Cover news reporter Du Jiangqian, Liu Yuwei, Sichuan Chengdu photo report.
Opening remarks. 
The smell of fireworks every year, thinking about the things of the world.
I am very happy to accompany you through 2023 with this sentence.
At the beginning of the story, we believe that the four seasons go by, and each month has a distinct color and story. The times flow, and there are always small moments worth seizing, so that the passage of time can be traced.
So, on the last day of every month in 2023, "Human Affairs" will meet you on time with a story of the month.
As we begin 2024, this narrative will continue.
We hope that, looking at them separately, these are 12 characters and 12 stories, and when connected, they are the silhouettes of this year.
In January, the first yuan was renewed, and Vientiane was renewed. In the growing flavor of the New Year, the new archaeological discoveries in China in 2023 announced have attracted much attention. In Chengdu, Sichuan, a museum has also quietly opened. People are accustomed to looking for the past in museums, and the people behind museums are trying to give these pasts a future. We thought that in the midst of a thousand gazes on time, this year's narration might be able to begin.
Dancing figurines in the Gwangdo Museum.
Saturday, January 27, 2024, Shuangliu, Chengdu.
The first visitors to the Guangdu Museum were teachers and students from Shuangliu Middle School. As an expert at the Shuangliu District Cultural Management Office, 51-year-old Li Guo was the keynote speaker for the visitors, and he was tall and thin, endowed with a tough temperament by the perennial outdoor excavation work. In his view, inviting students to be the first to visit and study in the museum has the implication of cultural inheritance and continuity.
The exhibition hall is underground, and when I walked into it, some students exclaimed "wow". Nearly 3,000 artifacts in this county-level museum are from the archaeological excavations in Shuangliu over the past 20 years.
Li Guo participated in the excavation of every cultural relic in the museum. In his words, all the exhibits were stained with the temperature of his fingers.
In the Guangdu Museum, Li Guo stands in front of the terracotta figurines.
Perhaps, in a sense, this museum is not "dazzling".
To the west of it, in the ruins of the ancient city of Baodun, there is the precursor of Chengdu's early urban civilization. Walking further to the northwest, the Sanxingdui ruins are "waking up and shocking the world". On the other side, in the Jinsha ruins, the totem of the sun god bird records the glory of the ancient Shu Kingdom.
It is the "gift" of these times that together construct the various stages of the development and evolution of the ancient Shu civilization, proving that the Chengdu Plain was once the center of the origin of civilization in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
Our Shuangliu is a small piece in the history of human activities in the entire Chengdu Plain. Li Guo introduced to the students that in the Guangdu Museum, there is a flow of Shuangliu's local ancient Shu history and the 2,300-year history of the founding of the county, which is the history and nostalgia of a place, and is also a part of the entire ancient Shu civilization.
After a pause, he added, "Or rather, we're putting together a small piece of the puzzle of history, just as proud." ”
In the Guangdu Museum, Li Guo stands in front of the terracotta figurines.
A small piece of the "puzzle".
If we want to understand the significance of this small piece of historical "puzzle", we must first walk into the Chengdu Plain as a whole. As an important part of the pluralistic integration of the origin of Chinese civilization, the ancient Shu civilization in the Chengdu Plain has a relatively independent development and evolution process.
In this regard, Tang Miao, the head of the archaeological workstation of the Baodun site of the Chengdu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, once made an analogy.
If the development of the ancient Shu civilization for more than 2,000 years is compressed into a person's life. Then, Baodun culture is his learning period from baby to child. At this time, a group of city ruins began to appear on the Chengdu Plain, and people gathered together on a large scale, built city walls, and planted rice. Time passed, the child grew up, and when he came to his imaginative and creative youth, there was the wonder of Sanxingdui civilization. It was on the banks of the Duck River, and the craftsmen polished the huge bronze tree, and the faces under the masks were resolute and resolute. Time precipitation, middle-aged he pursued the texture of elaborate carving, so, on the Jinsha site, the ancestors around the totem of the sun god bird, singing the glory of the ancient Shu Kingdom.
Chengdu Shuangliu, the hinterland of the Chengdu Plain.
