Master Archaeologist

Chapter 349 Did Dayu Come From Liangzhu?
How important is Liangzhu Culture?
She is the earliest culture with the highest level of social development that China can verify at present!

Taosi and Shimao were built 4300 years ago, and the date is later.

The age of the Shuanghuaishu site has reached the standard, but the excavation level of the site is low and the layout is not enough.

Yaowang City, the core area of ​​Longshan Culture, and Shuangcheng Township are only 4600 years old, and the earliest Dantu site is only 4800 years old.

Qujialing and Shijiahe in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, although the productivity level is good, the pottery industry is invincible in the world, and Longshan in Shandong can be called the peerless twins.The bronze industry is also the only spark in southern China, and may even be the beginning of metal smelting in China.

However, the level of social organization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is poor. It has always been in a primitive and wild social atmosphere, without a highly institutionalized society.

Hongshan in the northeast is the earliest religious origin in China and the place where the dawn of civilization first appeared, but it perished 5000 years ago, falling before the dawn of world civilization.

Only Liangzhu was the most dazzling pearl in the land of China 5000 years ago. It played an important leading role in shaping Chinese civilization and had a huge influence!
The completion of the carbon [-] data of the Chinese Civilization Discovery Project has given us a new understanding of the prehistoric era.

The lower limit of the Liangzhu Culture, Dawenkou Culture, and Miaodigou Phase II are all in 2300 BC, far below the lower limit of the 5000-year Chinese civilization!

In view of the important leading role of Liangzhu Culture in tracing back early civilizations and countries and its external influence,

Now the Chinese archaeological circles have proposed to use the Liangzhu era to refer to the time period of 5300-4300 years ago in China as a whole.

In other words, using the Liangzhu era to represent the period 5000 years ago in China is equivalent to the unified dynasty of Xia, Shang and Zhou representing the period from 2000 BC to AD.

From 5300 to 4300 years ago, China in this period was the era when the early states and mature civilizations represented by Liangzhu began to appear.

Intensive agriculture represented by plow farming is becoming more and more mature, livestock breeding occupies an absolute dominant position in the source of meat, and high-end handicraft products represented by jade cong, jade axe, and jade bi are widely spread.

Super-large urban settlements such as Liangzhu and Shijiahe with an area of ​​several million square meters appeared, and elements such as palace areas and royal tombs appeared within the settlements, and urbanization has reached a very high level.

During the Liangzhu period, the representative archaeological cultures in the same period mainly include the middle and late Dawenkou culture, Qujialing culture, the late Yangshao period to the second phase of Miaodigou, the late Hongshan period to Xiaoheyan culture, Tanshishan culture, Fanchengdui culture, Shixia culture, Shaopengzui culture, Guiyuanqiao culture, Pianpuzi culture, Xiaozhushan middle-level culture, etc., have a wide range of migration.

At this time, the general trend of China's cultural pattern is that the development momentum of the "Great Central Plains Cultural Area" is weak, and the development of surrounding cultures is strong, especially the Dawenkou Culture, Qujialing Culture and Liangzhu Culture. Influenced by it, the prehistoric scene of "competing in the Central Plains" was formed.

It can be said that the Chinese culture of this era is in a star-studded period.

Just like the explosion of species in the Cambrian period, it opened the era of the earth's biological explosion.

At this point in time 5000 years ago, China was also experiencing a "cultural explosion". In the end, various cultures bred on the land of China were gradually expanded and conquered by the Yan-Huang culture in the Central Plains, and then they were born. summer.

Of course, this is just the current archaeological discovery, and it does not mean that China was like this 5000 years ago.

Archeology is all about inferences based on existing discoveries.

Maybe when another great site that shocked the world was discovered, even the Xia capital was discovered, and the national site of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors was discovered.

All the conjectures and theories in the archaeological world will be overthrown again.

This is not impossible, on the contrary, it should be said to be a very normal thing in the archaeological field.

Say nothing else.

Liangzhu was discovered about a hundred years ago, and the real archaeological excavation began in 2006, less than 20 years ago. There are still many unsolved mysteries in Liangzhu.

The Yaowangcheng ruins and Shuangchengcheng ruins were discovered decades ago, and it was only in the 21st century that the scale was determined, reaching 400 million square meters.

These super metropolises cannot be completed without 100 years of hard work.

For Chinese archaeologists, now is a glorious period of Chinese archaeology, every day there may be great discoveries, and new theories may emerge every day.

The next 50 years may be the most important 50 years of Chinese archeology.

A large number of prehistoric civilizations that subverted history may be dug out of the ground one after another. Prehistoric characters, prehistoric bronzes, prehistoric capitals, and royal tombs may all be discovered one after another.

The three-generation society in the traditional concept may be completely subverted by this great archaeological discovery.

For Chen Han, he is in the prime of life, just at the cusp of this new era of Chinese archaeology, and he is absolutely extremely lucky.

At least they were luckier than the first batch of archaeologists in China.

They discovered the Yin Ruins, Liangzhu, Sanxingdui, Yangshao, and a large number of cultural sites from prehistoric times.

But because the country’s conditions were not good at that time, it was in a period of war, and later the whole country was busy developing people’s livelihood and economic development, so there was no time, no money, and no policy to support archaeologists to conduct comprehensive research on these large-scale sites of several million square meters. Azimuth excavation work.

Until the actual arrival of 21, as the country's soft power and hard power have reached a higher level, enough achievements have been made in terms of people's livelihood and economy.

Finally, the high-level leaders have the strength and funds to support the archaeological community, and launched a research on the origin of our Chinese people.

Large-scale cultural sites that may have only a few archaeologists excavating a few square meters a year have started to carry out large-scale excavations one after another.

Yangshao, Sanxingdui, Yinxu and other sites have all entered the era of large-scale excavation.

There are new discoveries every day, new results every day.

With the continuous progress of Chinese archaeology, China's prehistoric civilization may continue to produce earth-shattering results.

It's a pity that the first batch of archaeologists did not wait for this golden age of archaeology.

Chen Han is lucky.

He was able to be born in this era of great development of Chinese archaeology, and to be able to participate in it.

However, the young Chen Han did not feel his luck at this time.

He listened intently to the discussion between Kong Jianwen and Professor Li, and some thoughts appeared in his mind.

"Senior brother Zhuang, do you think there is a possibility?"

"Liangzhu culture, or Liangzhu ancient country, could it be that there was a Chao clan?"

"Could it be that Dayu, who later controlled the waters and established Xia, came from the ancient Liangzhu kingdom?"

"About 4200 years ago, the Hangzhou Basin where Liangzhu Ancient City is located experienced a great flood. The entire Hangzhou Basin was flooded, forming a floodplain layer more than one meter thick, and this area became unsuitable for human life , the ancient city of Liangzhu has since disappeared.”

"The Hangzhou area became the country of Ze, and it was not until after 2000 that people lived in it during the Warring States Period. This is why the Central Plains later saw that the Wu and Yue countries were still barren places with short hair and tattoos."

"And Dayu lived in a period earlier than Liangzhu's demise."

"Furthermore, in some records about Dayu, it was also mentioned that Dayu's hometown was the generation of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Because the Youchao family was good at water control, they were invited to the Central Plains to help manage the Yellow River."

"The Taihu Lake Basin has a rich water system, and the Liangzhu culture has the ability to build water conservancy facilities. They are very suitable for the evaluation of "good at water control"!"

(End of this chapter)