Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1471 Big Discovery

In addition to stories, Wushan also has a place with excellent scenery - the Daning River Valley known as the "Little Three Gorges".

The Daning River Valley has shallow water, and the research ship cannot get on it. However, the city's cultural unit has said hello, and the local tour guide responsible for leading the group will naturally make appropriate arrangements.

But Zhou Zhi didn't go. He had his own mission. There was an important civilization site in Wushan waiting for him to visit.

Daxi Cultural Site.

Daxi Town is located at the east entrance of Qutang Gorge, next to the wide bank of the Daning River, because there is a stream to the west of the town that flows into the Yangtze River. Because its water color is like daisy, it is named Daixi.

In the ancient pronunciation, "Dai" and "Da" have the same pronunciation, and the water is so powerful during the flood season that everyone called it Daxi.

From 1959 to 1975, Sichuan Institute of Technology and other units formed a joint expedition team to conduct three excavations on the third-level platform at the intersection of the south bank of the Yangtze River and the Daxi River at the east entrance of Qutang Gorge. The total area excavated was 570 square meters. More than 200 tombs were cleared and more than 1,200 cultural relics were unearthed.

With more and more archaeological excavations, academic circles have discovered that the cultural sites here are all over the Three Gorges and even extend to the Dongting area. The cultural age is about five to six thousand years ago. It belongs to the late matrilineal clan to the budding stage of the paternal clan. It is the ancient primitive society of the Yangtze River Basin. Among the cultural sites, it is the oldest.

Nowadays, academic circles have basically determined that the Daxi Civilization is one of the birthplaces of ancient civilization in the Yangtze River Basin of my country and an important relic of the matriarchal society of the Neolithic Age in China. Guo Moruo personally called it the 'Daxi Culture'.

Many things are still piled in the warehouse of Wushan County Cultural Center.

Before the Three Gorges Project began, this was of course the primary area for rescue excavation.

Sheng Zhaoming is now the deputy director of the Shu Provincial Museum, an authority on the Yangtze River Neolithic culture, and the researcher who has studied the Daxi culture for the longest time. He is the leader of this year’s archaeological working group.

Sheng Zhaoming has been excavating the Daxi ruins with his mentor since he graduated from college at the age of 20. He has been researching the Daxi ruins for forty-five years now. He is now sixty-seven years old. It can be said that he has been dealing with Daxi culture all his life.

"How do you know there will be major discoveries in the reservoir area of ​​the Youzou Hydropower Station?" Sheng Zhaoming looked at the young man in front of him, eager to solve this mystery.

"Hello, Professor Sheng, these are two bottles of rheumatism wine I brought from my hometown. They can be taken internally or externally." Zhou Zhi took out two bottles of wine from his schoolbag and placed them on the table: "I have been doing field archaeological work in the Three Gorges area for many years. Rheumatism has become an occupational disease.”

"Thank you, Xiao Zhou." Sheng Zhaoming took the wine and said, "Come and sit down and tell me how do you know that there will be major discoveries in the reservoir area of ​​the Youzhen Hydropower Station?"

Zhou Zhi sat down and said, "Professor Sheng, you really think highly of us. How could we have known in advance that the largest Daxi cultural site to date would be excavated in the reservoir area of ​​the Youzhen Hydropower Station?"

"Then why did you list this area as a key area in the previous archaeological plan?"

"There is some misunderstanding here. This is not the original intention of the foundation." Zhou Zhi explained: "When the plan was formulated, the foundation had a principle, which was to conduct preliminary inspections of rescue excavations in important areas under the flooded area of ​​the Three Gorges Project. ”

"After reading the plan, I felt that such locations should not be limited to the flooded areas of the Three Gorges Project, but should include hydropower construction sites and flooded areas in the entire basin."

"Of course we can't interfere with the country's engineering construction, but we can provide corresponding compensation incentives for construction sites where cultural relics are found, and increase everyone's enthusiasm for reporting discoveries." "The big discovery in the Youhou Reservoir area actually happened here The two supplementary opinions have played a role, so in terms of credit, Wushan County cultural protection workers have the greatest credit for publicizing the system." Zhou Zhi couldn't stop laughing: "How it was passed around has become a mystery to me. "

In fact, he was indeed a prophet. The great discovery in the Youhou Reservoir area in the previous world occurred in 2007. Because that great discovery established the status of Daxi Culture as the birthplace of the Yangtze River Civilization, there were still many reports from various parties, which gave I have always paid attention to the thoughtfulness of these things, which left a deep impression.

It was only after I came into contact with these projects at a deep level in this life that I realized that archaeological projects are actually large-scale systematic projects that last for a very long time. In terms of the archaeological work of the Daxi Culture, it has been uninterrupted from 1975 to now. Some key areas have also undergone repeated exploration, but the scope of the excavation has been almost prepared in the previous large-scale exploration, but there is no rush to excavate it.

Similar situations such as the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang and Sanxingdui are the same.

Therefore, this time he proposed that we should not just focus on the Three Gorges Project and ignore the impact of water conservancy construction on various tributaries in the basin on archaeological work. Then two supplementary suggestions were put forward, covering all places where reservoirs will be built in the future within the scope of exploration, and focusing on the Youzhuo Reservoir area as an example.

The funder named the locations, and even if the working group was trying to cope with it, they had to direct resources towards these places.

Then the effect came out. After careful digging in the previously determined area, a huge discovery was made.

"Fortunately, I have these two suggestions." Sheng Zhaoming clasped his forehead: "It seems to be God's will."

"Yes, God's will." Zhou Zhi followed suit: "As the saying goes, God rewards hard work. God rewarded Professor Sheng with a big gift package for his decades of diligent research!"

"Hahaha, how can you say that!" Zhou Zhi's words greatly benefited Sheng Zhaoming: "But the discovery is indeed huge!"

The results were not much different from the first discovery of Daxi cultural sites in southeastern Yuzhou in 2007, but the time was greatly advanced. Typical double burial tombs in the middle period of Daxi culture and other precious relics were unearthed, and the tombs and Post holes and many other architectural remains.

The excavation area was 1,125 square meters, and nine above-ground cultural relics areas and 12 underground cultural relics areas were discovered.

The cleaned production tools mainly include stone axes, stone adzes, stone pestles, stone sickles, spinning wheels, bone needles, clam sickles, net pendants and other production tools, as well as various pottery.

The pottery used as daily tools is mainly red pottery, followed by black pottery and gray pottery, and there are very few three-legged pottery. The painted pottery decorations and stamp patterns are quite distinctive.

The shapes of utensils include beans, curved-belly cups, bowls, cans, plates, bottles, basins, bowls, etc. Among them, cylindrical bottles, high-circle-footed deep-belly beans, and curved-belly cups are representative utensils of Daxi culture.

Decorations include jade, stone, bone, ivory, animal teeth, etc. There are three main types of earrings, necklaces and arm decorations.

There are even art displays that represent a highly developed civilization, including hollow stone balls, human face reliefs, hanging decorations, etc., as well as internal and external vermilion pottery, stamped and inscribed black pottery, curved-belly cups, cylindrical bottles and other utensils.

Coupled with several previous discoveries, the Daxi Culture is fully qualified to be included in the top 100 archaeological discoveries in the past century.

(End of this chapter)