The reporter learned from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage that the selection of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 2022 will be launched on the 27th, with a total of 22 projects shortlisted, and the final selection results are expected to be announced on the 28th. Whether or not they finally break through, the results achieved by these projects reflect the annual fundamentals of China's archaeological undertakings, and are wonderful nodes for exploring the origin and development of Chinese civilization and telling Chinese historical and cultural stories.
The final evaluation of the top ten national archaeological new discoveries in 2022 will be launched soon
Starting today, we will take a comprehensive look at these new archaeological discoveries together. We first focus on the prehistoric era and the Liangzi site of the school and other three shortlisted final evaluation projects, further revealing the development and evolution of China's million-year human history and 10,000-year cultural history.
Hubei Shiyan School Hall Liangzi Site The skull of "Yunxian Ren" No. 3 began to be repaired
The site of Xuetang Liangzi, located in Yunyang District, Shiyan City, Hubei Province, has preserved the stratigraphic accumulation of different periods for more than 100 million years. In 1989 and 1990, the site became famous for the discovery of two fossilized Homo erectus skulls dating back about 100 million years. In order to explore the important academic topic of human origin and evolution, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, since 2021, the Hubei Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with the Institute of Paleovertebrate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other units, has set up an archaeological team to carry out a new round of archaeological excavations. On May 2022, 5, the archaeological team found the fossil skull of "Yunxian Man" No. 18, which is about 3 million years old, which is the most complete Homo erectus skull fossil found in inland Eurasia so far, which has become an important evidence for studying the emergence and development of human beings in East Asia, and also empirically confirms the million-year human history of China. After half a year of meticulous excavation, the skull of "Yunxian Ren" No. 100 was successfully extracted and unearthed on December 2022, 12, and restoration has begun.
Gao Xing, leader of the expert working group for archaeology at the Liangzi site of Xuetang: There are very few human fossils about 100 million years ago, specific to our East Asian region of China, more than 100 million years old, only the Yuanmou people 170.160 million years ago, and the Lantian people about 120.100 million to 80.<> million years ago. "Yunxian people" is in the middle link, it is about <> million years ago. Later, there was Peking Ape Man, and new dating suggests that Peking Homo may be around <>,<> years ago. This link in the middle is basically supported by the three skulls of "Yunxian people", which should be a process of connecting the upper and lower.
The site of Shangyi Sitai, Hebei Province The earliest settled village in the northern region was discovered
Time spans from a million years ago to 2020,800 years ago. Since 10400, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and other units have begun to carry out a new round of archaeological excavations on the Sitai sites in Shangyi County, Hebei. More than 10000 pieces of pottery, stone, bone and shellfish relics were unearthed. What is especially gratifying to archaeological experts is that in the cultural remains of 9200-9000, 7600-7400, 7300-7100, 40-7 and other periods, more than 16 semi-crypt-type sites inhabited by ancient humans have been found, with an area of 7600~<> square meters. In addition, the archaeological team also found a large number of acorn shells and carbonized millet and millet, as well as a large number of stone millstones, grinding rods and stone shovels, and starch grains remained on the utensils, indicating that around <> years ago, the ancient people in the area had begun to domesticate agriculture, which became the empirical evidence of the origin of dry farming in the north. There are indications that the development of human cultural remains here has been continuous, and the Paleolithic transition to the Neolithic has been seamlessly achieved.
Li Xinwei, researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: The transition between the new and paleostone tools is a particularly important turning point in human development, sometimes called the agricultural revolution. Man used to get food from nature, and by the time of the agricultural revolution, man began to domesticate plants and produce food on his own. Especially if you depend on those later crops, you may have to settle down. The most important thing for the four now is to find the clearest evidence of settlement, which is the appearance of such semi-crypt houses. It looks like more than 10,000 years ago, and it was at this stage that was an important turning point.
The Xu Yao Site of the Zhao Family in Linzi, Shandong Province is another important empirical evidence of China's 10,000-year cultural development history
Time continues to stay 1,1 years ago, archaeological experts from the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, in the eastern part of Linzi, Shandong, also discovered a human site in the Paleolithic and Neolithic transitional stage - the Zhaojia Xuyao site, 1,5-<>,<> years ago.
During the excavation, a well-preserved temporary activity camp of the ancients was found, with a total area of about 400 square meters and at least 3 fire pits; Around the fire pond, more than 1000,200 relics were found one after another, including pottery chips, ceramic sculptures, and a small number of stone products and mussel shell products; Among them, there are more than 2 pieces of pottery, including 6 pieces of restorable pottery, 5 pieces of lace mouth and 0 pieces of perforated pottery, all of which are charcoal red pottery, the thickness is basically about 7.<> cm, the texture is uniform, and the shape is regular, which is the earliest pottery age unearthed in northern China and the site with the largest number of early pottery pieces unearthed in China, suggesting that there may be a more primitive pottery origin stage in the region. The site has a large area and multiple frequency of red-burned soil accumulation, indicating that the frequency of fire in the site is very high, indicating that people and fire have interacted for a long period of time, which may be closely related to the ancients' acquisition of specific resources and territorial awareness. According to experts, the ruins of Xuyao of the Zhao family with complete preservation and rich relics have become another important empirical evidence of China's <>,<>-year cultural development history.
