Prospect of Beiyangping Ruins Group (F105). Photo by Li Sihan, an all-media reporter from Henan Daily
Henan Daily all-media reporter Zhang Yi
Lingbao, which is based on the Qinling Mountains in the south and the Yellow River in the north, is a small city in western Henan with the reputation of "Golden City". The climate in the city is mild and humid, and the water source is abundant, which provides excellent natural conditions for human reproduction.
Archaeological excavations unearthed a number of prehistoric large house sites lying horizontally on the west loess plateau of Yangping Town, silent and blue, and the busy Yangping Town in the distance. The small Qinling Mountains in the distance are lush and green, and the Yangshao cultural houses built by loess reflect each other, witnessing the development and evolution of human civilization.
On April 28, the reporter came to the Beiyangping ruins group. More than 6,000 years ago, the ancestors of Yangshao settled here to make a living. Now, under the same blue sky, archaeologists from the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology are meticulously sorting out the remains that have just been unearthed, exploring the first dawn that illuminates the Central Plains civilization.
"Infrastructure" 6,000 years ago
The site of Beiyangping is located in the west of Beiyangping Village, Yangping Town, Lingbao City, and is located on a narrow loess plateau. In 2005, the Xipo site belonging to the Beiyangping site group was included in the six major sites of the first phase of the Chinese civilization exploration project, and in 2021, the Beiyangping site was selected into the list of "Top 100 Archaeological Discoveries in Henan Archaeology in a Hundred Years".
Talking about the importance of the site, Wei Xingtao, vice president and second-level researcher of Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that the Beiyangping site is a key period to explore the civilization process of the Central Plains, a key site in the key area, and an important supporting topic for the "Archaeological China and the Central Plains Civilization Process Research". Different from other sites, archaeologists found most of the sites in the Beiyangping ruins group, overlooking it with drones, which seems to be a "construction site" that has just dug the foundation.
From 2020 to 2021, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology carried out archaeological excavations at the Beiyangping site and found 3 large-scale houses of Yangshao culture, among which the site F2 is well preserved, large-scale, and elegantly processed.
The achievements of the ancestors of Beiyangping, who are good at "infrastructure construction", are far more than that. In 2023, archaeologists found a number of "tile-shaped vessels" at the Beiyangping site, which are similar in shape to later terracotta tiles, and are preliminarily speculated to be terracotta tiles used at the ridge of the house to prevent water leakage in the house.
"In previous years, we have found similar fragments in various parts of the site, and it is difficult to judge the usefulness due to the severe fragmentation, but this year's discovery of the vessel is larger and more complete, thinner than the pottery of the same period, and we speculate that these tile-shaped vessels should be used for roof construction. Wei Xingtao said.
The prototype of the "Yangshao Ancient Kingdom" has been revealed
The site of the western slope is about 5 kilometers away from the site of Beiyangping, and the two have the same cultural age and similar connotation, and both belong to the group of sites of Beiyangping.
Since 2000, the Xipo site has carried out 8 excavations, unearthed a large number of precious cultural relics such as jade, especially the discovery of an area of 516 square meters with a cloister of extra-large house foundation ruins F105, is the largest single building site in the middle of Yangshao culture, opened a precedent for Chinese cloister classical architecture, has the nature of a palace, represents the highest level of building technology in the heyday of Yangshao era, known as "the earliest and largest palace in China 5500 years ago".
The size, decoration and importance of the houses suggest that they were not the dwellings of ordinary people, but rather places for large public events, reflecting the social complexity of Yangshao culture.
Wei Xingtao introduced that after the accumulation of more than 1,000 years in the early Yangshao period and the early Yangshao period, about 5800 to 5000 years ago, the culture in the Lingbao area was the most prosperous, regardless of the number of settlements, the total area of settlements, and the average settlement area, all reached its peak. At this time, there are obvious differences in the scale of settlements, with a large settlement of nearly one million square meters and a small settlement of less than 100,000 or even only a few thousand square meters, showing a "pyramid" shaped multi-level regional settlement structure.
