Cover news reporter Dai Zhuxin Yang Bo
In the more than 3 million years of human history, more than ninety-nine percent of the time is in the Paleolithic Age, and to find the history of the Paleolithic age is to trace the childhood memories of human beings. A few days ago, in Daocheng County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province, a Paleolithic site dating back at least 130,000 years was revealed.
Here, a joint archaeological team from the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Peking University is completing the first phase of field excavations. Tan Peiyang, assistant librarian of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, is one of them. Crossing the Western Sichuan Plateau, ascending mountains, and crossing rivers, he and his friends searched for stone tools and used them to trace ancient human memories.
Plateau survey for 20 days
The first exquisite hand axe surprise appears
Born in 1993, Tan Peiyang is a guy from Chongqing, who saw the potential of Paleolithic research work on the Western Sichuan Plateau, and after studying Paleolithic archaeology, he joined the Paleolithic archaeology team of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Since 2020, they have begun a special investigation of paleolithic archaeology on the Western Sichuan Plateau, and have been walking through the wilderness for several months, and the Daocheng Pelo site was found in this special investigation.
"The river terraces we can see now are different from those of prehistoric times." Tan Peiyang said that the ancients generally chose to live next to the river, and as the river cut down, the terraces would be raised, and the higher the terraces, the earlier the age. The same is true of the site of Pirlo, which is located on three terraces on the river. Seeing the high terraces, through the basic judgment of the topography, they stopped the car in Pingluo Village, Daocheng County, and hiked up the hillside to conduct a preliminary investigation.
It was on May 12, 2020, next to a power line pile, Xiao Qin, a member of the team, found the first hand axe on the surface. The hand axe was placed on the side of the small pit next to the electric pile, "At that time, I thought it was put there by a small friend." Xiao Qin called his friends and confirmed to each other that they were not placed by each other, and everyone was excited.
"We had been running for more than 20 days and there was nothing important to gain, and the discovery of this hand axe was a great surprise." Tan Peiyang said that the shape of the hand axe is very typical and exquisite. Along this line, the team members continued to collect, one after another, and the hand axes continued to appear. "I realized it might be important here." The team immediately reported the situation to the unit. Since then, after expert demonstration and approval by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, at the end of April 2021, an archaeological excavation to find information on ancient human activities on the Western Sichuan Plateau began at the Pirao site in Daocheng.
High winds disrupt work plans
Over and over again making "identity cards" for stone tools
For archaeological excavations in the plateau, the team members need to overcome not only altitude sickness, but also a more difficult climate. Sometimes, the team members have to experience wind, rain, sun, hail and other weather in a day.
The biggest impact on work is the strong wind that blows every afternoon on the mountain. When the formation is uncovered, pieces of stone tools are exposed and stacked on top of the soil. In order to more accurately record the excavation of each stone tool, when the archaeological excavation team removes the stone tool, they need to make a label on each stone tool, record its coordinates, location and other excavation information, and number and take pictures. Label paper is similar to the "identity card" of stone tools. They used small nails to secure the yellow label paper into the dirt next to the stone tools.
Often a strong wind blows, and the label paper is blown to pieces. The archaeologists had to re-operate it again, the labels were re-inserted, and the photos were re-taken. "There is no way, in order to ensure follow-up research, the information of the excavated stone tools must be accurate, so we are responsible for the information of each excavated artifact." Tan Peiyang said that almost every one of the more than 7,000 stone tools unearthed this time has undergone such an iterative process. Although the workload is large, I feel very satisfied to see the stone tools being transferred to the workstation in a regular manner.
Restore the long historical process
Explore the human past with stone tools
Contrary to what people think, in fact, the life of archaeological survey is very boring, and it is located on the plateau, and the physical energy consumption is much greater than that in the plain area. Tan Peiyang said that it is daily life to travel hundreds of miles and feet to walk ten thousand steps, and almost everywhere you go is deserted. "Every day, I run a lot of steps, leave in the morning, go to the neighboring county town to rest after dark, there is no hotel on the way, so I will bring some dry food to solve." Tan Peiyang said.
However, field work is not all "wild", and the initial surprises will eventually return to flat. "Every day I just think about how to keep pushing the work forward and what to do next." Tan Peiyang said.
In his eyes, it is not just the excavation work itself that is interesting. For almost every stone tool, he would carefully study it. What era do they come from? What technology was used? More than 100,000 years ago, or even hundreds of thousands of years ago, how did our ancestors grasp it? What did they think about when they made and repaired it? How did you use it to live after the production was successful? Why did you abandon it in the end?
One by one, question marks popped up in his head. A stone tool, through the tunnel of time, is grasped by people of a completely different era, and the wonderful feeling is indescribable. Where did we come from and how did we grow up to where we are now? In Tan Peiyang's eyes, human history and life may not be much different, and the history of the past is like the vague childhood memory of each of us. Step by step, through the search for stone tools, trying to explore the past of mankind, perhaps the meaning of his work.
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