It bears witness to the ecological environment of the ancient Yellow River Delta

"Deer cranes and spring people increase their longevity, magpies come to the plum festival", the Binzhou City Museum in the first month is full of tourists, and the male elk antler fossils in the display cabinet attract many tourists to stop and visit.

This pair of male elk antler fossils was discovered in 1977 during the dredging of the tributary river water conservancy project in Guangrao County (now Guangrao County, Dongying City) in Huimin Region, with a length of 86 cm, belonging to the Neolithic period dating from about 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.

The fossil horns of the elk antlers are large and have a special and complex appearance. After the main trunk is some distance from the head, it is divided into two parts: the anterior branch and the posterior branch. Both the anterior and posterior branches are forked, and the bifurcation and bending changes of the anterior branches are obviously much more complex than those of the posterior branches. The forks and forks of the front branch also have a bipartitional nature, the general direction of the back branch is backwards, and the forks are mainly concentrated on the tip. There are many wide and shallow longitudinal grooves on the entire horn branch, which have small spines and tumors. The left and right horns of this pair of elk antlers are asymmetrical, and the number, position, shape, and size of the forks, forks, spines, and tumors on them vary slightly. According to zoologists, male elk have horns and fork at the age of 2 and do not fully develop until they are 6 years old. This pair of antlers belongs to the fully developed horn branches, so the individual animals they represent should be over 6 years old.

Elk, commonly known as the four unlikes, because of its face like a horse, horns like a deer, hooves like an ox, tail like a donkey and named, since ancient times as an auspicious thing, is the legendary ancient beast, is unique to China. In the "Fengshen Yanyi", it was originally one of the Three Treasures of the Jade Void Palace, one of the three Qings, the mount of Yuan Shi Tianzun, and Jiang Ziya, who was given to the acting fengshen during the battle of the fengshen gods, became his right-hand man, and the book wrote: "The head and tail of the Lin are like dragons, and the feet are like nine weights." The four seas and nine states are randomly everywhere, and the three mountains and five mountains are suddenly in time. ”

Elk is naturally water-loving, good at swimming, living in the sparse forest swamp area of the uninhabited and quiet environment all year round, so it has become the spiritual sustenance of the pastoral life expected by the literati and the gentlemen, and the poems about the elk are also numerous, Bai Juyi has a poetry cloud, "The dragon snake hides in Daze, and the elk swims in the grass." Qi Feng is at peace with Wu, and the diving fish are happy with algae"; Du Fu's "do not covet the night to know the gold and silver qi, far from harming the elk swimming." Riding on the excitement of the source, the suspicion of the king is a pan-empty boat"; Liu Zongyuan's "cold flower sparse calendar, the spring is slightly intermittent." The machine has long forgotten, what is the matter of the elk"; Wang Jian's "residence to the mountain near, the garden elk line." Many poems such as wild mulberry through the well, barren bamboo over the wall" and many other poems reflect the ancients' yearning and expectation for a comfortable and secluded life. Elk love freedom and unrestrained, the ancients also borrowed from themselves, Su Dongpo has a poem, "Talk about the landscape and water, so this elk sex" "I am the elk nature, forgive the non-volt posture"; Zeng Gong's "quite suitable for elk sex, suddenly surprised Qing Xingchang." Poems such as "Return to Ren Tincture, Chu Chu Ah Qiang" belong to this category.

In the traditional Chinese concept, the deer is the representative of health and longevity, the legend is that the millennium is the deer, the two thousand years is the xuanlu, so the deer is the immortal beast of longevity, and the deer fairy and the crane fairy are the high disciples under the altar of the old life star Antarctic fairy. Therefore, the theme of "deer crane and chizhi" is very common in folk paintings and wood carvings, most of which are sika deer lying next to a large birthday peach, a crane standing side by side, and the deer crane jointly holds a lingzhi immortal grass, which means longevity, health and auspiciousness. In ancient times, some wealthy families also used elk sketch lines as decorative patterns for house tiles to express their good wishes for peace, family prosperity and auspicious longevity.

The discovery of elk antler fossils provides an important basis for studying the climate change and ecological changes of the ancient Yellow River Delta. In most counties in the Yellow River Delta region, elk antler fossils have been excavated, such as the ruins of Guangrao Wucun, Zouping Dinggong, Bincheng Lanjia, Yangxin Liwu, etc., but most of them are incomplete, only this pair of elk antler fossil horns is complete and well preserved. There are so many fossils of elk antlers, it can be seen that the climate in the Yellow River Delta at that time was humid, the vegetation was luxuriant, and the rivers and lakes were long, which was once the place where elk flourished.

Elk is native to the swampy area of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China, about two or three million years ago, and then until the Shang zhou period, concentrated in the Huanghuai River Basin and the vast area of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, from the Zhou Dynasty to a long historical period, due to changes in the natural environment, the changes of the elk itself, as well as the ancestor hunting, farmland farming, primitive witchcraft and other human reasons, the number of wild elk decreased sharply, from the north and south of the river, to the remote corner of Jianghuai.

As of August 2021, there are more than 8,000 elk in the country, and the elk free-range breeding plan has been implemented in Beijing, Dafeng District of Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, Shishou City, Hubei Province, Yuanyang County of Henan Province and other places, which has achieved the successful birth of the natural population of elk, which has greatly increased the number of wild populations, distributed from north to south, covering the original habitat of elk, which is close to the historical distribution area of elk. (Reporting by Dazhong Daily client reporter Zhang Yimeng correspondent Gao Xiaoyong and Li Bowen)