Author: Han Jianye (Chief Expert, Major Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China on "Research on the Process of Early Chinese Civilization from a Eurasian Perspective", Professor, School of History, Chinese Minmin University)
In the past hundred years, with the hard work of several generations of archaeologists, Chinese archaeology has made great achievements, and one of the important contributions is to let us gradually see that as early as the prehistoric period, we have formed a multi-branched and central cultural sense of early China, which has become the foundation of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Kingdom and even our modern unified multi-ethnic state. From the budding of early China in culture more than 8,000 years ago, to the formation of early China in culture about 6,000 years ago, to the formation of early Chinese civilization more than 5,000 years ago, to the maturity of early Chinese civilization after 4,000 years, for thousands of years, early China experienced a continuous process of continuous development with ups and downs, tempered the characteristics that are different from other civilizations in the world, and became "the cultural genes of the Chinese nation that live endlessly and flourish forever."
The formation of early China and its cultural genes has a lot to do with the geographical environment and climate. China is the largest region in the world suitable for agricultural development. As early as about 10,000 years ago, the south and north of China developed the world's earliest rice and millet agriculture, and more than 8,000 years later, the two major agricultural systems of "Southern Rice and Northern Millet" with the Yellow River and Yangtze River Basin as the main body were basically formed. Therefore, China has long formed the basic concept of "agriculture-oriented", and on this basis, a unique cultural gene has been formed.
■■ Holistic thinking is one with heaven and man
China has always adhered to a holistic, continuous view of the universe, perhaps because of the special reverence for nature in the huge Chinese agricultural society, or because of the special attention paid to the astronomical calendar due to the needs of the Chinese. This holistic view of the universe itself contains the cultural genes of holistic thinking and the unity of heaven and man.
Bone gauge vessel excavated from the jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan.
About 8,000 years ago, in the ruins of Jiahu Lake in Wuyang, Henan, which belonged to the Pei Ligang culture, the larger adult male tombs were buried with astronomical tools such as bone regular instruments and bone rhythm tubes (bone flutes) that were considered to be possible for visual timing, and Chinese astronomy has initially emerged. The burial is equipped with stone tortoiseshells, which are engraved with characters, when associated with turtle divination and the number of bagua elephants. The turtle's back is round and the abdomen is flat, and perhaps the cosmology of the "round place" has already taken shape. At the site of the High Temple in Hongjiang, Hunan, the earliest eight-pointed star pattern appeared on the exquisite white pottery, which may express the spatial concept of the eight squares and nine palaces and the "heavenly circle place"; there are also patterns such as sun patterns, phoenix patterns, fangs and animal face flying dragon patterns and heavenly ladder patterns, combined with the existence of the "row of frame ladder buildings" at the site, showing a strong original religious atmosphere of heaven and worship. In Fuxin Chahai, Liaoning Province, and nearby sites, stone sculptures of long dragons and fangs have also been found. At about the same time, at the ruins of Yiwu Bridgehead and Xiaoshan Cross-lake Bridge in Zhejiang Province, six groups of yin-yang paintings and digital guaxiang symbols painted or carved on pottery and bone ware were found, which were very similar to Zhou Yi and Bagua symbols, and were closely related to the turtle divination of Jia Lake. Seven thousand years ago, the eight-pointed star pattern and the fangs of the beast face pattern became popular in most parts of China, indicating that the cosmology of the "heavenly circle place" and its concept of respecting the heavens have been widely extended and inherited, such as the "Luoshu Jade Edition" and the animal wing jade eagle in Hanshan Lingjiatan in Anhui Province more than 5,000 years ago, and the eight-pointed star pattern is carved in the center of them. In addition, the discovery of a mussel sculpture "Dragon and Tiger" tomb dating back more than 6,000 years at the site of Xishuipo in Puyang, Henan, is believed to have advanced the indiscriminate period of China's Twenty-Eight Su System by thousands of years. At the Niuheliang site at the junction of Lingyuan and Jianping in Liaoning Province, a three-thousand-year-old heavenly sacrifice "circular hill" or "Temple of Heaven" composed of a triple stone circle was found, and the diameter of the outer ring was exactly twice the diameter of the inner circle, which was exactly the same as the ratio of the outer and internal balances shown in the "Seven Balances Diagram" in the "Zhou Hip Arithmetic Classic", and was considered to be "the most complete gaitian cosmology diagram seen so far in the prehistoric period".
