Archaeologists have found two relatively complete fossils of the mandible of the giant panda in Wuling Mountain near the Liangzi site of the xuetang where the "Yunxian people" live.
The Giant Panda Wuling mountain subspecies is an important stage in the evolution of giant pandas and is rarely found in the world. In 1990, archaeologists also excavated the fossil mandible of the giant panda in Wuling Mountain in the process of discovering the "Yunxian people", which is of great significance for studying the evolutionary history of the giant panda. Amazingly, archaeological discoveries abound of giant panda fossils in Shiyan. It is no exaggeration to say that Shiyan in ancient times can be called the home of the national treasure giant panda.
The Qing Dynasty's "Fangxian Chronicle" records that giant pandas eat copper and iron
Giant pandas are rare animals endemic to China and are known as "ancient living fossils". The main extant habitat of giant pandas is the mountainous regions of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, China. Judging from the fossils that have been found, they were widely distributed in China in ancient times. However, with the change of ecological environment, geographical climate change and the degradation of their own populations, especially the impact of the rapid development of human activities, the survival and reproduction of giant pandas are seriously threatened.
The earliest record of the giant panda appears in the "Daya Han Yi" in the first poetry collection of ancient China, the Book of Poetry: "Han Le Han Tu, Chuan Ze Fu, Bream Fufu, Ori Deer Thyon." There are bears and cats, cats and tigers, Qing Lingju, and Han Yanyan. ”
Does "bear, cat, cat" here include giant pandas? Some scholars pointed out that it is very likely. This is because the cat is a brown bear, and according to Chinese logic, the "bear" in front of it is a black bear; the "cat" here may refer to a giant panda. And the cat, as a giant panda, is similar in size to a tiger, and if it is a general bobcat, there is no need to write it this way.
So, why is there no record of giant pandas in the history books? It turns out that the ancient giant panda has another name! The earlier names of the ancients for giant pandas were "fierce", "tapir", and "tapir". Until the Ming Dynasty, the word giant panda still did not appear in the historical records. In fact, when it really had its name, it was already the late Qing Dynasty. In the pre-Qin period geography history book "Shan Hai Jing", the phrase "beasts and fierce leopards" mentions in the commentary: "The Mountain of Suilai, now in Hanjia Yandao County, the Nanjiang River is self-contained. The mountain has a nine-fold saka, out of the cat, like a bear and black and white, also eat copper and iron also. The two leopard distribution areas in the text are the two main areas where giant pandas are now distributed.
Also eat copper and iron, or the true portrayal of giant pandas. "And there are tapirs, eating copper and iron, but not hurting people" "And preached that the nine beams have cats, and eat copper and iron." In the Qing Dynasty Tongzhi edition of the Fangxian Chronicle, volume 12 of the "Miscellaneous Notes", it is recorded that the giant panda saw the people's plows, knives, hoes, axes, and drooling, and ran to the county town to hold the iron sheet of the city gate and began to nibble.
It is no wonder that in ancient times, giant pandas were also known as "iron-eating beasts". This also stems from the fact that the Classic of Mountains and Seas describes the giant panda as mysterious, believing that the giant panda has sharp teeth and can chew copper and iron.
Surprisingly, the "Yunxian people" site unearthed giant panda fossils
Li Shizhen, a famous medical scientist of the Ming Dynasty, recorded in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" that the use of tapir skin as a sleeping mat can prevent cold and humidity, drive away plague and avoid evil qi. Making plasters can penetrate the skin to prevent and treat tumors, which is of great benefit to human health. In the eyes of primitive humans, the giant panda is just a piece of meat in the mouth. When ancient humans hunted, they found that the giant panda was huge, and they obtained a hare and a wild bird that was worth a lot of hares, so they began to hunt around and eat it.
In prehistoric times, giant pandas were used as the main food by the Ancient Humans of the Three Gorges. In the cave of the "Fengjie people" hundreds of thousands of years ago, the remains of giant pandas were found. According to the research of archaeologists, it is the leftover part that the ancient humans ate.
In fact, the evolution of giant pandas, like human evolution, has gone through a relatively long historical process. Less well known is that archaeologists found a complete fossil of the skull of a "Yunxian man" during a formal excavation of Liangzi of the Midas Temple Village In Qingqu Town, Yunyang District in 1990. At the same time, a number of associated animal fossils and stone products, including giant panda mandible fossils, were excavated. According to the measurement data and morphological characteristics analysis, it was identified as a giant panda in Wuling Mountain.
