Western ethnic groups are migrating
Khampa, the resounding name, where did it come from?
Anthropologists attach great importance to the origin and geographical relationship of human civilization:
British scholar Bakr said: Racial differences are not due to different innate traits, but because of differences in climate, food, soil quality and so on.
The German Reicher said: The size of political groups, the form of organization, the political shangwen and martial arts, the pessimism or optimism of the people, progress or regression, freedom love or obedience, can all be explained by geographical environment.
The Frenchman Bodin believes that the people living in the cold zone have a large body, energy, and a persistent personality; the people living in the tropics are short, warm and intelligent.
Therefore, when we explore the origin of the Kham Tibetans, we naturally first turn our attention to the "roof of the world" and "the third pole of the earth", that is, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau!
The Rise of the Tibetan Plateau and the Hypothesis of Human Origin
The rise of the ancient sea and the Rise of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,
The Great Plateau has a tribe of heaven,
Mount Everest is a wordless monument,
The Brahmaputra is our mother river.
There are spaceships in space,
The old aunt was still prostrating her head and reciting the six-character mantra.
The great plateau came up to us:
Proud of Kunlun Mountain
We waved to the sky
The Song Universe makes a declaration:
——The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is about to rise!
--Meng Meiying
The history of the formation and evolution of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is probably the most glorious and magnificent chapter in the natural epic since the formation of the earth.
Beautiful Tibetan Plateau
The research results of geoscientists and recent scientific expeditions to Tibet have outlined such a thrilling picture for us:
About a billion years ago, the Earth also consisted of one ocean and two continents— the Gondwana and Lauya archaeomas, which inhabit the northern and southern hemispheres, and in the long geological years since, the paleolusters and oceans have undergone a series of migrations and reorganizations. In the area of the current Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, in the past 1 billion years, three oceans have developed from north to south - the original Tethys, Gutetis, and the new Tethys - which existed 800-900-350 million years ago, 350-200 million years ago, and 180 million-400 million years ago.
40 million years ago, when the Indian shield traveled 5,000 or 6,000 kilometers from the south, the last impact on the southern edge of Eurasia, after completing the outline of the Qinghai-Tibet region, still struggled to advance northward. The ancient and hard North China Plate, tarim plate and Yangtze plate, which are as hard as the Indian shield in the north and east of the Qinghai-Tibet region, stand still – the result of the two forces meeting forces the Tibetan Plateau to rise upwards without choice.
Schematic diagram of the collision between India and the Asian continent
In the 40 million years since the formation of the Tibetan Plateau, it has undergone three uplifts and two levels – the first one is 40 million to 30 million years ago, rising to about 2000 meters, and when it is no longer uplifted, it was once eroded and reduced; the second rise from 20 million to 15 million years created the Himalayas, but then eroded and declined, forming a plain no more than 1,000 meters high in the past 3 million to 4 million years; the third overall strong rise from 3.6 million years, The cumulative rise of 3000-3500 meters here has continued to this day...
Since 3.6 million years ago, the Tibetan Plateau has experienced three periods of strong rise: the first phase is called the "Qinghai-Tibet Movement", which is 3.6 million to 1.6 million years ago; the second phase is called the "Kunlun-Yellow River Movement, 1.1 million to 600,000 years ago; the third phase is called the "Republican Movement", which began about 150,000 years ago, and the height has risen rapidly to 4500-5000 meters, and it is still in the process of strong overall uplift, with an ascent rate of up to 1 centimeter per year!
Highly related to this, the Tibetan Plateau rose to 2,000 meters away from 2.4 million years ago, inducing the emergence of the East Asian monsoon; 800,000 years ago, the main body of the plateau entered the cryosphere, and the largest ice age in the Quaternary period appeared, leading to another transformation of the climate in the northern hemisphere; and the republican movement in the past 150,000 years was the direct consequence of another rise of the plateau, making the northern hemisphere strong winter winds strong and the summer winds weakened, and this climate transition continues to this day.
The final uplift is crucial, and perhaps even decisive, for both the Planet and humanity. It has changed the natural geography of China, formed a high Asia, and made great changes in the world's geography and climate. For China, the natural appearance was extremely simple: only because of the latitude, there was a difference between the north and the south. Today, it is divided into the eastern monsoon zone, the northwest arid zone and the plateau alpine zone. As the Tibetan Plateau blocks the warm and humid air currents of the Indian Ocean, northwestern China becomes increasingly arid and forms a strong Siberian-Mongolian high pressure in northern Asia in winter, while the eastern part becomes warm and humid – it is precisely because of this unprecedented uplift in the Qinghai-Tibet region that it induces and strengthens the monsoon circulation in South Asia, bringing abundant precipitation to that region.
