The Sanxingdui site is the largest ancient culture, ancient city and ancient civilization site in the pre-Qin period known in the southwest of the mainland so far. A large number of house building remains have been found in archaeology over the years, including large buildings in Qingguan Mountain, as well as various small buildings, and the architectural remains of different locations, scales and shapes often represent different periods, functions, properties and grades, which provide important evidence for us to study the archaeological and cultural features of Sanxingdui sites in different periods.
As early as 1963, Mr. Feng Hanji led the teachers and students of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee, the Sichuan Provincial Museum and the Archaeology Group of the Department of History of Sichuan University to discover the remains of a number of small buildings at the Moon Bay site. After 1980, Wang Youpeng and Chen De'an, Lei Yu, Ran Honglin and other leaders have found a large number of house building remains in Qingguan Mountain, Moon Bay, Sanxingdui, Cangbaobao and other places, through analysis and research, its stratigraphic age belongs to the late Neolithic Age to the Xia and Shang periods, with the middle of the Shang Dynasty and later, which coincides with the Sanxingdui city wall, Sanxingdui sacrificial pit unearthed relics age.
Moon Bay site building (according to Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
Building No. 10 at the Moon Bay site in 1999 (according to the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
The site building of the General Temple (according to the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
So, among the many architectural relics found at the Sanxingdui site, where is the oldest house from this era? According to reports, the architectural remains found at the Sanxingdui site in 1980 may be the most "old" house.
In November 1980, the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Management Committee, the Sichuan Provincial Museum and the Guanghan County Cultural Center formed a joint excavation team to excavate on the east side of the Sanxingdui site, with an excavation area of 1,100 square meters, and the work was completed in May of the following year, and a total of 18 houses were found. These sites are available in square, rectangular and circular shapes. According to the calculation of post holes and trenches, the area of the house is generally between 10-25 square meters, and most of the doors are opened on one side, and the doors are facing in different directions, and a few rooms have partition walls (such as F2). The living surface is built on the raw soil layer, which is relatively solid, and may have been trampled or beaten, and a few living surfaces have a layer of white plaster.
Sanxingdui site plan (according to Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
The excavators believe that there is a superimposed and broken relationship between these 18 sites, which should belong to different periods of architecture, among which the early site plan is circular or square, and the late site plane is rectangular, the surrounding wall foundation digs a trench, the trench is neutral with wooden columns, and then the wooden (bamboo) sticks (strips) are arranged, and finally the grass is mixed with mud to form a wooden bone mud wall, the wall seems to be barbecued by fire, the house frame is speculated to be a bamboo and wooden structure, and the roof is covered with grass. This type of building is very similar to the thatched-roof houses that have continued to exist in the western Sichuan Plain until modern times.
Aerial photo of the foundation site of the Sanxingdui site in 1981 (according to the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
Archaeologists have carried out carbon 14 determination of charcoal specimens collected in the stratum where the remains are located, and their age is 4075±100 years ago, and the tree ring correction is 4500±150 years ago, which has a coexistence relationship with the first phase of the cultural relics of the Sanxingdui site at the site, and it can be confirmed that this is the most "old" house found in Sanxingdui so far.
It is worth mentioning that in order to completely record this group of large-scale architectural relics, the archaeological team realized the first aerial photography of Sanxingdui archaeology with the help of the Chengdu Air Force, leaving us with a precious panorama of the foundation site of the house today.
Sanxingdui's first aerial photography (according to the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
Aerial photograph of 1981 (according to Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
In 2019, Ran Honglin led a team to discover a number of neatly arranged square pillar caves at the site of Rensheng Village, which are similar to the remains of square pillar caves at the large site of Baodun Ancient City in Xinjin, which should be the remains of the first phase of the Sanxingdui site, that is, the Baodun culture period, and its age is about the late Neolithic period to the summer period. The discovery of the most "old" house in Sanxingdui and the remains of the high-grade house in Rensheng Village a little later provides important information for us to deeply study and understand the basis of the Sanxingdui Bronze Civilization.