Yan Wenming: Philosophical and Poetic Interpretation of "Why China"

"The history of the stars of Yangshao four two systems, double-petaled flowers, Qin Yan as the key, long traced back to the flow of rivers and rivers, professional teachers are full of peach and plum, full of dedication, multi-dimensional view, Hongzhi returns to Langhuan, empty Huaidao, Fan Yue is deep. "The long elegiac couplet tells of endless mourning. Mr. Yan Wenming, a renowned archaeologist, former head of the Department of Archaeology at Peking University, and senior professor of philosophy and social sciences at Peking University, passed away in Beijing on April 14, 2024, at the age of 92.

Mr. Yan Wenming

Mr. Yan Wenming is a well-known archaeologist and archaeological educator in mainland China, the founder of the Neolithic archaeological discipline system in China, the leader of the development of archaeology in China, and has made important contributions to the research of prehistoric archaeology in China.

One

　　Mr. Yan Wenming has devoted his life to archaeological research, presided over and participated in the archaeological excavations of important sites such as Luoyang Wangwan in Henan, Zhouyuan in Baoji in Shaanxi, Beizhuang in Changdao in Shandong, Shijiahe in Tianmen in Hubei, Baligang in Dengzhou, Henan, and vigorously advocated the research on settlement archaeology, environmental archaeology, agricultural origin and civilization origin.

　　Yangshao culture is the starting point of Mr. Yan Wenming's scholarship. He reorganized the materials of Yangshao cultural sites, and divided the development of Yangshao culture into four phases and two stages through typology and stratigraphy, which laid the foundation for Yangshao cultural research. Starting from the study of Yangshao culture, Yan Wenming believes that he has found a key and explores an effective paradigm for in-depth study of archaeological culture from typical sites.

On the basis of the systematic study of China's prehistoric culture and the study of the origin of agriculture, in the mid-to-late 80s of the last century, Mr. Yan put forward the thesis of "double-petaled flowers", China's Neolithic culture was described by him as a huge double-petaled flower, the Central Plains cultural area is the heart of the flower, the surrounding Ganqing, Shandong, Yanliao, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang cultural area are the first layer of petals, and the peripheral cultural area is the second layer of petals. The flowers composed of these three structures, each part of which is closely connected and cannot be separated, has a high degree of cultural centripetal force and cohesion...... Represented by the proposal of the "double-petaled flower" pattern, Mr. Yan Wenming has made important contributions to the study of Chinese prehistoric archaeology, revealing the code of the generation, development and extension of Chinese civilization.

　　Mr. Yan Wenming loves to write poetry. For his favorite sites, he would write a long poem, so there were "Ode to Liangzhu" and "Dream of Lingjiatan" and so on. "The Taihu Lake civilization has been connected for 5,000 years. Thousands of miles of fertile fields were opened, and the first stone plough was created to plough rice fields. A temple is built on Mojiao Mountain, and the Yao Mountain is dedicated to Haotian. Flood control first built the pond dam, and the enemy built a large city wall. Bian Jiashan lowered the dock and communicated Qiantang to the seaside. Professor Liu Bin, an important discoverer of the Liangzhu ancient city site......, said that in the eighties and nineties of the last century, Liangzhu archaeology made a series of major discoveries in Anti-Mountain, Yaoshan, Huiguan Mountain, Mojiao Mountain, etc., all of which were inseparable from the guidance of the predecessors, and every discovery would have a gentleman's figure. In 2002, the Zhejiang Provincial Government hired 12 gentlemen, including Yan Wenming and Zhang Zhongpei, as the expert advisory committee members of the archaeology of the Liangzhu site.

　　"Gentlemen not only taught us to do knowledge, they were also role models for us. Over the past few decades, our generation has grown up with the help of the teachings of gentlemen, and the cultural genealogy of Chinese prehistoric archaeology has been created under the leadership of gentlemen, and the road of exploring early Chinese civilization has come out under the leadership of gentlemen.

　　I remember that in 2016, the 10th anniversary of the naming of "Shangshan Culture" and the International Symposium on the Origin of Rice Agriculture were held in Shangshan, and Mr. Yan Wenming came to attend. At the meeting, he said that the ruins in Zhejiang are very interesting, "starting from the beautiful island (Liangzhu), crossing a ferry (Hemudu), crossing a bridge (cross-lake bridge), and finally going up the mountain (going up the mountain)." It is a poetic path to the ancient. The audience was amazed by Mr. Wang's witty words.

Two

　　Mr. Yan Wenming is an important organizer and promoter of the internationalization of Chinese archaeology, keeping an open mind to various schools of foreign archaeological theories, and paying close attention to the practical achievements and methodological innovations of foreign archaeology. He advocated international cooperation in the field of archaeology, and has organized and presided over excavation and research projects such as the Sino-US cooperation Wannian Xianren Cave Bucket Ring Site and the Sino-Japanese Cooperation Tongxiang Pu'an Bridge Site, exploring and forming a working mechanism for Sino-foreign cooperative archaeology, promoting the internationalization of Chinese archaeology, and expanding the international vision of major issues such as the origin of agriculture and the origin of civilization.