The "Luoshu Jade Edition" and the Beast-winged Jade Eagle excavated from the Lingjiatan site in Hanshan, Anhui.
The cosmology of the "heavenly circle place", as well as the related visual timing, astronomical calendar, elephant number turtle occupation, yin and yang bagua, and heavenly respect, etc., is a holistic cosmology that emphasizes universal connection that unifies the universe of heaven and earth and all human beings, is a dynamic rather than static cosmology, is a way of thinking that combines primitive religion and digital rationality, and in later generations it is summarized as the idea of "the unity of heaven and man". Under the domination of this cosmology, our ancestors always had a reverence for the nature of heaven and earth, and developed into the world outlook of respecting nature, conforming to nature, and acting in a timely manner represented by the Zhou Yi and The Tao Te Ching, and the dialectical thinking of yin and yang complementing each other, unifying opposites, and not changing, penetrating into the blood of every Chinese, laying the cornerstone of classical Chinese philosophy, leading the development direction of Chinese civilization, and exerting far-reaching influence.
■■ Ancestor worship is people-oriented
Agricultural production requires a group of people to work and multiply on a piece of land for a long time, and it is easy to produce a strong blood society with a common ancestor as the link. In early China, as the world's largest agricultural and cultural area, it was natural to form a cultural gene of ancestor worship and people-oriented.
Chinese prehistoric tombs emphasize "burial in the soil for safety", there are special cemeteries, buried deeply, neatly buried, buried with items, reflecting the special care and respect for the deceased, should also be the real society attaches great importance to the embodiment of family ethics, the earliest in the Pei Ligang culture has been reflected. In Henan Xinzheng Pei Li Gang, Wuxian Shuiquan, Wuyang Jia Lake and many other Pei Li Gang cultural sites, there are public cemeteries near the residential area, which should be the result of the same group of people "living together and burying together", reflecting the kinship relationship between people of the same ethnic group who may be related by blood, and the customs of "clan burial" and "clan grave" recorded in the "Zhou Li" are advanced to eight thousand years ago. The division or group of the same cemetery, neatly arranged, should be a reflection of the existence of different levels of social organization such as family, family, clan and so on in the real society, as well as the order of men and women, old and young. The large tombs with more special objects buried with them are mostly adult males, indicating that the status of some clan leaders has become more prominent. The same cemetery can last for one or two hundred years or even hundreds of years, which shows that the clan has a long-term memory and adherence to the habitat of distant ancestors, which may also provide a legitimate reason and "legitimacy" for future generations to cultivate and live on this land for a long time. The burial and clan burial customs of the Pei Ligang culture and other countries are unique in the world in the same period, which are in stark contrast to the common burials, heavenly burials, cremations, popular idolatry of gods, and the pursuit of soul purification in the same period in West Asia and other places.
Bone flute (bone rhythm pipe) excavated from the JiaHu site in Wuyang, Henan.
The tradition of clan burial, ancestor worship and historical memory formed in the Pei Ligang era continued until the late Neolithic period, spreading throughout the north and south of the great river, such as the Dawenkou Cemetery in Tai'an, Shandong, from more than 6,000 years ago to more than 4,000 years ago, lasting up to 2,000 years, and was always divided into groups and arranged in an orderly manner. The customs of clan burial and ancestor worship were passed down to the Xia and Shang Dynasties and even after the Qin and Han Dynasties, they became the source of the patriarchal system and the tomb system, and became the foundation of the clan society in Chinese history. As a result, the genealogy of ancestors occupies a central place in documentary records and historical legends. No matter how society reorganized and how the regime changed later, this "root culture" based on ancestor worship continued for a long time.