It may be mentioned in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" that "between the black waters in the southwest, there is a wide field", it is the "King of Shu has the land of Bashu, and the capital of Guangdu" in the "Book of Shu King" of Yangxiong of the Western Han Dynasty, and it is the "or governance of Qushang" of Du Yu, the king of ancient Shu in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. However, it was not until 2001, when Li Guo transferred from the army to Shuangliu and began to engage in archaeological work, that the brief legends about Shuangliu in these ancient books lacked physical evidence.
Correspondingly, in the periphery of Shuangliu, there are Baodun ruins in Xinjin, and there are historical sites in Wenjiang City.
At that time, we hoped to find the long-buried ruins of Shuangliu, so that the history of this place can be vividly displayed. Li Guo believes that to construct the history of the Shuangliu ancient Shu period and the history of the establishment of the county for more than 2,000 years, as well as its development and evolution, the only way to build it is to rely on archaeology to a large extent.
In 2006, Li Guo excavated the Han Tomb in Shuangliu Sunshine Huayuan (**Courtesy of the interviewee).
In the second year of his stay at the Shuangliu Cultural Management Institute, with the strengthening of the excavation and protection of historical and cultural resources in the area under the jurisdiction of the Shuangliu Cultural Relics and Archaeology Team, the cooperation and academic exchanges between the local government and scientific research institutes and local universities have gradually spread.
They have provided a lot of evidence for the archaeological work of the entire Chengdu Plain. Zuo Zhiqiang, an associate researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Archaeology, met Li Guo in 2010 on an archaeological project. In his experience, there are not many projects like Shuangliu that actively cooperate with universities and cultural relics units, "In the study of the entire ancient Shu civilization, they have filled at least one regional gap." ”
In fact, this small piece of "puzzle" has long been "spelled" into many museums in the province.
In the Chengdu Museum, a pottery cart unearthed from the Han tomb in Shuangliumiao Mountain Village is placed in the most conspicuous position in the exhibition hall.
During the Han Dynasty, the water and land transportation of Chengdu city was smooth, and this carriage was a light car driven by a horse. Until now, Li Guo has been amazed at how well preserved the carriage was when it was first excavated.
Similarly, in the Wuhou Temple Museum, Yongling Museum and other museums, the shadow of Shuangliu cultural relics can be seen in the high-level cultural relics on display.
But even so, Li Guo still feels that the excavation of cultural relics in Shuangliu was not systematic until 2009.
Especially in the protection and utilization of cultural relics. Li Guo remembered that the Shuangliu Cultural Management Institute had set aside a floor to preserve cultural relics, and there was an exhibition hall of only about 400 square meters. But the exhibition hall is hidden on the third floor, and the first and second floors are still other units, so few people know about it.
Li Guo began to propose the construction of a district-level museum, but aside from practical issues such as site selection, construction, and management, he was asked the most, "What is in this museum?" ”
yes, we didn't have a good display. He always thinks of the various museums he has visited, with themes, exhibits, and stories, "The time has not yet come to build a museum, but the time will always come." ”
In the Chengdu Museum, a pottery cart unearthed from the Han Tomb in Shuangliumiao Mountain Village was placed in a conspicuous position in the exhibition hall.
A glimpse of history with the slightest trace.
This time, after a long gestation.
We need to start from the archaeological materials to construct a general history of the Shuangliu region. "In this process, Li Guo put in a lot of time and energy. Therefore, after realizing that the fragmented excavation needs to be changed, in 2009, the Shuangliu District Cultural Management Bureau took the lead, and jointly with the Chengdu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Sichuan University, and Southwest University for Nationalities, began to carry out archaeological research on the general history of Shuangliu District.
Uncover the secrets of the slightest trace, which is intoxicating. As a major participant, Li Guo is often shocked by the time he touches.
In 2017, he and his partners found unearthed "bean"-shaped utensils, small flat-bottomed jars and other utensils in Shuangliu, similar in style to those unearthed in Sanxingdui. After learning the news, Lei Yu, director of the Sanxingdui site workstation of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Archaeology, and the experts rushed to the scene on the same day, and after identification, this is the remains of Sanxingdui culture.
