#头条创作挑战赛#王庄遗址位于河南省商丘市永城市以东约10公里的苗桥镇曹楼村, it is located in the East Henan Plain, the terrain is flat, and the north is adjacent to the Suishui Ancient Road. Here, the relics of Dawenkou culture with rich ritual connotations were discovered, reflecting significant social differentiation; The special burial customs also reflect a unique cultural type. Recently, the Wangzhuang site was selected as one of the "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China" in 2023.
Historically, due to the repeated diversion of the Yellow River in the eastern part of the North China Plain, many ancient relics were buried deep under thick sediment, so compared with other regions, archaeological work is relatively lagging behind, and sometimes even gives people the impression that there is "no ancient to examine". In fact, this land contains many historical relics that are waiting to be dusted away and shine again.
Wake up ancient ruins that have been dormant for thousands of years
In the spring of 1958, in Wangzhuang, Yongcheng, Henan Province, a small village in eastern Henan, a local farmer surnamed Wang was digging a lotus pond when he heard the sound of "dang", and the shovel touched a hard object. When he picked it up, it was a square, cylindrical, stone-like object. He didn't take it seriously and took it back to the child as a toy. Later, this thing accidentally fell into the manure tank and gradually disappeared into people's forgetfulness. Coincidentally, a few years later, when cleaning the manure tank, this "stone" was dug up again, and a passing thrift dealer happened to see it and bought it for 27 yuan. Many years later, when the archaeological team members were investigating the ruins of Wangzhuang, they heard this story and regretted it, because they knew that it was a heavy weapon from a prehistoric period - Yucong.
However, the story of Wang Zhuang's "treasure digging" is not over. In the early nineties of the twentieth century, in the process of farmland water conservancy construction, local villagers successively dug up ancient jade or painted pottery pieces near the former jade excavation site, which attracted many people to come to hunt for treasures. Fortunately, the public security department stepped forward in time to stop the villagers' illegal digging and digging, so that the Wangzhuang site was effectively protected. However, the concept of "digging treasure" has taken root in the hearts of the locals, so that the archaeological team of Wangzhuang site is often called "treasure digger" by the villagers.
In people's previous impressions, most of the early ruins in eastern Henan and southwestern Shandong were called "mounds" or "mounds" because of their high terrain and resembling large mounds. In fact, this is due to the frequent floods in the lower reaches of the Yellow River in history, and the ancients had to choose high ground to live, and as a result, the terrain of the ancient ruins continued to rise, higher than the surrounding surface. Because of this, people did not expect that near Yongcheng Wangzhuang in Yima Pingchuan, there would be a large settlement in the prehistoric period buried underground.
The turning point came in 2021. In the same year, when Miaoqiao Town, Yongcheng City was carrying out the construction of beautiful villages and focusing on the improvement of the rural environment, a batch of ancient jade was unexpectedly dug up on the south bank of the south pond of Wangzhuang Village, including double-linked jade, jade, jade pendant, etc., and some bone tools and painted pottery pieces were unearthed at the same time. Jiang Jian, secretary of the Party Committee of Miaoqiao Town, attached great importance to this, and immediately instructed to seal the unearthed cultural relics on the spot, report them to the Yongcheng cultural relics management department, and contacted Yue Hongbin, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of History, Yuan Guangguang, a professor at Capital Normal University, and Zhang Zhiqing, a researcher at the Henan Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, and other archaeological experts to make a scientific assessment of the historical value and academic significance of the Wangzhuang site.
The joint archaeological excavation of the Wangzhuang site in Yongcheng, Henan Province, which was brewed and promoted by the above-mentioned experts, immediately kicked off. With the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, in March 2023, a joint archaeological team formed by Capital Normal University, Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of History, and Shangqiu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology to carry out the first official archaeological excavation of the Wangzhuang site, awakening this ancient site that has been sleeping for thousands of years.
Part of the pottery unearthed from the Dawenkou cultural tomb at the site of Wangzhuang
The surprise of "unintentionally inserting willows into the willows".
