Yangshao Culture: Nurturing the Core Genes of Chinese Civilization
The prosperity and expansion of Yangshao culture played an important role in promoting the spread of prehistoric culture, civilization and people in China.
——Zhang Hai, Professor, School of Archaeology, Arts and Sciences, Peking University
◎Reporter Zhang Galun
Yangshao Culture was named after it was first discovered in Yangshao Village, Mianchi County, Henan Province.
It is an important archaeological culture in the Yellow River Basin in the Neolithic Age of China, and it occupies a pivotal position in the history of Chinese prehistoric social development.
Moreover, the excavation of the Yangshao Village site opened the prelude to modern Chinese archaeology.
The Yangshao culture involves many provinces and regions in China, about 5,000 to 7,000 years ago.
It covers a wide range and has a long duration.
Although it is a long time ago, we can still see the shining light of the Yangshao culture of that era from archaeological discoveries.
Archaeologists say that Yangshao culture is the "main root and main vein" of Chinese culture.
Zhang Hai, a professor at the School of Archaeology, Culture and Museum of Peking University, said that research has shown that Yangshao culture has nurtured many core genes of Chinese civilization. The process of the occurrence, development and prosperity of Yangshao culture in the Central Plains is also the process of the Chinese nation’s "agricultural origin." To the early civilization process of the "Urban Revolution".
The millet farming model was nurtured and developed in the Yangshao culture
We already know from archaeology that the Yangshao culture is based on millet (or dry farming) agriculture.
Zhang Hai introduced that the origin and development process of millet agriculture is not simple.
Studies have shown that from the late Paleolithic to the early Neolithic period since the last glacial period, prehistoric humans living in northern China have begun to use gramineous plants extensively, which laid the foundation for the early domestication of millet.
Definite plant archaeological evidence shows that cultivated millet has generally appeared in the northern region at least 8000 years ago.
From the perspective of cultivated crop varieties, the proportion of millet is the most prominent, followed by millet. At the same time, humans at that time also ate a large number of wild fruits such as oak and jujube.
In terms of domestic animals, the domestication of dogs has been discovered at the Nanzhuangtou site in Xushui, Hebei in the early Neolithic period. Although there are evidences of early domestication of domestic pigs, they are still being questioned by academic circles.
Zhang Hai said that this shows that the millet-based millet agricultural economy in the early domestication stage is not mature. This situation has been greatly changed after entering the Yangshao culture.
There is evidence that millet agriculture developed rapidly and matured with the rise of the Yangshao culture roughly 6,000 years ago.
The main manifestation is that the proportion of millet has greatly increased, and the proportion of millet has decreased simultaneously. At the same time, the number of wild fruits collected has also dropped greatly, while the proportion of soybeans has begun to rise.
Although it is still controversial whether the soybeans of the Yangshao culture period have been completely domesticated, it is clear that humans at that time have begun to use the bean resources generally and consciously.
Zhang Hai pointed out that there are still a small amount of rice in some Yangshao cultural sites in the Central Plains, indicating that with the spread of rice agriculture to the north, mixed cropping characteristics have appeared in the mature millet agricultural economic system of the Yangshao culture.
Along with the maturity of the Yangshao Culture's mature crop varieties of millet, millet, beans, and rice, the utilization patterns of livestock and animal resources in the Yangshao Culture have basically been fixed.
Yangshao people also hunt wild animals such as deer.
"The above-mentioned primitive agricultural economic model can be regarded as a mature millet farming model. It was not only bred and developed in the Yangshao culture, but also laid the economic foundation for the prosperity and development of the Yangshao culture." Zhang Hai said, millet agriculture The historical influence on northern China was profound. Until the Han Dynasty, millet was still the main food crop in the Yellow River Basin.
There is a "big house" and there is public life
When it comes to the social life of Yangshao people, many people will mention a word-"big house".
Yes, your understanding is correct, it is a large house site.
The "big houses" of the Yangshao culture are widely distributed.
Lingbao West Slope in Henan, Baishui River in Shaanxi, Lishidegang in Shanxi, and Dadiwan in Qin’an, Gansu have all reported the discovery of square or pentagonal “big houses” with an area of more than 200 square meters.
Zhang Hai introduced that the academic circles generally regard the Yangshao culture period as a major development stage of the clan society, and demonstrate the social structure of the Yangshao culture from the study of individual settlement patterns and public cemeteries.