The concept of family affection and human ethics in the Pei Ligang era developed to the zhou dynasty before and after the formation of the concept of "benevolence" and "filial piety", as well as the idea of "people-oriented". From loving one's own family, to the people of the country, to the human beings, is for the great benevolence; from respecting the parents, to inheriting and developing the ancestral inheritance and Taoism, it is for the great filial piety. The Zhou people had a strong view of the Mandate of Heaven, and the reason why the Wu King cut down the People's Favor was that the King of Wu was "cut himself off from heaven", and whether the Zhou people's hearts were under the precondition of heaven's favor should be whether they were "cultivating morality", whether they won the people's hearts or obeyed the will of the people, the so-called "what the people want, the heavens will follow it".
■■ Pursue order and stability in the middle
China's super-large-scale agricultural production requires a long period of settlement, and it is necessary to constantly adjust the internal order of society to maintain stability, and gradually formed a cultural gene of pursuing order and stabilizing the middle. Another manifestation of the pursuit of stable order Chinese is that in the long development process of thousands of years, the scope of the main body's activities has not changed much, and there is basically no large-scale external expansion. "No for also, must not also" .
Early Chinese culture is the most stable and continuous culture in the world, and in the long history of more than 10,000 years in the Neolithic Era, the cultural context is continuous, and the national subjects are inherited before and after, and have never been interrupted. Pottery is a simple and practical and easy to break utensils, China invented the world's earliest pottery 20,000 years ago, and later became the world's largest pottery popular area, because of the agricultural foundation and stable social life in early China. The early cultural exchanges between China and the West more than 5,000 years later only spread livestock and crops such as sheep, cattle, and wheat to China, and did not change the basic pattern of life and industry in early China, with rice and millet agriculture as the mainstay, and the livestock raised were mainly pigs that relied on agricultural economy. The expansion of the animal husbandry culture characterized by horse-drawn chariots in the Eurasian steppe for more than 4,000 years has caused a huge impact on the West Asian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Indus river civilization, etc., and under its stimulation, it has gradually formed a livestock culture belt along the Great Wall in northern China, but the composition and cultural factors of this cultural belt mainly originate from China itself, and have never shaken the foundation of Chinese culture. The characteristics of stability and continuity in early Chinese culture continued until after the Qin and Han dynasties.
China's earliest axes, hammers, chisels and other stone tools, mainly woodworking tools used to build houses, and gathering ethnic groups and settling down is the most important way of living in prehistoric China. In the Xinglongwa cultural sites such as Xinglongwa, Xinglonggou and Linxi Baiyin Changhan in Inner Mongolia, which are 7000 or 8000 years old, there are villages around the trenches outside, and the houses inside are neatly arranged, and there are generally large houses in the center. This is significantly different from the more casual settlement layout in West Asia and other places during the same period. In Shaanxi Xi'an Banpo, Lintong Jiangzhai, Baoji Beishouling and other Yangshao cultural sites more than 6,000 years ago, also found ring trench villages, such as Jiangzhai ring trench village has five pieces of houses, each house has a large, medium and small points, large houses may be held sacrifices and other public activities, almost all the doorways of the houses are facing the central square, there are public pottery places, public cemeteries around, it can be seen that the social centripetal cohesion at that time, orderly. The ruins of the Gongyi double locust tree, which is about 5,000 years old, even have a triple large ring trench, and the center is a large high-grade building area. The earliest known city site in China is the chengtou mountain city site in Lixian County, Hunan Province, which has been around for more than 6,000 years, and after 5,000 years, it is found all over the Yellow River and the Yangtze River Basin, and the construction of these ancient cities is not only to resist enemies or waterproof, but also to distinguish between inside and outside, emphasize the "center", and maintain the internal order of society. For example, millions of square meters of Liangzhu Temple, Tao Temple, and Shi'an Ancient City are centered on the grand scale of "Miyagi", and the small and orderly Site of Pingliangtai City in Huaiyang, Henan Province, has the discovery of the Central Axis Avenue. The city sites in the Central Plains are the most square and regular, which is not only due to the geographical characteristics of the plains, but also related to its greater pursuit of social order. In addition, since the Pei Ligang culture, tombs throughout early China have been generally arranged neatly, and they are similar to the situation of villages and city sites in the pursuit of social order.