Anyone in the know knows that the Neolithic sites that can unearth jade are often of an extraordinary level. Therefore, from the very beginning, everyone judged that the Wangzhuang site was likely to be an important prehistoric settlement, and they were also full of expectations for the next excavation. However, the actual excavation process did not go as smoothly as expected.
In the spring of 2023, after the joint archaeological team entered the Wangzhuang site, they first set their sights on the pond in the south of the village, where a large number of jade artifacts had been unearthed earlier. We drained the pond and cut a long stratigraphic profile along the edge of the pond's south bank, hoping to look at the changes in the soil layer to find important remnants and to see if there were any remnants of early burials at the bottom of the pond. We see that there is a layer of Yellow River siltation layer with a thickness of 1 meter ~ 1.5 meters under the cultivated soil, and there are at least three to four layers of black soil layer mixed with a large number of red soil particles under it, and the deepest part is about 4 meters from the current surface. From this, it seems that the stratigraphic accumulation of this site is indeed relatively rich. In April 2023, during the cleanup of the bottom of the pond in the south of the village, although no early remains were found, one damaged jade and several fragments of prehistoric jade artifacts were collected. This made the archaeological team firmly believe that the vicinity of the village south pond should be the core area of the site.
According to national regulations, land for archaeological excavation must be approved by the relevant departments. During the long process of submitting materials for approval, the local government actively assisted the archaeological team in finding a vacant homestead in Wangzhuang Village as a temporary excavation site. In mid-May, the archaeological team set up two exploration parties here to start the official excavation of the Wangzhuang site. After cleaning up the modern cushion layer and the Yellow River siltation layer, we quickly excavated the cultural layer. The stratigraphic accumulation here is similar to that in the south of the village, and there is still a thick layer of black soil under the silt layer. After nearly a month of excavation, the archaeological team couldn't help but be a little disappointed that there was very little inclusion in the strata here, and there were no decent remains except for a few late disturbance pits. Fortunately, at this time, the news of the approval of the excavation land application came, and the archaeological team immediately laid out two rows of 12 exploration parties along the south bank of the pond in the south of the village, and decided to shift the focus of the next excavation there.
On June 10, the local wheat harvest was completed, and the archaeological team immediately broke ground. Everyone is full of anticipation for the upcoming archaeological work. According to the preliminary investigation, the location of the previous excavation of jade, bone tools and painted pottery shards was mainly in the west section of the pond in the south of the village, and it is speculated that it is very likely to be a Neolithic cemetery. In 2022, the batch of jade, painted pottery and other cultural relics excavated during the local renovation of the pit pond should be unearthed in a Dawenkou cultural tomb. Following this clue, it seems that as long as excavations are carried out near the pond in the south of the village, a major archaeological discovery is within reach.
Turquoise ornaments unearthed from the Dawenkou cultural tomb at the site of Wangzhuang
Double-hole jade unearthed from the Dawenkou cultural tomb at the site of Wangzhuang
In the east of Henan in June and July, the sun was blazing, and the excavation work in the south of Wangzhuang Village was also in full swing. Whether it is the archaeological team members, or the teachers and students of the Department of Archaeology of Capital Normal University who participated in the internship, they can hardly hide their excitement and look forward to witnessing an important archaeological discovery in person. According to the order of stratigraphic excavation, the archaeological team members began to clean up the modern cultivated soil layer and the Yellow River siltation layer in the south of the village, and then began the excavation of the cultural layer. At this time, an Eastern Zhou tomb was gradually revealed, indicating that it was used as a cemetery during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. It is worth noting that the late strata here have found relatively rich pottery fragments of the Dawenkou culture, and two polished stone tools from the Neolithic Age have also been unearthed in the filling of the tombs of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
In August, in anticipation, the excavation of the south site of the village entered the final stage. However, the situation has become a little delicate - under the accumulation of strata in the Eastern Zhou stage of several exploration parties, there are signs of raw soil. "Raw soil" refers to the native soil that has not been disturbed by humans, and the sight of raw soil generally means the end of the excavation work. In mid-to-late August, the excavation work of most of the exploration parties in the south of the village was announced one after another, but until this time, there was no trace of the long-awaited Dawenkou cultural tomb. At the same time, the archaeological team is facing a double test, that is, the heat and the rainy season in the middle of summer.
