Discover the mysterious footprints of Yangshao culture
In October 1921, a small remote village on the banks of the Yellow River welcomed a large foreigner named Anderson, a Swedish geologist who was an adviser to the China Geological Survey. His arrival opened the curtain on the mystery of Yangshao culture.
In fact, as early as 1920, Anderson's assistant and collector of the China Geological Survey Liu Changshan discovered the trajectory of Yangshao culture when he went to western Henan to investigate the fossils of ancient vertebrates. At a farmer's home in Yangshao Village, Shichi County, Sanmenxia City, Henan Province, he saw some ancient stone tools, which are most likely from ancient times. So Liu Changshan collected and purchased more than 600 stone tools and brought them all back to Beijing. Anderson was intrigued by the stone tools and decided to explore this mysterious place.
In April 1921, After obtaining the consent of the Chinese government, Anderson came to Yangshao Village to investigate. During the investigation, Anderson found many dark gray pocket-shaped ash pits on the broken wall on the side of the village road, and when cleaning up an ash pit, he suddenly found a red background and black flowers, polished smooth faience fragments. In October of the same year, Anderson and five other assistants, including Yuan Fuli, a young geologist who had just returned from studying in the United States, came to Yangshao Village again. This excavation took place at 17 sites, the most common of which was faience pottery. The excavation confirmed Anderson's judgment that Yangshao Village was indeed a site of ancient human activity. A large number of pottery, stone tools and other cultural relics excavated from excavation confirmed for the first time that there was a very developed Neolithic culture in Chinese history. Because these cultural relics were found at the site of Yangshao Village, according to archaeological practice, this culture is called Yangshao culture.
Yangshao culture is the main root of the Yellow River culture and the most important representative of the early period, and is an important Neolithic faience pottery culture in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The Yangshao culture lasted from about 5000 BC to 3000 BC, distributed throughout the middle reaches of the Yellow River from Gansu Province to Henan Province, and can be roughly divided into four periods: early, early, middle and late.
At that time, people's living utensils were all pottery, such as axes, shovels, chisels, and hammers used for farming, stone hammers, projectiles, and stone cakes used for hunting, and thread pendants, spinning wheels, bone needles, bone cones, etc. used for weaving.
At that time, the village was large or small, and the relatively large village houses had a certain layout, surrounded by a ditch, and there were cemeteries and kilns outside the village. Site selection is generally on terraces formed by long-term erosion on both sides of the river, or in a higher and flat place at the confluence of the two rivers, where the land is fertile and conducive to agriculture, animal husbandry, water intake and transportation.
As a Yangshao culture with strong vitality, it has a greater radiation force to the outside. In particular, the widespread spread of faience is considered by archaeologists to represent the first wave of prehistoric art, which spread to the surrounding areas and reached the peak of prehistoric art. To this day, the descendants of Yanhuang continue to vigorously strengthen the study of Yangshao culture and comprehensively and profoundly reveal its civilization connotation. This belongs to the important chapter of the "Yellow River Story", and I hope that we can continue to write more in the future.
Anchor 丨 Li Li
Audit 丨 Chen Rui
Producer 丨Fan Yizi
Co-ordinator 丨 Luo Jingyue
Copywriter, editor-in-charge 丨 Li Li
Art design 丨 Yang Hua Zhao Mo
Audio 丨 Zhang Yufeng
Proofreading 丨 Yang Jing
References 丨 《渑池县志》
Yangshao Culture and the Exploration of Prehistoric Civilization of the Yellow River
Produced by The New Media Center of China Water Conservancy Newspaper (Film and Television Production and Broadcasting Center).
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