Stationmaster Lei was very excited at the time, and said with a smile that we did all their work! Li Guo was also very excited, because it meant that the Sanxingdui culture crossed the Tuojiang River, entered the Minjiang River basin, and arrived in the heart of the Chengdu Plain.
Similarly, there are pottery and stone tools found in the Qinghe site in Shuangliu, which are identified as the remains of the third and fourth phases of Baodun.
It shows that the Shuangliu area is also an important area in the Baodun culture period. Li Guo is proud of these discoveries, because it proves that the Shuangliu area has completely participated in the whole process of Baodun culture, Sanxingdui culture, Twelve Bridges culture, and Shangwangjiagui relics culture, and is one of the important birthplaces of Shu culture.
History is never cold words, compared with the discovery of exquisite "large" cultural relics, Li Guo paid more attention to the slight traces of those ruins or relics, hiding the most ordinary life at that time.
In the collection of the Guangdu Museum, a group of terracotta figurines from the Eastern Han Dynasty always makes him stop. The cooks of the terracotta figurines wore hats, and their clothes were not flashy but neat, which was the state of their work. On the board, there are fish, pig's heads, and chickens, which is the epitome of agricultural breeding at that time. The fact that there are three or four pots on the stove not only shows that the family is prosperous, but also has a rich variety of food.
You look at their expressions, the pleasure from the inside out. Pointing to the grinning terracotta figurines, Li Guo also smiled, "They are very happy to cook, this is the epitome of a society in Haiyan Heqing." ”
There are also a large number of cliff tombs found in the ruins of Qushangcheng in Muma Mountain, Li Guo believes that there are considerations for the ancestors to engage in cultivation in order to save fertile land, "It is our nation, our country, and the love and protection of the land since ancient times." "Between the auspicious light and feathers, a piece of cultural relics is opened, like stars twinkling in the long river of history. For Li Guo, from 2001 to Shuangliu Cultural Management Office, from youth to gray hair, his passing time is presented in another form.
That is, in front of us, in the ancient Shu culture about 4500 2200 years ago, the contribution of Shuangliu and one place can finally be seen, touched, and felt.
As far as he is concerned, whether it was in the past or now, when he can do his best, he has never skimped on his strength.
Suo Dehao, an associate professor at Sichuan University's School of History and Culture, was involved in the excavation of a cliff tomb in Shuangliu as an intern in his senior year. That was his first acquaintance with Li Guo, and what impressed him the most about this "big brother" with him was, "He doesn't seem to have to sleep." ”
They stay together almost all day. During the day, they excavated at the site together, returned to the cultural management office at night, sorted out materials, held meetings to discuss, and waited for each to lie down, it was early in the morning. But a few hours later, at 6 a.m., Li Guo would get up on time and start work.
Rigor and self-discipline may be regarded as a habit carved into Li Guo's bones. Before transferring to the Shuangliu Cultural Management Office, he served in the army for 10 years and 5 months. Conscripted into the army to guard the frontier, this was the choice he made for himself as a teenager, he has reached the northernmost part of the motherland, but also stepped on the vast grasslands, and guarded the motherland in the snow or inaccessible places.
He always believes that one thing, as long as the goal is right and keeps trekking in that direction, there will always be results.
Li Guo with his teacher, Professor Song Zhimin (**Courtesy of the interviewee).
The "gift" of 10,000 years ago
With the construction of the archaeology of the history of double circulation, the opportunity that Li Guo was waiting for came in such a little bit of accumulation.
In the summer of 2022, the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics officially issued a record confirmation for the establishment of the Guangdu Museum in Shuangliu District, which marks the official establishment of the Guangdu Museum in Shuangliu District.
It seems that the long journey finally got the gift of time, and it seems to be the answer that is not surprising under the focus of the times, policy support, and academic development.
When he learned the news, Li Guozheng was standing on the gentle hill in the northern part of the Mumashan Plateau, which was the site of the Wangjiayan site. If the museum is the goal he believes will eventually be reached, then there are countless mountains in the process of getting closer to the goal.
