Text, photo/ Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Liang Zhengjie Correspondent Guan Yunqi Li Yingwei
Recently, the "Listening to the Night Talk" historical and cultural lecture organized by the Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports of Nanhai District of Foshan City, the Nanhai Museum Alliance, and the Guangdong Daguan Museum invited the chief officials, experts and scholars of the cultural functional departments to discuss the excavation and research of the stone tool ancient ruins of Xiqiao Mountain and the cultural value of Xiqiao Mountain with the theme of "Xiqiao Mountain Culture Talk". The Xiqiao Mountain culture is of great significance to the archaeological research of the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong Province and even South China.
Archaeological discoveries of Xiqiao Mountain
Guan Xiang, a famous scholar in Xiqiao, showed reporters the long-shouldered axe stone tools
In the 1950s, Guan Xiang, who was teaching at Xiqiao Middle School, accidentally found some special stones in a ravine dug by workers at the foot of the mountain. He looked closely and found that there were obvious traces of polishing on the stones, so he deduced that these may be ancient stone tools. According to the archaeology professionals of Sun Yat-sen University, these stones found by Guan Xiang are indeed stone tools. "This discovery has attracted the attention of the domestic archaeological community, and it confirms that Xiqiao Mountain is the earliest stone tool manufacturing site in the prehistoric period of South China." Guan Xiang said.
According to the "Archaeological Research on the Site of Xiqiao Mountain", in the spring of 1958, the Xiqiao Mountain Water Conservancy Project in the South China Sea broke ground, and a large number of artificially created stone tools materials were turned out in the flood fan in front of the mountain, and after many times of collection and investigation by experts, the archaeological prelude to the "Stone Age" of Xiqiao Mountain was gradually opened. Subsequently, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Museum and Nanhai Culture Science and Education and other units carried out many excavations on Xiqiao Mountain and found 14 stone tool scattering points.
In the winter of 1959, Professor Liang Zhaotao of the Department of History of Sun Yat-sen University held a meeting in Beijing to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the discovery of the first skull of the Chinese ape man: "Most of the stone tools of Xiqiao Mountain are beaten stone tools with the characteristics of the late Paleolithic, but also contain the culture of the early Neolithic period, and the relics of Xiqiao Mountain are likely to belong to the Mesolithic Age." "This new discovery has focused the attention of the archaeological community on Xiqiao Mountain.
The sites of early human activities found in Xiqiao Mountain in the South China Sea have attracted the attention of Jia Lanpo, a well-known archaeology expert in China and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of 1960, Jia Lanpo made a special trip to Xiqiao Mountain to investigate. After the inspection, he affirmed the important archaeological discoveries of Xiqiao Mountain in the academic papers he wrote, and took the lead in proposing that the Xiqiao Mountain site and the Emaokou site in Shanxi be listed as the two major stone tool manufacturing sites in the north and south of the Neolithic era in China.
The wide distribution of Xiqiao Mountain stone tool manufacturing products represented by nepheline double-shouldered stone tools in the Pearl River Delta means that there has been a social division of labor and product exchange in the region, which embodies the early wisdom of human beings and marks the arrival of the era of Lingnan agricultural civilization.
Professor Shan Xianjin, a member of the expert group of the Hunan Provincial Bureau of Culture, combined his own field archaeological experience to analyze the living habits of people at that time. "The fine rock of the quarry is unique to Xiqiao Mountain." Shan Xianxian proposed that this kind of rock will fall on its own after being roasted and poured cold water, and the ancestors adopted this method to quarry the stone after observation and thinking, with a certain wisdom component. This period is the middle Neolithic period 5000-6000 years ago.
"The two-shouldered stone axe is so small (smaller than the palm of an adult male's hand) that it's intricately processed." It is not easy to use as a tool, and as a characteristic product of the Neolithic Age, it is widely distributed around the Pearl River Delta, so it is estimated to be used as currency for barter.
The Xiqiao Mountain culture spread widely to Southeast Asia
Large-scale stone tool manufacturing field shows that at that time, there were already human beings engaged in professional production in Xiqiao Mountain, and the social division of labor was an important symbol of the evolution of human civilization, which also proved the status of Xiqiao Mountain culture.
And this culture has also had a profound impact on the outside world. "Most of the stone tools were transported far away in the form of exchanges or trade." Guan Xiang, who is known as the "Xiqiao Tong," told the Yangcheng Evening News reporter that at that time, Xiqiao Mountain was not only near the sea, but also the confluence of the three rivers, and the water and land transportation was very convenient. With its geographical advantages, coupled with high-quality stone resources, it has attracted ancestors from the Pearl River Estuary and even farther around to mine stone and make stone tools. Its products gradually spread throughout the Pearl River Delta by land and sea, and even radiated to Liangguang and Hainan Island, forming a cultural distribution area characterized by double-shoulder stone tools.
Guan Xiang analyzed that the stone tool sites excavated in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, India, and indochina Peninsula countries now clearly bear the shadow of the Stone Tools of Xiqiao Mountain, and integrate the stone tool characteristics circulated from other regions, which should be the radiation of The Stone Tools of Xiqiao Mountain along the Xijiang River.