"The major affairs of the country are in worship and Rong". The Neolithic large cemetery found at the Xipo site was selected as one of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in China in 2006, and the archaeologists unearthed a large number of precious cultural relics such as jade and ivory vessels symbolizing royal power in the large-scale high-grade tombs with a tomb mouth of 17 square meters.
"At the same time, we also found a lot of tombs that could only accommodate and even ash pits and mass burials, with obvious hierarchical differences, which shows that we had entered a complex society at that time. Wei Xingtao said that at that time, the Yangshao culture had been divided into commoners, dignitaries, chieftains and even "kings" of social differences, into a complex society, the light of civilization flickered, and began to appear ancient countries, the famous archaeologist Mr. Li Boqian called it "Yangshao Ancient Kingdom".
Li Xinwei, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who has presided over the excavation of the Xipo site many times, wrote that in order to obtain rare objects and sacred knowledge from afar, and to assert their special ability to surpass the local people, the newly emerging upper echelons of society have made efforts to carry out long-distance exchanges and form a long-distance exchange network connecting the major cultural regions The process begins.
Polishing the cultural business card of "Exploring the Source".
In the evening, the mountain breeze blows, strolling on the newly renovated sightseeing plank road of the Xipo site, next to the prehistoric "palace" restored and displayed on the original site, people can't help but sigh: "Every step of archaeological excavation is gradually unveiling the veil of this society more than 5,000 years ago, allowing us to understand more deeply the prosperity and changes of that era." ”
Stepping into the interior of the "palace", the huge LED display screen in front of it is scrolling to play the archaeological propaganda video of the Xipo ruins; the walls on both sides are hung with exhibition boards to introduce the excavation results of the Beiyangping ruins and the Xipo ruins in recent years; two small LEDs on both sides of the wall tell the audience about the relationship between the Yangshao culture and the Yellow Emperor culture represented by the Beiyangping ruins group.
As a national key cultural relics protection unit, the Beiyangping site group is recognized as the most important starting point for exploring the origin of Chinese civilization, especially the early national origin of the Central Plains, the core area of Chinese civilization, and is one of the most dense and extensive Neolithic sites in Sanmenxia and even the whole province.
In recent years, the Lingbao Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government have won more than 2,600 yuan for the protection of large ruins. Completed the construction task of the 1st bid section of the ontology protection of the Xipo site, basically completed the infrastructure construction project of the Beiyangping site and the Xipo site, the 7th and 8th bid sections of the Xipo site, and the protective display project of the F105 and F106 large house foundations of the Xipo site.
In order to further polish the cultural business card of "Exploring the Source of Chinese Civilization", Lingbao City has cooperated with CCTV to film programs such as "Lingbao Chapter of Traveling with Books", "Revisiting the Ancient Battlefield", "Song of the Yellow River", "Searching for Ancient China" and "Archaeological China" around the cultural and tourism resources of Jingshan Yellow Emperor Zhudingyuan, Beiyangping Ruins, Xipo Ruins, Hanguguan and other cultural and tourism resources and other important time nodes, actively carry out the publicity of the achievements of the protection and utilization of Lingbao cultural relics and major archaeological discoveries, enhance the awareness of cultural relics protection and cultural self-confidence of the masses, timely update the exhibition content of the museum exhibition hall, combined with the exploration of the source of Chinese civilization and the history of architectural development, trace the history of the F105 big house at the Xipo site, and arrange a special exhibition reflecting the development and evolution of Chinese palace-style architecture.
Wei Xingtao said that the archaeological achievements made in the heyday of Yangshao culture represented by the Beiyangping site and the Xipo site will be displayed to the public in the form of archaeological site parks or museums, which is the wish of every Henan archaeologist and requires the joint efforts of archaeologists, cultural relics management departments and local governments.