According to ethnographic records, some researchers believe that the "big house" of the Yangshao Culture is not a general living space, but a public meeting place for the community, a place for collective discussions and decisions on major issues of the entire community.
What happened in the "big house" is also curious.
In recent years, some researchers have used the identification and analysis of micro-plant remains to speculate that collective banquets may have occurred in the "big house" of the Yangshao culture.
"It can be seen that the exercise of collective power is an important feature of Yangshao cultural and social organization activities." Zhang Hai said.
Wei Xingtao, a researcher at the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, introduced the excavation of the Lingbao Chengyan site in Henan.
The city smoke site is located in the south of Chengyan Village, Chuankou Township, Lingbao City, Henan Province, with an existing area of more than 30,000 square meters.
In 2019 and 2020, Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology will excavate it.
More than 40 houses and 80 tombs were discovered in various periods.
In addition, the image of a stone-carved silkworm cocoon was discovered, and possible silk remains were found in the urn coffin.
The early Yangshao houses were dominated by semi-crypts, and several ground-type houses with wall foundations had a larger area, the largest with an area of about 153 square meters, surrounded by a cloister, and it was the earliest discovered building with a cloister so far.
Wei Xingtao said that two parallel rammed wall foundations were found between the two trenches in the north-central part of the site, which may be the prototype of the early city site.
"All this shows that the southwestern area of Western Henan and Shanxi had a relatively high level of cultural and social development in the early Yangshao period."
Li Xinwei, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that a survey of the systematic settlements around Henan Zhudingyuan, the core area of the Miaodigou type of the Yangshao Culture, showed that the largest Beiyangping site has an area of nearly 1 million square meters, the second level The Xipo site covers an area of more than 400,000 square meters, and the settlements are obviously hierarchical.
The excavation of the core part of the Xipo site and the systematic drilling of the entire site indicate that a square is likely to exist in the center of the site, with large semi-crypt houses on the four corners of the square.
The 34 tombs in the Xipo Cemetery vary significantly in grades.
"Compared with other regions, the development path of Miaodigou's society, which is'purely governed' and emphasizes clan and collective affairs, is as heavy as loess, and it has accumulated an important foundation for the construction of a Chinese-style civilized country." Li Xinwei said.
Painted pottery culture, telling a certain belief and spirit
Yangshao culture is also known as painted pottery culture.
On the Yangshao painted pottery displayed in the museum, the patterns you can often see are birds and fish.
Fish, there are typical, there are variants, and there are concise versions.
According to Ma Mingzhi, associate researcher of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, the academic circles have a clear definition of the connotation of Yangshao culture.
Take the representative pottery as an example. There are two types of pottery: sand-filled pottery and clay pottery. The main themes are wide bands, fish, frogs, birds, human faces, and fangs and animal faces. Sharp-bottomed bottles, garlic pots, gourd bottles, sharp-bottomed pots, sand-filled belly pots, urns, bowls, basins, etc.
He believes that the human face image on painted pottery refers to a person with a special identity, that is, Wuzhu; animals such as fish and birds are messengers that contact Wuzhu and the gods; in the eyes of modern people, they look a bit hideous. Refers to the deity.
Ma Mingzhi said that Yangshao painted pottery takes human faces, fish, birds, and fangs as the main body, and forms a stable and systematic combination theme. This theme is not only a decorative pattern of pottery, it also reflects the gods and witches of Yangshao culture. I wish the belief system.
"It is the ideal configuration of the Yangshao cultural belief system and the world order." Such a deity theme also influenced the theme of ritual vessel patterns from the Longshan period to the Bronze Age, and should be an important source of the Bronze Age belief system.
Zhang Hai reminded that although painted pottery was developed during the Miaodigou period, painted pottery accounted for less than 10% of the typical pottery combination of the Yangshao culture. This seems to indicate that painted pottery is not a simple household utensil, and may have special uses.
Although academic circles have different interpretations of the patterns of painted pottery in Miaodigou, most scholars tend to believe that painted pottery represents a spiritual commonality and is the core element of the "early Chinese cultural circle".
In recent years, some researches on new technologies have shown that the spread of painted pottery in Miaodigou is synchronized with the spread of mature millet farming and people.
For example, the Banla Mountain Hongshan Cultural Site in the West Liao River Basin has both painted pottery, mature millet farming economy and more than 10% of the genetic genes from the Yangshao cultural population in the Central Plains.
"The prosperity and expansion of the Yangshao culture has played an important role in promoting the spread of prehistoric culture, civilization and people throughout China." Zhang Hai said.