Aerial view of the Tibetan Plateau
In addition, the global impact of the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau is that it has greatly changed the Asian atmospheric circulation, leading to the occurrence of the most powerful monsoon system on the earth, and because of the Formation of the Qinghai-Tibet High Pressure over high Asia, the tropical easterly current on its south side rises from the warm pool in the western Pacific Ocean and superimposes the local subtropical high pressure in the Arabian Peninsula and the Sahara, forming a strong sinking air current, resulting in a large area of desert in West Asia - the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has brought benefits to East Asia and South Asia, making it mild and humid, and the grain is abundant It also brought disadvantages to northwestern China, the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, where the climate was drier and hotter. This makes the same latitude and the climate different.
Here is another shocking fact: the major events that occur in the biological world of the earth are almost all synchronized with the major events in the geological history of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau!
Since its formation, the Tibetan Plateau has been accompanied by a global cooling; its several major uplifts coincided with the advent of the Great Ice Age and the Interglacial Period. In the meantime, the dinosaurs went extinct, the species changed dramatically, and the great floods of ancient times in human legend linked people to the end of the ice age... But these, compared to humans, are too long, and scientists need to search for further. What concerns people the most is the relationship between the evolution of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the formation of human beings.
The conclusions of modern geology provide us with an important clue related to the origin of human civilization: the strong and large-scale uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, that is, between 10 and 2 million years ago, is roughly equivalent to the age of human formation and production. At present, archaeological findings propose the stages of human evolution: the earliest ancestors of human beings, which can be traced back to the forest ancient apes, Siva ancient apes and Lufeng ancient apes about 20 million years ago; the apes are separated by only 7 million years; the "able people" who learn to walk on two legs and can make tools appeared 2.5 million years ago; about 2 million years ago, more progressive "Homo erectus"; 200,000 years or so Paleolithic middle and late "Homo sapiens"; Neolithic "real people" of about 7000 to 4000 years. The history of human civilization with historical records can be calculated from the use of writing by the Sumerians in 4000 BC, China can roughly start from the Xia Dynasty in 4300 years ago, and the earliest decipherable oracle bone in China is after the Shang Dynasty about 3700 years ago.
What is certain is that the two most critical stages of human evolution coincide with the geological changes on the Tibetan Plateau:
First, about 7 million years ago, the Himalayas were uplifted in the late Tertiary Period, and the forests in The Mongolian and Tibetan regions were wiped out on a large scale, which was exactly the same as the time it took for the ancient apes in the forest to walk from trees to the ground in 7 million years, and the ancient apes in Lufeng Lama, Yunnan, which were found by archaeology, were exactly 7-8 million years old;
Second, around 2.4 million years ago, it was the "capable man" stage when the lower apes began to walk upright and make tools, and at this time the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was rising to a critical height of 2,000 meters above sea level, when the deep plateau monsoon suddenly rose, changing the atmospheric circulation of the northern hemisphere in one fell swoop, quaternary glaciers began to appear, global temperatures dropped, arctic ice sheets formed, loess began to accumulate, and Africa became arid... The gradual deterioration of the living environment prompted the ape people who are accustomed to "relying on the sky to eat" to start making tools and actively making a living, and the yuanmou ape people found in this area (fossils from the same period were also found in India, Pakistan and other places) were about 2 million to 1.7 million years old!
In the 1920s and 1930s, the American biologist Osborne and the American geologist Philips successively proposed the "Asian Theory of Human Origin". Among them, Mr. Graham has noted the great possibility of the Tibetan Plateau as the birthplace of mankind. Mr. Jia Lanpo, an authoritative scholar in the field of paleoanthropology in China, also believes that "I believe that in the southern part of Asia, that is, east of Pakistan and the vast southwest of China, such as the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau region, the roots of human beings will be found, and of course, the Tibet region will be forgotten." Because when the apes of the Pliocene evolved into humans, it was originally a humid subtropical climate, and it was still a lush land, with an average annual temperature of about 10 °C, which was suitable for the growth of various organisms."
The scientific investigation and prehistoric archaeological discoveries in the Qinghai-Tibet region of China have foreshadowed that the Tibetan plateau region may become one of the origins of human beings.
Looking at the majestic figure of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, when we marvel at its depth and thickness, we also think bitterly about how many mysteries it has hidden for eternity!