Professor Zeng Qi of the Department of Anthropology of Sun Yat-sen University proposed in his book "The Beacon of pearl river civilization - ancient ruins of Xiqiao Mountain in the South China Sea" that the distribution of nepheline in the Pearl River Delta region is not widespread, and Xiqiao Mountain has become an important and largest prehistoric stone tool manufacturing site in the region because its mountain is the best raw material for making stone tools, exporting a large number of stone tools as a production tool, which in turn promoted the development of productive forces at that time and led the prehistoric society to the pace of civilization. Since then, the "holy land of science" in the Ming Dynasty, the "restoration and reform method" of the late Qing Dynasty, and the pioneers of national industry... "Xiqiao Mountain is like a beacon, illuminating the road to civilization." ”
The relationship between Xiqiao Mountain and the spread of science
"Xiqiao Mountain is a world-famous 'Famous Mountain of Science'." Ren Jianmin, associate professor of the Department of History of Sun Yat-sen University, introduced that during the Zhengde and Jiajing years of the Ming Dynasty, Xiqiao Mountain had the saying of "four major academies", namely the Dake Academy and Yungu Academy founded by Zhan Ruoshui, the Shiquan Academy founded by Fang Xianfu, and the Sifeng Academy founded by Huo Tao. The Four Academies flourished because of the advocacy of Fang, Cham, and Huo Zhugong, and during this period, Guangdong famous scholars emerged, and the Four Academies became an important place for Guangdong scholars to teach science in the following decades.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Lingnan Scholars had a close relationship with Xiqiao Mountain, and Ren Jianmin proposed that the relationship between famous Lingnan scholars such as Zhan Ruoshui, Fang Xianfu, and Huo Tao and Xiqiao Mountain should be taken as an example. Huo Tao's thoughts belonged to the lineage of Cheng Zhu Lixue. It is not the same as the study of Zhan Ruoshui and Fang Xianfu that can be included in the system of mental science. However, the ideological opposition does not affect the understanding and appreciation of the other party, and Zhan, Fang, and Huo also have good personal relations and close exchanges.
Among the four major academies, the earliest and most famous is the Dake Academy founded by zhan ruoshui, a famous theorist of the Ming Dynasty and a zengcheng man, in Yanxiadong, which is of great significance to zhan ruoshui's academic life course. At about the same time as Zhan Ruoshui built Dake College, it was the Shiquan Academy founded by Fang Xianfu in Shiquan Cave of Xiqiao Mountain. In the early years of Jiajing, Huo Tao founded the Four Peaks Academy in Baolin Cave, where the original Baofeng Temple is located, as an important place for the Huo clan to cultivate children. The fourth is the Yungu Academy founded by Zhan Ruoshui in Yungu, which was finally completed in the twenty-fifth year of Jiajing. The establishment and prosperity of the four major colleges, the convergence of humanities, and the brilliance of the elites have made Xiqiao Mountain win the reputation of "Famous Mountain of Science".
Ren Jianmin said that the prohibition of the destruction of the academy during the Wanli years and the lack of successors caused the Xiqiaoshan Academy to decline and eventually disappeared from the historical stage. The great prosperity of Guangdong Science has also gradually declined. The decline of the four major academies does not mean the decline of the humanities of Xiqiao Mountain, but its content has changed. The original unknown landscape Baiyun Cave in the northwest of Xiqiao Mountain has gradually risen, continuing the fame of Xiqiao Mountain, and continuing to closely connect Xiqiao Mountain with the literary style of Guangdong, injecting new connotations into "Xiqiao under the Heavens".
Strengthen conservation and utilization of local cultural resources
In recent years, cultural tourism consumption has gradually become a strong consumption potential, and it has become a social consensus to drive the tourism economy with culture, explore local historical and cultural resources, construct and market various cultural symbols, and create huge cultural projects. Combined with the examples of cultural tourism development in various places, Ding Fangzhong, director of the Guangdong Daguan Museum, analyzed the contradictions and tensions between utilitarian cultural engineering and serious cultural academic research, and suggested that the South China Sea government should highly integrate the local Lingnan traditional elements with the culture of Xiqiao Mountain, and effectively realize the development and protection of cultural tourism in Xiqiao Mountain.
Journalist's Note
The reporter was born and raised in Guangzhou, for decades to feel the changes, changes, changes in this city, for the newcomer to Foshan, but there is an inexplicable sense of intimacy, Foshan, more Cantonese than Guangzhou, the historical background is also thicker, after all, first there is the South China Sea, and then there is Guangzhou. As one of the cradles of Lingnan civilization, the tools of production of the ancestors excavated by the South China Sea are the symbols of social productive forces and promote the process of civilization. The discovery of the ancient culture of Xiqiao Mountain awakens people's memory and understanding of the process of civilization.
Foshan is not only one of the birthplaces of Lingnan culture, but also occupies an important place in the early civilization activities of mankind. In the past, the academic community generally believed that the Yellow River Basin was the cradle of Chinese civilization, and Chinese culture developed from here and then radiated to the surrounding areas. The archaeological discoveries of Xiqiao Mountain confirm that in the same period, the ancient humans in the Pearl River Basin were also vigorously developing with their own characteristics and ways, creating a splendid "Xiqiao Mountain Culture". This conclusion is of landmark significance for Foshan's positioning as a "culture-oriented city".
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | He Quansheng