　　Mr. Yan Wenming is committed to the protection of cultural relics in China and has made great contributions to the protection of cultural heritage. During his tenure as a member of the expert group of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the executive director and vice chairman of the Archaeological Society of China, he participated in the selection and selection of several batches of national key cultural relics protection units, participated in and guided a number of major cultural relics protection projects such as the Three Gorges and the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, and gave full guidance to the exploration and establishment of the planning system for the protection of cultural relics on the mainland. He paid attention to the protection and utilization of large ruins, supported and advocated the construction of national archaeological site parks, demonstrated the protection planning of a number of important sites such as Yuhang Liangzhu, Guanghan Sanxingdui, Qin'an Dadiwan, Chaoyang Niuheliang, etc., and guided the protection and display of large ruins such as Yuyao Hemudu, Shaanxi Baoji Zhouyuan, and Wuxi Hongshan in Jiangsu. In particular, he served as the leader of the review team of the protection plan of the Grand Canal of China and was hired by the expert advisory committee for the protection of the Liangzhu site, and made important contributions to the successful application of the Grand Canal and the ancient city site of Liangzhu in China.

　　"Mr. Yan's profound academic attainments and outstanding contributions are not only well-known in the domestic archaeological community, but also respected by the international archaeological community. At the 5th World Archaeological Forum held in Shanghai last December, the review committee composed of 40 top scholars from more than a dozen countries approved our proposal to award Mr. Yan Wenming the Lifetime Achievement Award. Wang Wei, director and researcher of the Department of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

　　As an educator, Mr. Yan Wenming has always been committed to the construction of archaeology discipline and talent training. He always believed that "China is a place where archaeological masters can be produced", and devoted his life to it. In 1990, he launched a new course "Introduction to Archaeology" for undergraduates, teaching "what archaeology is" for young people who are new to archaeology. Xu Jian, a professor at Shanghai University, said that in the fall of 1991, he first listened to Mr. Yan's Introduction to Archaeology course, and from that time on, he fell in love with archaeology, and then began to read Mr. Yan's Yangshao cultural research, and followed step by step towards double-petaled flowers.

　　Mr. Yan Wenming is the academic general consultant of the documentary "Why China". In fact, Mr. Yan Wenming's writings and thoughts are also the source of the creation of "Why China". Fortunately, we can now see the relevant videos of Mr. Yan Wenming's two interviews with the film crew of "Why China" at his home around April 20, 2021 and July 13, 2023, and he pointed out: "The outstanding feature of Chinese civilization is its unity and continuous development. We Chinese know our own history and should be full of confidence in the sustainable development below!"

Three

　　Before his death, Mr. Yan Wenming wrote a "Message" to the inaugural issue of Prehistoric Archaeology, in which he placed high hopes on the timely and timely emergence of Prehistoric Archaeology: "It should focus on the characteristics of China's prehistoric culture that distinguish it from other regions, why these characteristics were formed, and how they were formed. I have said that the pattern of ancient Chinese culture and civilization is like a 'double-petaled flower', which should be closely related to the unique geographical location and ecological conditions of the mainland. There is no other country in the world that is relatively independent in the natural environment like China, the surrounding mountains, deserts, and the sea isolate this vast land from the outside world, and there are centers gathered in all directions inside, so that the ancient Chinese culture and even the Chinese civilization have a core (stamen) that is nurtured, bloomed and led, and there are many distinctive cultural bodies (overlapping petals) around it to wrap it, protect and deliver nutrients for it, so we have an uninterrupted and growing cultural and civilization development process...... Chinese civilization has a long-term gestation process, and the Paleolithic culture and the Neolithic culture are a whole, and the two should not be separated. In the past archaeological practice, Paleolithic archaeology and Neolithic archaeology used to regard the opposite bank as a forbidden area and draw the ground as a dungeon. In recent years, the excavations of Lijiagou, Longgang Temple, Peiligang and other sites have shown that the cultural layers of the Neolithic Age and the Paleolithic Age were superimposed on top of each other, and the culture of the two stages was seamlessly connected, and its significance was no less than the discovery of the three layers of Hougang! By opening up the Paleolithic Age and the Neolithic Age, the overall characteristics of China's prehistoric culture will be clear, the source of Chinese civilization will be found, and the development of ancient Chinese people and culture will be clear. ”

　　"I am a scholar, teaching and educating people. Although the ability is small, he always cherishes the love of the world. Concentrate on archaeology, learn from the past to see the present. A long way to go, a bright future!" These are a few lines of poetry written by Mr. Yan Wenming when he was 80 years old.

　　At the end of 2023, after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Archaeological Forum, Mr. Yan Wenming, as always, was humble and indifferent: "Thank you for giving me a high honor, I am just diligent in farming, not caring about the harvest." ”

　　Mr. Yan often compares himself to a "farmer", a "diligent farmer" archaeological giant, who said goodbye to the "field" he has cultivated all his life in the late spring of this year. And his students, his students' students, and more archaeologists will take up the torch and embark on a "long road of repair" to a brighter distance of archaeology.