The source of Chinese civilization
Shanxi Province has signs of human activities since ancient times, is one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization, known as the 5,000-year-old history of Shanxi, is the province with the largest number of Chinese Paleolithic cultural relics has been discovered, not only ranks first in the country, but also constitutes the main body of the two major Paleolithic cultural traditions in North China. Moreover, the remains of the early, middle and late Paleolithic are abundant and self-contained.
Distribution of Stone Age sites in Shanxi Province.
From 1961 to 1962, the Xihoudu site (located near Xihoudu Village, Fenglingdu Town, Ruicheng County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province) excavated a number of human cultural relics and a number of fossils of ribs, horse teeth and antlers that had been burned by fire, pushing the history of human use of fire to 1.8 million years ago.
Xihoudu ruins.
In 1960, the excavation of the Kē River Cultural Site (located in the area of Fenglingdu Qihe Village, Ruicheng County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province) showed that humans had begun to engage in both gathering and hunting activities at that time, earlier than the Beijing ape-man culture, and the Dingcun culture developed from the Qihe culture.
Ruins of the Qianghe River. In 1976, hominin fossils were discovered at the Dingcun Cultural Site (near Dingcun, Xiangfen County, Linfen City, Shanxi Province), which is the earliest early Homo sapiens fossil ever found in China. Its absolute age is 162,000 years old, while the amino acid age method is 79,000 years ago, that is, 70,000 years ago at the latest. The discovery of the Dingcun site fills the gap of human fossils and culture in the middle Paleolithic period in China, and occupies an extremely important position in ancient anthropology and archaeology.
The ruins of Ding Village. Xujiayao Cultural Site (located in the east of Xujiayao Village, Yanggao County, Datong City, Shanxi Province), is the largest number of Paleolithic sites in China, and is a transitional type of culture between Beijing ape man culture and Shiyu culture, which plays the role of connecting the upper and lower levels.
Xujiayao ruins.
The Shiyu site (located at the foot of the Black Camel Mountain, 15 kilometers northwest of Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province) indicates that it is far away from 280,000 years ago, the Shiyu people began to engage in hunting-based production activities, and drilling and grinding techniques have appeared in China.
Shiyu site. 160,000 2The 30,000-year-old Xiachuan cultural site (located in Xiachuan Village, Zhongcun Town, Qinshui County, Jincheng City, Shanxi Province), the 13550+150-year-old Xueguan site (located in the west of Xueguan Town, Pu County, Linfen City, Shanxi Province), and the Persimmon Beach Site (located in Ji County, Linfen City, Shanxi Province) show that human beings at that time had mastered the skills of trimming and sewing animal skins to keep out the cold. The two earliest petroglyphs found in Shanxi Province found at the Persimmon Beach site show that human beings at that time had the requirement to reflect life in the form of pictures.
Shimokawa ruins. Yangshao culture (refers to an important Neolithic painted pottery culture in the middle reaches of the Yellow River) is the representative of the middle Neolithic culture in China, and Shanxi mainly has the Dongzhuang village type, Miaodigou type, Xiwang village type and Hougang type in northern Shanxi. During this period, human beings have entered a lifestyle integrating agriculture, hunting, and textiles, and have also developed the concept of decorating their own beauty. The Dongzhuang village type of Yangshao culture is distributed in all parts of southern Jin, which has surpassed the Banpo type and is transitioning to the Miaodigou type.
Australopithecus lived in humans.
Shanxi Province is basically within the cultural coverage of the Miaodigou type, and the official excavations mainly include Xiyin Village in Xia County, Xiwang Village in Ruicheng County, and Beili Village in Yicheng County. Production tools and animal bones such as pigs and dogs were found at the site of Xiwang Village, and it is possible that ancient humans here were able to raise and domesticate them.
The Yangshao culture type of Xiwangcun type is mainly distributed on the north bank of the Yellow River, Moshui, Fenhe River and Luliang Mountain, during this period, the appearance of ground wooden buildings, the construction technology of houses has been greatly improved, the area of houses has increased, and the layout of subdivisions has emerged. The vast majority of stone tools in the production tools are grinding, the drilling technology is widely promoted, the types of bone tools, horn tools, mussels and pottery production tools have increased, and the production capacity and skill level have been improved.
Australopithecus hunting.
The representative culture of the late Neolithic period is "Longshan culture". More than 100 early cultural sites of Longshan have been discovered in the Jinnan Basin and along the Yellow River, and the important sites that have been excavated include Xiwang Village in Ruicheng County, Pannan Village in Pinglu County, Dongguan, Fengcun and Longwangya in Yuanqu County, Dongxiafeng in Xia County, Taosi in Xiangfen County, Chagou in Shilou County, Baiyan in Taigu County, etc. The exterior decoration of the excavated pottery is typical of basket patterns, and the pottery industry began to use the wheel technology: the thickness of the stone axe has increased compared with the past;The invention of the double-toothed wood fork wood, the appearance of half-moon stone knives, stone sickles and mussel sickles, indicating that agricultural productivity has increased again;The number of livestock breeds has increased, not only pigs and dogs, but also cattle, sheep, chickens, etc.;Fishing and hunting still account for a certain proportion. The residential architecture of this period was created and improved while inheriting the semi-crypt houses. A group of residential relics found on the hillside of Chagou Village, Shilou County, are the caves with the shape of "convex" in the plane, which is the earliest cave building found in China, and the indoor living surface has white ash materials, indicating that human beings burn lime and use it in house construction, and it has begun in the era of Longshan culture at the latest.