Go back 5,000 years to explore the origins of Chinese civilization
Among the 2022 projects shortlisted for the final evaluation of "22 National Top Ten Archaeological New Discoveries", 4 will focus on excavation and research targets from 3700 to 5800 years ago, from the perspective of spatial distribution, including Anhui, Gansu, Shanxi, Shaanxi, further highlighting the origin and early development of Chinese civilization, is a diversified and integrated evolution process.
Anhui Ma'anshan Lingjiatan Site Key relics of the origin and formation of Chinese civilization
Located in Hanshan County, Maanshan City, Anhui Province, the Lingjiatan site is a Neolithic central settlement site dating back 5800-5300 years, with a total area of about 160.1985 million square meters. Since its discovery in 14, a total of 2020 archaeological excavations have been carried out, of which, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology carried out 2022 excavations of the site itself from 4 to <>.
More than 260 pottery, stone and jade cultural relics were unearthed in the sacrificial pit: more than 60 stone tools are the most distinctive, one of which is the largest stone pottery in the Neolithic period of China; Jade is mainly small ornaments such as jue and tube, containing a small number of gear-shaped, comb-shaped and other new vessel types, the most special is a dragon's head-shaped jade, peculiar shape, exquisite craftsmanship, is a new discovery of Chinese prehistoric archaeology; At the same time, the largest jade in China was unearthed. Pottery includes cups, pots, dings, large-mouth zuns, etc., and the most distinctive is the painted pottery gourd bottle with black color on a white background and a draped pattern. Experts say that the new findings further show that Lingjiatan is a key relic of the origin and formation of Chinese civilization, and its importance is more prominent.
Gansu Qingyang Nanzuo Site Large high-level central settlements witnessed the formation of civilization
The Nanzuo site, located on Dong Zhiyuan, the largest land on the Loess Plateau in Qingyang City, Gansu Province, is a large-scale high-grade central settlement in the late Yangshao period from about 5100 to 4700 years ago. From 2021 to 2022, the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Chinese Min University and other units jointly carried out archaeological excavations and large-scale investigation and exploration, and preliminarily confirmed that the site area exceeded 600 million square meters, there were 9 symmetrically distributed rammed earth platforms, there were two ring moats outside, the ring moat and rammed earth platform surrounded the core area of the site of about 30,3600 square meters, and a rectangular "palace castle" with an area of 1000,<> square meters was found inside, and the building materials also included adobe and the earliest red bricks, and the floor and walls were painted with multiple layers of lime. It became the earliest example of large-scale use of white and gray surfaces to decorate buildings in China. Valuable items such as white pottery, black pottery, turquoise beads, and complete sets of painted pottery with a high level of production were unearthed, and the pottery production temperature was controlled above <> °C, indicating that there was a long-distance connection with the Yangtze River basin and the lower reaches of the Yellow River. In particular, millions of grains of carbonized rice have been discovered, which have never been seen before in the Loess Plateau, and may have been cultivated locally, or obtained from long-distance trade such as the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
Han Jianye, professor at the School of History, Chinese Minmin University: With such a project alone, there are about 75,5000 cubic meters of earthwork, and it may take thousands of people to work for at least a year. The emergence of large-scale projects and large-scale palace buildings is still from about <>,<> years ago, such as the Liangzhu site, such as the Nanzuo site, which tells us more clearly that the civilization in this period really formed.
Bicun Ruins in Xing County, Shanxi Province Shicheng settlement shows a tightly structured gate site system
In addition, the site of Bicun in Xingxian County, Shanxi, which was shortlisted for the top ten archaeological final evaluations, is a stone city settlement with double walls inside and outside, dating from about 4200-3700 years ago.
By the end of 2022, archaeological excavations had unearthed a number of distinctive pottery, bone and jade tools, and the layout of the core area had been more comprehensively understood. Especially in the heyday of the settlement development, the outer city wall and the outer city gate were built, the entire gate site span 74 meters from north to south, 48 meters deep from east to west, surrounded by three stone-clad earth core piers in the shape of "pin", when passing through the customs into the city, it is necessary to enter the first urn city through the outer side of the semi-circular pier platform, detour forward, after passing through two urn cities, you can reach the city, becoming a set of gate site systems that are relatively complete in prehistoric times, the most tightly structured, and the most regular shape.
Xi'an Taiping Site in Shaanxi The largest and most well-preserved Longshan era ring moat settlement
Excavations of the Taiping site in Xi'an, Shaanxi, about 4150,3700-2021,3 years ago, began in March <> and preliminarily determined that the site is the largest and best-preserved Longshan period ring moat settlement known in the Guanzhong region.
(CCTV reporter Zhang Lilei, Tian Yunhua, Yan Hong, Wang Shuai)