For example, look for Paleolithic remnants on the Chengdu Plain.
Prior to this, there were few excavations of Paleolithic remains in the Chengdu Plain. The first Paleolithic site that has been scientifically excavated in the plain is the excavation of the Paleolithic site of Tancan Mountain by the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in Meishan in the south of the Chengdu Plain in 2020.
October 29, 2021, is a day that Li Guo will always remember. On this day, he and his partners discovered Paleolithic sites in Guangmu Road and Qinglangou in Shuangliu District, which were later identified as about 320,000 years and 720,000 years.
It was a few small stone core chips, and the place where they were found was the project site of the C919 domestic large aircraft. It is difficult for Li Guo to describe the excitement that brought tears to his eyes, hundreds of thousands of years ago, the first humans appeared in this land, they sat on the vast plains, polished stone tools, cultivated the land, and were submerged by history. When these stone tools reappeared, it was already a sea of vicissitudes, and in the noisy city, a large plane was taking off.
We follow the footsteps of our ancestors to find traces of their lives. Li Guo feels that this is a sense of mission that keeps him going.
In 2022, Li Guo excavated the site of the Paleolithic site in Erdaogou, Huangshui Town (**Courtesy of the interviewee).
Once, his teacher, Song Zhimin, a professor at the School of History and Culture of Sichuan University, punctured their ideal bubble for archaeology: "This is not a lively subject, we must have the understanding of sitting on a cold bench, when we were studying at Northwest University, the president Mr. Hou Wailu once said that he did not want to see our articles within ten years of graduation, but hoped that we would sit down and read books and grasp the information." Another of his teachers, Huang Wei, a professor at the School of History and Culture of Sichuan University, often said, "Archaeology should pay attention to the combination of site and documents, and the exploration should be combined with flat section, and there is a material to say." ”
This is also the core proposition of these archaeologists - where does the sense of mission beyond the "aperture" come from?
In 2022, Li Guo excavated the Paleolithic site of Wangjiayan, Huangjia Street (**Courtesy of the interviewee).
In May 2022, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Chengdu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology launched a rescue excavation of the Wangjiayan site in Shuangliu District.
It wasn't an easy task, and Li remembers that the initial lack of results kept everyone on the team awake at night.
There's a very ambivalent mentality. Li Guo felt that his mentality was indifferent most of the time, "Because in our business, if you don't get anything, you will also get it, at least tell the people behind you that you don't have to work hard here." ”
But at the same time, he still has a strong expectation to find traces of the life of people in the Paleolithic Age in Shuangliu. To this end, they excavated during the day to find geological materials for research in the Muma Mountain area, and cheered each other on during meetings at night. In the end, he looked at the mountain in front of him and emphasized to himself over and over again, "There must be something." ”
In that half a year, the first site of the Wangjiayan site also gathered the top "gentlemen" who did Paleolithic archaeological research in China. That's a gorgeous list, Gao Xing and Wang Shejiang, researchers at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Xia Zhengkai of the School of Urban Environment of Peking University, and Professor Lu Hongliang of the School of Archaeology and Museums of Sichuan University.
In the end, 82 stone artifacts were excavated here, including stone cores, stone chips, broken blocks and stone tools, as well as a large number of unprocessed and intact gravel. It was preliminarily identified that the ancient human activity was no later than 8 years ago90,000 years.
This is also very exciting for the archaeological community.
Professor Xia Zhengkai, who was already in his prime, walked directly to the section, took Li Guo's hand, and sighed again and again, "You have done a great thing." ”
In August 2023, the Journal of Anthropology published an excavation report on the first site of the Wangjiayan site, which made it clear that this excavation expanded the history of early human activities in the Chengdu Plain, and provided important materials for further understanding and exploring the survival strategies and paleolithic culture of early humans in the Chengdu Plain.
In the Guangdu Museum, tools excavated from Paleolithic sites are on display.
Time Travels Against Schedule.