About 8,000 years ago, the houses of the Xinglongwa culture are basically square or rectangular houses with fire ponds in the center, and some of them have stone statues behind the fire ponds, and while pursuing the regular symmetry of the architectural space, there is also the concept of "center", which also runs through the entire Yangshao culture and Longshan culture period. More than 5,000 years ago, hundreds of square meters of palace-style houses on the western slope of Lingbao, Henan, have a sacred fire pit in the middle of the front, supported by four large symmetrical pillars. The largest building in the Ruins of Dadiwan in Qin'an, Gansu Province, has initially formed the basic characteristics of the palace-style architecture of classical Chinese temples, such as the difference between the interior and exterior of the front hall and the back, the symmetry of the left and west compartments, and the distinction between the left, middle, and right doors. Gansu Qingyang Nanzuo ruins of the front hall and back hall style Zongmiao palace building, Shaanxi Yan'an Lushan Jia site covers an area of more than 10,000 square meters of Zongmiao palace complex, the layout is also symmetrical in the central axis, the primary and secondary are clear. During the Xia and Shang Dynasties, the temple palace buildings at the sites of Yanshi Erlitou, Yanshi Shangcheng and Anyang Yin Ruins in Henan were even more orderly and solemn and orderly, especially the "courtyard" style Western Zhou Zongmiao temple building in Qishan Fengyan, Shaanxi, which can be called a sign of the maturity of the palace-style architecture of classical Chinese zongmiao, and also a concentrated embodiment of the Western Zhou rulers advocating order and stable execution.
The institutional embodiment of maintaining social order in early China was mainly the "etiquette" with the attribute of self-discipline, rather than the "law" imposed by external forces. The specific manifestation of the ritual system is the instrument system, the palace system, the tomb system, and so on. The etiquette system is characterized by the combination of flexible self-discipline, simple moderation, rigid rules, and hierarchical differences, which is the way of "clinging to the middle" or "moderation". From an archaeological point of view, more than 5,000 years ago, Henan Lingbao Xipo Cemetery, large and small tombs are hierarchical, the scale of large tombs is grand, and there are few burial products and appear in pairs, which not only reflects the different status of the tomb owner, but also very restrained, reflecting the budding of the burial system or ceremonial system in the Central Plains at that time. In the lower reaches of the Yellow River, the Dawenkou culture, Longshan culture, etc., the large tomb coffins are complete sets, and there are certain regulations with the burial products, and there has been a preliminary coffin system and utensil system, and by the Western Zhou Dynasty, it developed into a mature coffin system and a ding system. Ding is the first ceremonial instrument in early China, the first appeared in the Central Plains Pei Ligang culture, more than 5,000 years ago in the central and eastern regions have initially formed a combination of ritual vessels with Tao Ding as the core, four thousand years later in the late Xia Dynasty in the Erlitou site appeared copper Ding, in the Zhou Dynasty different levels of noble tombs, with the number of burial Ding, Gui and other ceremonial instruments are clearly stipulated.
■■ Tolerance is the great harmony of coexistence
Early Chinese culture, based on agriculture, advocated order, benevolence to others, peace-loving, and "for the sake of not arguing". However, in the early days, China had a vast geographical space and a complex natural environment, with two major agricultural systems, rice cultivation and dry farming, and the cultures within each system were diverse. In order to maintain a wide range of long-term stability, it is necessary to blend and tolerate each other, so it is easy to form a cultural gene of tolerance and harmonious coexistence.
About 10,000 years ago in the early Neolithic Period, according to the different forms of pottery, Chinese culture can be divided into five major cultural areas, and later the cultural areas continue to interact and blend, and by more than 8,000 years ago, they have been reduced to four major cultural areas, and these cultural areas take the Central Plains as the core, have more connections and commonalities with each other, and have the germ of early China in culture. Six thousand years later, most of China was intertwined into a super cultural circle, formally forming a cultural early China or "original China". The cultures in this super cultural circle have their own characteristics, but they are common and synthetic, and centered on the middle reaches of the Yellow River or the Central Plains, just like a prehistoric Chinese flower composed of flower hearts and multiple petals, which bloomed until the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties and even after the Qin and Han Dynasties. The process of the formation and development of early China was also a process of close exchanges between people in various regions and continuous integration of cultures. Seeking common ground while reserving differences, harmony and difference, and harmonious coexistence are one of the secrets of multi-branch integrated cultural China to maintain order, stable development and long-term continuation.