At a time when the mountains and rivers are in doubt, the village explorer, which was originally used as a temporary excavation site, has shown signs worthy of attention at this moment. Here, after the archaeological team cleaned up the Eastern Zhou strata, they suddenly found a row of early pottery outcropping on the surface. We were keenly aware of the importance of this discovery, but the excavation work stalled for a while because the soil color was extremely difficult to identify, and the extent of the ruins was never clear. After learning the news, Yuan Guangguang and Yue Hongbin immediately rushed to the scene and pointed out that this should be a large tomb from the prehistoric period, and later excavations also confirmed their judgment. Under the guidance of experts, the members of the archaeological team quickly found a way to delineate the exact extent of the tomb. At the same time, more and more pottery has sprung up beneath the Eastern Zhou strata and at the bottom of the ash pit around the tomb – it turns out that this is the cemetery of the Dawenkou culture that the archaeological team is looking for.
In October, with the demarcation of the various burial areas in the excavation area of the village one by one, a Dawenkou cultural cemetery with rows from north to south and east to west was more clearly presented to the world. Subsequent excavations also proved that these were only the upper tombs of the cemetery, and that there were many more in the middle and lower levels of the cemetery waiting to be revealed.
The pottery skull unearthed from the Dawenkou cultural tomb at the site of Wangzhuang
The jade necklace unearthed from the Dawenkou cultural tomb at the site of Wangzhuang
A rare burial custom that is "intentionally broken".
In November, there was also a breakthrough in the exploration of the site. Through intensive drilling, a medium-sized ring moat remains were found around Wangzhuang Village in the core area of the site, with a total area of about 80,000 square meters. On this basis, the archaeological team carried out exploration to the periphery, and by the end of December, it was initially found that the site was between several villages such as Wumiao, Wanglou and Qiancaolou, with a width of 500 meters from east to west and a length of 1,300 meters from north to south, with a total area of 630,000 square meters. This confirms that the Wangzhuang site is not just a large tomb, but a large settlement in the prehistoric period.
At the same time, there are also amazing discoveries in the Dawenkou cultural cemetery in the village. In mid-November, when we cleaned up the largest tomb IV.M3 in the site, we found a group of stone gui in the middle of the tomb, which has two types of pointed heads and flat heads, which are exactly the same as the jade gui of later generations, and experts believe that this is the earliest "gui" found in domestic archaeology so far. In early December, when we were cleaning the tomb IV.M6, we found a set of more than 30 pieces of jade, jade beads, and turquoise pieces covering the forehead and face of the tomb owner. Of particular note is the fact that the left and right eye sockets of the tomb owner are covered with two pieces of jade. The ancients had the custom of covering their faces when they were buried after death, and the things used were called "covering the face", which was also called "covering the eyes" because its core function was to cover the eyes. The jade face ornament unearthed at the Wangzhuang site IV.M6 obviously has the core function of covering, and it can be confirmed that it is the earliest jade covering in China.
The jade covering surface and schematic diagram unearthed from the Dawenkou cultural tomb at the site of Wangzhuang
With the advancement of archaeological excavations, the burial customs and burial systems shown in the Dawenkou cultural cemetery at the Wangzhuang site are even more surprising. We found a rare phenomenon of "intentional breaking" between burials in this cemetery. To put it simply, when building the tomb, the descendants will deliberately dig up the early tombs, and retain the bones and burial goods of the early tomb owners, and bury the new deceased again, so as to form a strange scene of the upper and lower layers of tomb owners overlapping each other, and the two tombs are stacked continuously with the burial goods. This kind of burial custom has not been seen in other Dawenkou cultural sites, and it is a cultural manifestation of the characteristics of the Wangzhuang settlement group in the prehistoric period.
Today, the archaeological excavation of the Wangzhuang site is still ongoing, and the local government has started the construction of the archaeological site museum based on the results of the archaeological excavation, in order to let more people understand the rich history of this ancient land.