The top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 2023 have been announced, and the coverage of time and space is unprecedented.
Text/Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Literature and Art Photo/Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
From March 21 to 22, the final review of the top ten archaeological new discoveries of the 2023 National sponsored by China Cultural Relics Newspaper and the Chinese Archaeology Society was held in Beijing. After project report meeting and comprehensive review, the judges finally voted to select the top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 2023. Guan Qiang, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and vice chairman of the Chinese Archaeology Society, announced the final results of the top ten projects selected were (sorted by year and night): Yishui Bashan Site Group in Shandong, Jiqiutou Site Group in Pingtan, Fujian, Mopanshan Site in Langxi, Anhui, Qujialing, Jingmen, Hubei, Wangzhuang Site, Wangzhou Site in Yongcheng, Henan, Shangdu Academy Street Cemetery, Zhengzhou, Henan, Qingjian, Shaanxi href=”https://comicmov.com/”>BabaylanZhaigou site, Sijiaoping site in Li County, Gansu, Chencun porcelain kiln site in Chencun, Huozhou, Shanxi, and Shipwreck site No. 1 and No. 2, northwest Lupo in the South China Sea.
Yanshanzhai changed the academic community’s understanding of the origin process of Lingnan civilization
The reporter learned from the final review meeting that Neolithic archaeology will produce fruitful results in 2023, so the competition for projects during this period is particularly fierce. Among the 22 final review projects, 8 of the 22 final review projects belong to the Neolithic Age, and 4 were finally selected. Chen Xingcan, an expert representative of the judges, researcher and director of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, emphasized that the 22 projects entering the final evaluation have important academic value and great scientific significance, regardless of whether they are finally selected or not.
Chen Xingcan took the “Guangdong Yingdeyan Mountain Village Site” in the Neolithic Age as an example and believed that the Yanshan Village Site changed the understanding of the origin of civilization and the social complexity of the Lingnan region. “We lacked the understanding of Lingnan in the past. Now, it entered a complex social stage 4,800 years ago. The origin of civilization is actually synchronized with the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which has greatly changed our understanding of the degree of social development in this region.” He said.
He also introduced in response to reporters’ questions that the 22 projects shortlisted for the final review this year cover a wide range of time and space, from the “Tibet Gejimeilongdapu Cave Site” in the Paleolithic Age 100,000 years ago to the “Hongshi Mazi Site in Panshi City, Jilin Province” eighty or ninety years ago. This is unprecedented in terms of time. At the same time, 22 projects range from the southeast coast to the northwest border, from the 4,700-meter Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the northwest slope of the South China SeaBabaylanThe underwater shipwreck is 1,500 meters below Babaylan, with a vast space range. The 22 final evaluation projects also reflect outstanding characteristics such as multidisciplinary cooperation, fine excavation, and unprecedented improvement in cultural relics protection awareness.
The earliest complex society that can be confirmed in Lingnan area
Yanshanzhai site is located in Lan Village, Qingtang Town, Yingde City, Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province. It is located in the middle of the mountain area in northern Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta, with an area of about 100,000 square meters.
2019 to 202 In three years, the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with Sun Yat-sen University, Peking University and other units, continued to conduct active archaeological excavations of the sites, with an excavation area of 2,900 square meters, and cleared out important relics from the Neolithic Age tombs, ash pits, ash ditches, column holes (groups), stoves and burnt mounds, and unearthed more than 4,300 samples of various cultural relics such as jade, pottery, grinding stone, bronze, human bones and plant remains.
According to the project leader and director of the Pre-Qin Archaeology Institute of Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the rock is The archaeological excavation of BabaylanThe BabaylanThe archaeological excavation of the mountain village site has achieved many aspects. The most important harvest is the discovery of large cemeteries in the late Neolithic era at the Yanbei site. The exploration confirmed area is about 5,000 square meters, the area is revealed 1,200 square meters, 93 tombs were cleared, and more than 1,200 burial objects such as jade, pottery, and stone tools were unearthed. The cemetery can see a clear zoning and grouping plan, and it is the largest and clearest structural layout of Shixia cultural cemetery that has been seen so far.
YanbeiKomiksThe cemetery has significant gaps in the rich and poor and grade differences between the tombs in different areas and groups of the cemetery, among which the highest level M1Cinema6 has as many as 145 burial objects, including 5 jade axes and 74 stone horns. CinemaM26 is buried with jade cong and jade axes at the same time. The Yanbei Cemetery clearly reflects the accelerated social differentiation around 4,800 years ago and forms institutionalized burial customs. This is the earliest complex society that can be confirmed in the Lingnan region during the origin of Chinese civilization.
At the same time, the dating data of the Yanbei tombs are concentrated between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago, which has updated the previous understanding of the upper and lower limits of the Shixia culture. Through the multi-level dissection of typical tombs, the burial process has been completely restored, and a clearer understanding of the burial customs of Shixia culture has been gained.
