Master Archaeologist

Chapter 328 Theory of Chinese Multiple Origins

"Why do we say that this is a sacrificial pit, and not a cellar pit for escaped nobles like the one found in Zhouyuan?"

"It's because he was in this pit. There are many phenomena that point out that this is not dug out in a hurry, but a pit dug seriously for some kind of ceremony."

"For example, this straight and neat four walls, the pit walls are all processed very straight, even accurate to the centimeter."

On the edge of the No. [-] sacrificial pit in Sanxingdui.

Students from the Department of Archeology of Sichuan University are receiving field teaching work from their teachers.

The Zhouyuan that the teacher talked about is the Zhouyuan ruins.

The Zhouyuan site is located in the area of ​​Fufeng and Qishan, BJ City, Shaanxi today. It is 70 kilometers long from east to west and 20 kilometers wide from north to south, with a total area of ​​about 33 square kilometers.

This is a large-scale ancient site from the 11th century BC to the 8th century BC. A large number of oracle bones, oracle shells, and a large number of precious national treasure bronzes were unearthed.

It has been determined by archeology that Zhouyuan was the birthplace of Zhou culture and the settlement of Zhou people before the destruction of Shang.

It is also the place where King Wen of Zhou and Zhou people before King Wen lived for generations.

Since 1976, Zhou Yuan has carried out large-scale archaeological excavations on the site, and unearthed more than [-] precious cultural relics.

The most distinctive archaeological discovery in Zhouyuan is the "cellar".

The cellars where Zhouyuan bronzes were buried are mostly located near the residence site, and the walls of the pits have no traces of trimming, and the bronzes in them are dated to the Western Zhou Dynasty at the latest.

According to the research of later scholars, these bronze wares that were hidden in the underground should be the nobles who lived in Zhouyuan at that time. They hid the bronze wares underground in a panic and hoped to take them out again in the future.

As for why the bronze ware was buried in the ground in a panic?
This is to learn the history of King Ping's Dongqian.

The bronze wares stored in Zhou Yuan's cellar are not only very large in number, but also contain many cultural relics left by famous families in the history books.

For example, the Maogong Ding currently stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei comes from Zhou Yuan's cellar.

The inscriptions on the bronzes in the Zhuangbai cellar show that their owners, the Wei family, can be traced back to Wei Ziqi, the elder brother of King Shang Zhou. Continuation of a distinguished life experience.

And, not just Zhou people.

It is hard to imagine that in the ancestral land of the Zhou people, the land of Longxing, many cultural relics of merchants and nobles were unearthed.

A tomb numbered M11 in the early and mid-Western Zhou Dynasty. A total of 21 bronze vessels were excavated from this tomb. According to the inscriptions, the owner of the tomb, Xiji, was probably a scholar-level noble from the Shang Dynasty, but had close contacts with high-ranking nobles from the Zhou Dynasty.

16 tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty with characteristics of merchants such as waist pits and sacrificed dogs were also discovered.

And also discovered the "Boshe" built for businessmen in Zhouyuan!
And batches of oracle bones were also found, numbering in the tens of thousands.

Obviously, in the Zhou Dynasty in 1000 BC, the rulers at that time already understood that the best way to suppress the enemy nobles was to migrate them to their own basic plate.

This is the same approach as Qin Shihuang later moved the nobles and royal families of the six countries to Xianyang.

There is no place that can suppress the remnants of the former dynasty more than his own ancestral land.

In Zhouyuan, all the clansmen of the nobles of the Zhou people lived there. It is impossible for these merchants who moved from afar to rebel!
However, these nobles who lived in Zhouyuan at that time probably never thought that they would have a day of fleeing in a hurry.

Even because it was too hasty, I didn't even have time to take these precious bronze wares, so I could only dig a hole hastily and bury them in the ground, thinking that I would dig them out when I got back in the future.

Unexpectedly, this class was waited for two to three thousand years, and it was not seen again until the 3000th century.

Chen Han stood beside the pit, quietly listening to the teacher, who was teaching the students on the spot.

These students were also wearing protective clothing, and surrounded the pit one by one, carefully looking at the bronzes in the pit.

The discovery of the Sanxingdui site in Sichuan can be said to provide a steady stream of talent training bases for the archaeological forces in the province.

And in the foreseeable future, this base will only get bigger and bigger.

There are still too many undiscovered places in Sanxingdui, and some time can be used to train generations of excellent archaeologists for Sichuan.

Wei Lai was quite envious of this benefit.

Although he said he was from the Academy of Social Sciences, he was working in the capital.

But his hometown is Fujian Province.

Fujian Province is notoriously weak in archaeology.

The archaeological power in the province is very fragile.

There is no way, I searched the entire province, and there is no archaeological base that can be used as a long-term archaeological base to cultivate the archaeological strength in the province.

Unlike Yin Ruins, Sanxingdui, Zhouyuan, Longshan Culture, and Hemudu Culture, archaeological work can be carried out for a long time to gain experience.

It would be a lie to say that Chen Han, who is from Fujian Province, is not envious.

But envy is useless.

Fujian Province does not have any large-scale archaeological projects for long-term archaeology. Even if you search through the history books, you can only find some celebrity tombs after the Tang Dynasty.

The archaeological status quo in Fujian Province is embarrassing.

Beyond the history of China, many Neolithic sites more than 5000 years ago have been discovered.

Many tombs after the Tang Dynasty have also been discovered.

However, archaeological discoveries from the Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Qin and Han dynasties are very rare.

And it is precisely the archeology during this period that is most important for tracing the origin of Chinese civilization.

Because for the Chinese civilization, the history before the Qin and Han Dynasties, whether it is recorded in historical books or actual archaeological discoveries, is incomplete and intermittent, and urgently needs to be completed.

For example, Sanxingdui complements the civilization history of the Shang Dynasty and before the Shang Dynasty in the Sichuan Basin, and adds another great proof to the theory of diversified development of Chinese civilization!
What is Huaxia's Diversified Development Theory?
Even now, many scholars in the academic circle believe that China should have developed in multiple ways in ancient times, rather than in a single line.

It is because multiple civilizations existed at the same time and merged with each other, and finally became a complete whole after the Zhou Dynasty.

This statement may be more in line with Chinese history.

The kingdoms of Shu, Chu, Yue, and Wu all existed before the Zhou Dynasty, and they each developed their own civilizations.

The Kingdom of Shu now has the ancient Shu Kingdom of Sanxingdui as its support.

However, Chu, Yue, and Wu have not yet discovered any earlier ruins from the same period as the Shang Dynasty.

There is a high probability that it is superimposed under the capitals of these countries, just like Zhengzhou.

Now many scholars are calling for systematic exploration of the strata in the capital areas of these ancient countries, and it may be possible to discover ruins 3000-4000 years ago and find one of the earliest sources of China!

Chen Han couldn't deny this.

He felt that if he had the skills, it would be better to concentrate his archaeological efforts and dig out Yin Ruins and Sanxingdui first, and the effect might be better!
(End of this chapter)