Today, these Paleolithic "gifts" are carefully listed in the exhibition hall of the Guangdu Museum. Li Guo often stayed here all day, and he could tell at a glance that an inconspicuous spotlight was not turned on, or that two seemingly similar terracotta figurines were in the wrong place. It was customary to ask him about everything, from the style of the docent's badge to where a tonnage of stone should be placed.
Cultural relics have a temperature. That's what he always tells the young people around him. At the beginning of the project of Guangdu Museum, he was thinking that this museum with a construction area of 9,037 square meters is not a "warehouse" of cultural relics, but a representative cultural relics to tell.
Among them, 10 of the 14 portrait bricks of the Han Dynasty in a row are national first-class cultural relics.
It's the same as the ancient **. Pointing to a portrait brick of the Han banquet and drinking picture, Li Guo pointed to the excitement of pushing the cup and changing the lamp on the brick and sighed. On another delicate Han Shuangque portrait brick, the main gate and the left and right sides of the multiple eaves have sub-ques, which are now reproduced as the main gate of the Guangdu Museum.
On the other side of the gallery is a group of dancing Han Dynasty terracotta figurines, smiling heartily, showing that the old man is missing a front tooth and the plucking of the strings by the pianist. The dancers who are clustered in the middle are meticulously displayed from the decoration of their clothes to the dance movements. Back then, Li Guo took the dancing terracotta figurines out of the ash pit with both hands, and even his teacher, Mr. Song Zhimin, was amazed by the exquisiteness of the art, "The teacher has always said that this is the treasure of our town hall." ”
This is the difficulty or fascination of archaeology, in understanding the lost human past by studying the existence of the present.
Li Guo always pointed to these terracotta figurines over and over again and told the visitors, "This is our ancestors, how happy and confident they are." The craftsman who carved them also used this mood to portray such a smile. ”
In the Guangdu Museum, Li Guo is explaining to visitors.
What can be seen is the terracotta figurines, and in the eyes of scholars, this is one of the influences of the Central Plains culture on the ancient Shu civilization. In this regard, Li Guo explained, "Because before the Western Han Dynasty, there were no terracotta figurines in the cultural relics we unearthed. Obviously, the terracotta figurines were influenced by the Central Plains civilization, and it can be said that this is a manifestation of the Chinese civilization from pluralism to unity. ”
There is also a piece of Shu brocade fabric presented by projection in the museum. This is the world's earliest indication of the origin of the Shu brocade "Lianzhu to the dragon pattern silk", behind which "Shuangliu County, Jingyun in the first year of the fold of the silk a horse, August official book, Shi Yu" written record, showing the Shu brocade weaving skills thousands of years ago, but also the Tang Dynasty Shuangliu area brocade industry prosperity and development of the witness. Li Guo introduced to the students gathered here in a proud tone, "This not only proves the prosperity and development of Shuangliu's sericulture industry and silk textile industry, but also proves that Shuangliu has been an important contributor and participant of the 'Belt and Road' since ancient times." ”
If the landing of Guangdu Museum is the result of a long period of incubation. So in this process, it is not only the historical sequence of Shuangliu that is incubated, but also the popularization of conservation awareness.
We have been implementing 'archaeological pre-positioning' for more than 20 years. Pointing to the row of funeral goods in the hall, Li Guo was deeply impressed. In 2009, in the construction area of the new terminal of Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, 25 ancient tombs of different shapes and sizes were excavated under a loess slope with an area of nearly 5,000 square meters, of which 20 were Han tombs.
The archaeological excavations did not affect the construction of the new terminal of the airport. Up to now, the entire Sichuan infrastructure and land activities have adopted the measure of "archaeology first, then transfer", and the protection of cultural relics has changed from passive to active protection.
Li Guo is explaining to the teachers and students of Shuangliu Middle School.
*Endless.
On the night of the first day of opening, Li Guo recorded his feelings in the circle of friends, "After continuous archaeological excavation and research, we have learned about our own history, clarified our own culture, paid tribute to our long and splendid ancient Shu civilization, and paid tribute to the ancestors who have achieved today's Shuangliu for thousands of generations." ”
This may be his answer to the teacher's question back then. There is no doubt that they all enjoyed this journey of time that allowed the past to have a future.