, among which Zhan has a set of epitaphs, which more completely outline the lineage of Zhan and the new choices of military families in addition to hereditary military attachés. A group of epitaphs of Xu, the commander of Guizhou Wei, were also unearthed in the tomb of Xitianba Ming. As an important platform for displaying and publicizing the history and culture of Guizhou, Guizhou Provincial Museum can make some positive achievements in displaying and promoting Tunpu culture in the future. ”
Guizhou Daily Tianyan News reporter Nie Na
Edit by Xiang Ying
Second Trial Chen Guixuan
Third Trial Nie Na