1) Humans came from here - the dawn of the century.
In 1994, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dr. Dawson of the Carnegie Museum in the United States discovered the fossil of the "Century Ape" that originated 45 million years ago in the village in the Xiaolangdi Reservoir Area of the Yellow River in Yuanqu County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, which was considered by experts to be "the dawn of the suborder of great apes". Through the study of the fossils of the foot tarsus and mandible of the century Ape found in Yuanqu Zhaili Village, it is confirmed that the distant ancestors of human beings originated in Yuanqu, Shanxi, China, and overturn the thesis that "human beings originated in Africa". Before the discovery of the Ape fossil, the world's earliest fossil of a higher primate was found in Fayum, North Africa, about 35 million years ago. The discovery of the Apocaso in the Yuanqu century pushed forward the time of the appearance of apes by 10 million years.
The hometown of the dawn of the century ape - Yuanqu.
According to expert research, the Ape is the oldest ape found so far, and it mainly lives in the warm and humid woodlands of the tropical zone. It is the smallest primate ever discovered by humans, and its size is slightly larger than that of a mouse and weighs about 200 grams. It is a transitional stage of evolution from lower primates to apes, and is a very primitive member of the higher primate family, which continues and evolves, and gradually forms monkeys, apes, and humans.
Restoration of the Ape of the Dawn of the Century.
2) The first sacred flame of human civilization - the fire of Xihoudu.
In 1957, Professor Jia Lanpo and other archaeologists found antler fossils and stones with traces of artificial blows in the "Human Pimple Ridge" in Xihoudu Village, Ruicheng County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province. According to paleomagnetism, these remains are about 1.8 million years old. Later, after many archaeological excavations, the academic community repeatedly argued that this is the earliest remains of human fire, which belongs to the early Pleistocene. This overturned the original assertion that "Peking Man was the earliest human", thus establishing the status of the Xihoudu site in the archaeological community, and advancing the history of ancient Chinese human fire from 500,000 to 700,000 years ago Zhoukoudian Peking Man, which is also of great significance in the history of world archaeology. It can be said that the first flame of human civilization began to be lit on the banks of the Yellow River.
Xihoudu ruins.
3) The ancestor of humanity.
The Three Emperors and Five Emperors are the collective names of the tribal leaders or tribal alliance leaders who made outstanding contributions to mankind in the middle and late stages of primitive society, and later generations posthumously respected them as "emperors" or "emperors". There are different opinions on the classic records of the three emperors and five emperors, but it is an indisputable fact that the two emperors of Yan and Huang are regarded as the ancestors of the Chinese nation.
In antiquity, wars between clans and clans, tribes and tribes were very frequent. The more famous ones are the battle between Yanhuang and Chiyou and the battle of Hanquan between Yanhuang Emperor. In the end, the Yellow Emperor "conquered the world in 52 wars", basically controlled the entire Central Plains, and initially laid the scale of China. Later, people collectively referred to the merged Yellow Emperor and Yandi tribes as the Huaxia people, and the Huaxia people later developed into the Chinese nation. Some scholars believe that Zhulu was once the ancient name of Jiezhou in the Salt Lake District of Yuncheng City. Hanquan, according to Shen Kuo's statement ("Dream Creek Writings: Evidence 1") should also be near Jiezhou.
Yan and Huang are allied. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, nearly 200 villages in Quwo County, Linfen City, Shanxi Province (including the current Houma City) had the Yellow Emperor Temple, and there were still more than 50 ruins and relics, but there was no Yellow Emperor Temple in the neighboring counties around Quwo. Professor Qian Mu, a modern Chinese historian and master of Chinese studies, has confirmed that Quwoqiao Mountain is most likely to be the bridge mountain in Sima Qian's "Historical Records" "The Yellow Emperor collapsed and buried the bridge mountain", and it is most likely the place where the bones of the Yellow Emperor were buried. However, some historians believe that Qiaoshan in Huangling County, Shaanxi Province is the Yellow Emperor's clothes and crown, called Xiling, and Qiaoshan in Quwo County, Shanxi Province is the burial place of the Yellow Emperor's true bones, called Dongling. The earliest activities of the three ancestors of humanity, Emperor Yan, Yellow Emperor and Panyou, were all in the southern part of Shanxi.
Yellow Emperor. 4) Tao Temple, Yaodu's hometown.
According to legend, Yao is the great-great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor and is a famous primitive tribal leader in ancient China. The ruins of the Taosi capital city were found in Taosi Township, about 7 meters northeast of Xiangfen County, Linfen City, covering an area of more than 3 million square meters. Since 1978, archaeologists have excavated the ruins of the capital city of Taosi for nearly 40 years, and the prehistoric city site of unprecedented scale has been discovered in Taosi. A series of archaeological evidence chains corresponding to historical documents show that the Taosi city site coincides with the Yao Shunyu period. Yaodu Pingyang (now Linfen), Shundu Puban (now Yongji), Yudu Anyi (now Xia County), these are all in the southern region of Shanxi. Archaeological experts confirm that "Linfen Tao Temple is the capital of Yao", and Tao Temple is the original "China". "The Legendary Era of Yao Shunyu" is not a legend, but a real history of faith. A series of new discoveries at the site of the Taosi capital have become an important basis for supporting the "5,000-year-old Chinese civilization" and an important source of empirical evidence for the core of the ever-growing Chinese civilization.
Author: Wang Gongjian.