In the process of the development of regional cultures in early China, with the increase of population and the complexity of society, conflicts and wars could not be avoided. At least three periods of the Neolithic age had large-scale wars, which were manifested in the increase in weapons such as arrows, stones, and spears, the improvement of defensive facilities such as city walls, urns, horse faces, and trenches, and the increase in mass burial pits. Among them, the wars between 5,000 years and 4,000 years ago were related to the dry and cold climate, when the resources in the northern region were sharply reduced, agriculture was difficult, disasters were frequent, and the overall trend was that the northern population went south, triggering a chain reaction of war, but the result was not only did not cause the collapse of early China, but quickly strengthened the ability to mobilize social organizations, and stimulated most of China to enter the primitive civilization and mature civilized society. Especially in the context of the war around 4,000 years ago, the middle reaches of the Yellow River have successively appeared in the tao temple, shiya, Erlitou and other million square meters of large capitals, bringing together different styles of jade, bronze, pottery, etc., after integration and "sinicization", once again feedback to affect the surrounding areas. For example, the Jade Tooth Zhang, Jue, Xue and other ceremonial vessels of the Erlitou culture in the late Xia Dynasty once reached the Xiliao River Basin in the north, the coast in the east and south, and the West Daganqing and sichuan basins. Another example is the bronze used mainly to create weapons and tools in the Eurasian steppe, and in the central plains of the late Xia Dynasty, it was cast as a bronze ding symbolizing the temple and social order, and was widely used in various local centers during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
The animal husbandry culture characterized by bronze weapons and tools that appeared along the Great Wall about three thousand years ago and the agricultural culture of the Central Plains and other places formed a relationship of opposition and integration, which further exercised the tenacious character of early China, and early China was able to develop and mature. Chinese are well aware of the principle that "the ominous weapons of soldiers are also used as a last resort", and the foundation of the way of culture and martial arts lies in defending the homeland, continuing the foundation, and inheriting civilization.
■■ Diligence, perseverance and self-improvement
Farmers are the most industrious and determined people in the world, they cultivate, plant, manage the fields, harvest, mill, process grain, raise livestock and poultry, do all kinds of cottage industries, except for festivals, weddings and funerals, almost no free time, has been hard work. In the early days, China had the world's largest agricultural area and the largest number of farmers, forming a cultural gene of hard work, perseverance and self-improvement.
China's rice cultivation appeared in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River more than 10,000 years ago, expanded to the Huai River Basin and the lower reaches of the Yellow River after 9,000 years ago, spread to South China, Taiwan and even further after 6,000 years, and extended to the Sichuan Basin more than 4,000 years later. China's millet cultivation appeared in North China more than 10,000 years ago, spread to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and most of the Xiliao River Basin more than 8,000 years ago, and more than 5,000 years ago, it entered the arid Hexi Corridor in the west and stepped on the towering Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the southwest, and has reached the Xinjiang region more than 4,000 years ago. In the process of pioneering and developing prehistoric agriculture, it is necessary to continuously adapt to a variety of different geographical, climatic and soil environments, and to overcome countless difficulties and obstacles.
The Yangtze River Basin and the Huai River Basin have abundant water sources, but the terrain is low and flat, flood disasters are frequent, and the ancestors of liangzhu culture and Qujialing culture have built cities and dams on a large scale in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, waterproofing and controlling water, and the labor intensity is very large, not to mention the diligence and patience required for intensive rice farming. Although the Loess Plateau has a deep soil layer, but most of the year is relatively arid, rainfall is mainly concentrated in summer, and natural disasters are frequent, so farmers in the north must be accustomed to enduring the hardships of life caused by drought, facing the loess with their backs to the sky, seizing the opportunity to sow seeds and harvest in time. As the direct root of Chinese civilization, Yangshao culture is the birth of the Loess Plateau, Yangshao culture spans today's eight or nine provinces, and continues for more than 2,000 years, which epitomizes the tenacious and persevering spirit of the ancestors of prehistoric North China. The history of the development of China's agriculture is the history of the Chinese nation's industrious and perseverance and unremitting struggle for self-improvement.
Guangming Daily (11/11/11/2020)
Source: Guangming Network
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