Feng Xiaobo, one of the discoverers of the skull fossil of "Yunxian man" and a professor at the School of Applied Arts and Sciences of Beijing Union University, recently said in an interview with reporters that from the analysis of the geographical environment, the site of "Yunxian man" belongs to the transition zone between the two major fauna in the north and south of China, and before the uplift of the Qinling Mountains, members of the fauna of the north and south can move freely. "In the excavation of this site, there are both Pei's cats of the northern genus, as well as eastern saber-toothed elephants of the South China genus; there are both tertiary remnant species such as saber-toothed tigers, as well as blue field golden snub-nosed monkeys from the early Pleistocene. It is proved that these animals lived in the late Pleistocene, about 1 million years ago. ”
For more than 40 years, Shiyan has found many giant panda fossils
The Early Pleistocene was the first period of the Quaternary Glacio Pleistocene, and the Pleistocene and archaeologically Paleolithic periods in Earth's history are comparable.
So, what is the Wuling Mountain giant panda? Professor Feng Xiaobo further explained that giant panda fossils were first found in the Late Miocene strata in Lufeng County, Yunnan Province, China, called the first panda. After entering the Pleistocene period, giant pandas have a complete evolutionary process and a relatively wide distribution area in China, and have successively passed through the evolutionary stages of giant panda subspecies, Wuling Mountain giant pandas, and Pasteur's giant pandas. By the Holocene period, giant pandas evolved into living species of giant pandas.
It is understood that the subspecies of the giant panda Wuling Mountain is an important stage in the evolution of the giant panda, but there are very few fossil remains at this stage. The site of "Yunxian Ren" is the northernmost site in the middle latitude of its distribution area, with the lowest altitude and relative altitude, and it is also the only burial site of the terrace environment, which is of great significance for studying the evolutionary history of giant pandas.
What we now call the Han River is actually part of the ancient Han River. As the oldest river in Chinese mainland, Hanshui was born 700 million years earlier than the Yangtze River.
The site of "Yunxian Ren" is located in the fourth level terrace on the left bank of the Han River, and the upper part of the site profile accumulation layer is clay-like accumulation and the lower part is a sand layer. Professor Feng Xiaobo found through research that at the edge of the subtropical forest of Xuetang Liangzi, where the site of the "Yunxian People" site is located, the animal partners living with the "Yunxian people" include at least 6 orders and 26 species, including the Wuling Mountain giant panda, the Oriental saber-toothed elephant, the Chinese rhinoceros, the Chinese tapir, the Yunnan horse, the piglet, the chamois, the buffalo and so on. Professor Feng Xiaobo said that so far, the entire fauna found at the "Yunxian People" site has shown that the forest animal species are the mainstay, and a small number of people belong to grassland life and water-rich areas.
"From the analysis of the age curve of the mass deaths of these herbivores, they are largely natural or catastrophic deaths." He believes that the bones of a large number of herbivores in the "Yunxian people" site seem to have piled up rapidly, possibly because the sudden rise of the Han River formed a "trap", and the scene when they died at that time can be seen, and then buried by the meandering river.
Professor Feng Xiaobo said: "From the prehistoric environmental point of view, the large mammal group excavated from the 'Yunxian people' site reflects that there should have been enough woods here at that time. ”
During the interview, the reporter learned that Shiyan in the ancient era can be called the home of giant pandas. Through excavations by archaeologists, giant panda fossils abound in shiyan. In 1975, experts from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences excavated more than 20 kinds of associated animal fossils such as giant pandas at the site of "Meipu Ape Man" in Meipu Town, Yunyang District; from 2004 to 2006, experts from the Hubei Institute of Archaeology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences excavated more than 1,500 fossils of associated animals such as 11 orders, 45 species, such as the subspecies of the giant panda; since 2007, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with relevant cultural and cultural institutions in Hubei Province, has carried out new exploration and excavation of the Bailongdong Ape Man Site in An's hometown of Yunxi County, and unearthed fossils of associated animals of 5 orders and 29 species, including giant pandas.
In ancient times, ancient humans inevitably dealt with giant pandas. "As a witness to the changes of the earth over thousands of years, the giant panda has accompanied human beings to today, which should be a great miracle." Professor Feng Xiaobo said. (Shiyan Evening News Qin Chu Network All-Media Reporter Zhu Jiang Edited: Phantom)