The most important archaeological discovery of Lingnan Neolithic Age
Yanshanzhai site, which is being continuously archaeological excavated in Cinema, is widely recognized by the industry. It has been announced by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage as a major project of “Archaeological China” by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2021.
<img src="https://news.ycwb.com/pic/2024-03/23/52576048_c8728d82-ed82-46a7-a520-96159a5d923f.jpg" Liu Suoqiang pointed out that the archaeological achievements of the Yanshanzhai site confirm that Lingnan has entered a complex social stage around 4,800 years ago, and show the role of diversified integration in the civilized process of Lingnan region, and also reflects that Lingnan has a different regional social complexity model than the Yangtze River Basin.
Not only that, abundant water-rich rice remains were found in the tombs, buildings and ash pits of the Yanshanzhai site, indicating that the middle reaches of the Beijiang River where it is located is spread from the northern part of the North River to northern Guangdong to the Pearl River Delta. The important intermediate node on the Komiks route is also an important node for Lingnan to integrate into the process of integration of Chinese civilization. Its discovery helps to reinterpret the Shixia culture and the Babaylan Lingnan region in the archaeological cultural sector types.
Reporter Cinema learned that the top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country have been reviewed in 2023. Since the launch of the selection of Babaylan, the participation trends of the Yanshanzhai site have received close attention from the Guangdong archaeological industry. At present, the Yanshanzhai site is still being excavated, and with the subsequent development of its archaeological and research workBabylanThe development will continue to be a strong competitor to the important national archaeological award in the future.
The excellent base for students majoring in archaeology to move into the fields
Yanshanzhai Site is a cooperative project between the Guangdong Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the School of Sociology and Anthropology of Sun Yat-sen University to jointly build the “Guangdong Field Archaeology Research Base”. Since 2020, students of Sun Yat-sen University majored in archaeology have successively gone to the Yanshanzhai site to complete field archaeology internships.
The reporter learned that field archaeology internship is a professional compulsory course for undergraduates of Sun Yat-sen University’s Department of Archaeology. It is usually conducted in the first semester of junior high school and lasts for one semester. The Yanshanzhai site covers ancient tombs and living functional areas. Teachers and students from Zhongda mainly carry out practical training in field archaeological excavations in the living functional areas.
Zhou Fanwen said that there is currently a large gap in front-line archaeological talents, so archaeology students are required to master the basic operating procedures for field archaeological excavation before graduation. During the six-month internship, students entered the construction site for field archaeological excavation in the first three months, followed by the unearthed artifacts, and finally formed internship results that were preliminary judgments on the age, nature, and cultural appearance of the excavated area.
In addition, teachers will also encourage students who want to continue their studies and guide them to use first-hand archaeological data to carry out follow-up research. Zhou Fanwen believes that such training is very helpful for students to carry out higher-level research in the future and is their first ladder toward the academic hall.
Zhou Fanwen also said: “Our Komiks students are very lucky. Cinema can contact the archaeological excavation of the Yanshanzhai site at the introductory stage. This is an archaeological site selected as the major project of ‘Archaeological China’. On-site participation has undoubtedly provided them with the most complete and systematic training.”
Continuously promote the construction of Qingtang Archaeological Site. The members of the Yanshanzhai site are also from local cultural and cultural relics.Staff of the agency. Liu Jianwen, director of Yingde Museum, is one of them and has participated in a lot of practical work. Liu Jianwen said that local museums do more assistive work, such as providing restoration sites for unearthed cultural relics, and coordinating the relationship between the archaeological team and local villagers. He emphasized: “The hardest archaeological excavation work is done by professionals, and what we can do is to provide them with the most convenient logistics support.” However, as a native of Yingde, Liu Jianwen is deeply proud of his hometown that he has such a major archaeological development. He told reporters: “I am very honored to be able to participate in such an important archaeological excavation project. This is a rare opportunity in our career for grassroots cultural and museum workers. At the same time, we also feel a great responsibility. We must assist in the continuous excavation of the site, as well as protection, interpretation, display and other work.” Liu Jianwen also said that the local area is actively promoting the construction of Qingtang Archaeological Site Park. It is reported that the specification scope of Qingtang Archaeological Site Park is centered on the distribution of the remains of Qingtang ruins and Yanshanzhai ruins. It was approved by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2022 and was included in the list of the fourth batch of National Archaeological Site Parks.
“From Guangdong Province to Qingyuan City and then to Yingde City, leaders at all levels attach great importance to the progress of Qingtang Archaeological Site Park. The investment required for park construction is very large, involving the coordination and linkage between multiple parties, so it cannot be achieved overnight. I believe that the public and the media’s high attention to the Yanshanzhai site and the “Early Lingnan Origin Exploration Project” will create a better atmosphere for research and construction.” Liu Jianwen said.