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"The professor at Harvard University proposed that the 'Erlitou culture' and the 'Xia Shang culture' could be exchanged, because the 'Erlitou culture' is likely to be the early Xia Shang culture."
This sentence quickly attracted everyone's attention, because Harvard University, as a Western country, has always been reluctant to recognize the study of Chinese history, and even put forward the idea that "the Xia Dynasty did not exist", but now it suddenly put forward such a beneficial remark, which is really surprising.
Zhengzhou Erligang.
As the central city of the ancient Central Plains civilization, Zhengzhou has always been the birthplace of Chinese civilization and has become famous for it.
Zhengzhou is also a place where ancient Chinese history has left a large number of epics and historical materials, and it can be said that Zhengzhou is one of the most important places in ancient Chinese history.
But in the eyes of Westerners, Zhengzhou is not so important.
In the 70s of the last century, when a bicycle factory worker in Zhengzhou went to the next door to dig and repair the land after work, he found a black thing mixed with different square circles in the soil, so he carefully dug it out and found that it was a piece of jade with words.
After he got home, he was pleasantly surprised to find that these words were not the words that everyone usually sees, so he took this piece of jade to find the educated youth.
The educated youth was very shocked when they saw this jade piece, because these characters are obviously ancient Chinese characters, and the earliest time is earlier than the oracle bone inscription, but there is no record of this kind of character in the history books, and there is no such gap in the history of ancient Chinese writing.
This discovery is too important, so the educated youth specially went to find a cultural relics Qiang, and the cultural relics were surprised to find that this jade piece was nothing else, that is, part of the historical record of the "Xia Shang Period", and later this jade piece became the treasure of the Zhengzhou Museum.
Later, some Western archaeologists came to China to carry out Xia Shang archaeology, and several archaeologists from the United States also conducted archaeological excavations near Zhengzhou, and they found that there was an ancient city site buried underground in the south of Zhengzhou, which is now known as the ancient city site of "Zhengzhou Erligang".
In this ancient city ruins, they found a large number of cultural relics and buildings of the Xia and Shang periods, and also found a large number of pottery, jade, stone tools and other cultural relics in this site, and even a large number of ancient tombs were excavated.
The discovery of the ancient city site of Erligang can be said to fill a large gap in the history of cultural relics of the Xia Dynasty, because the documents of the Xia and Shang periods almost do not mention the architectural style and urban layout of the Xia Dynasty, so the academic community has no specific understanding of the civilization of the Xia Dynasty, but now with the archaeological site of Erligang, we can carry out restoration work according to these specific architectural remains, which is undoubtedly a major breakthrough for us.
Erlitou culture.
In recent years, archaeologists in the mainland have carried out all-out excavation of the ruins of the ancient city of Erligang, and finally announced in 2017 that the "all" excavation of the Erligang site was completed.
After several years of hard work, archaeologists have discovered the ancient city walls, palaces, workshops and other relics of the ancient city ruins of Erligang with diligence and ingenuity, and can reconstruct the urban layout and planning of the ancient capital of the Xia Dynasty from zero to one.
In the third millennium B.C., the society of the Xia Dynasty was in a primitive agricultural era, people's production methods were still mainly based on grain and animal husbandry, the main way of living was still mainly rural, and the degree of urbanization was still very low.
In these villages, the good settlement environment allowed people to have a stable place to live, so they began to build huts, houses, etc., and more importantly, people also began to make porcelain, bronze, jade and other household utensils.
This custom soon spread in the surrounding area, so the people living in the Erlitou area called the culture of this area "Erlitou culture", and in later archaeological discoveries, people found that the Erlitou culture of the Xia and Shang periods was very bound together.
But the more terrible thing is still to come, because according to the research of Harvard University, the Erlitou culture conforms to almost all the characteristics of the Xia and Shang periods, and from the perspective of cultural characteristics, the Erlitou culture is likely to be the Xia Shang culture.
Although many things from the Xia and Shang periods have been found in previous archaeological discoveries, no archaeologists in any country in the world dare to say that the culture of the Xia and Shang periods was the Erlitou culture.
No one in China itself has taken the initiative to raise such a possibility, but the professor at Harvard University has easily said this, why is that?
The existence of the Xia Dynasty.
The discovery of the Erlitou culture undoubtedly provides extremely strong evidence for the existence of the Xia Dynasty, and it is very easy to wear away civilization into dust in three thousand years, so it is not easy to stay.
However, in the process of exploring the civilization of the Xia Dynasty, people are more likely to use the excavation of documents and ruins to conduct detailed research and summary of the cultural relics in the excavated ruins, so as to obtain relevant results.
In the future, if we are fortunate enough to be able to excavate some documents of the Xia Dynasty, then we can continue to explore the development process of the Xia Dynasty on this basis.
The Erlitou site was the capital of the Xia Dynasty, and from this point of view, this site has largely smoothed out the dispute between anthropologists and archaeologists in previous years.
However, in fact, the discovery of this Erlitou site may continue to reveal many secrets of the Xia Dynasty civilization for us, because according to the current excavation progress, only less than 2% of the area of this Erlitou site has been excavated.
The more things that are excavated in this site, the more we can learn later based on the information excavated.
However, for the excavation of the Erlitou site, not only on land, but also on the seabed, archaeology is also very important.
Because as a developed commercial city during the Xia Dynasty, Erlitou was a city close to the sea, since the discovery of the ruins of Erlitou on the coastline, many scholars have investigated the seabed of Erlitou, and found many ancient ships, ports, docks and goods on board, etc., which are very important discoveries.
But this is not the most important, the most important thing is that many scientists have found many aquaculture farms similar to Ganlantian on the bottom of the Erlitou seabed, which shows that the humans in the Erlitou period were much more advanced in terms of food than in the later Zhou Dynasty.
This is also an important breakthrough for us.
epilogue
During the Xia Dynasty, not only did China achieve its own development, but also made contributions to the world as a whole.
Therefore, we only have the advantages and no disadvantages in studying the Xia Dynasty, and at the same time, we hope that Western countries can have more research institutions like Harvard University to explore more ancient Chinese culture, and continue to contribute to China's development and progress in the process.