Master Archaeologist

Chapter 357 Excavation

Yes, the tomb next to tomb M7 is tomb M1, not M8 or M6.

This is not the mess of the people who named the tombs on the construction site, but in the archaeological excavation work, this situation is very normal.

Let's say that.

On a construction site, the principle of naming the tombs is to name them in the order in which they were discovered.

But, for things like exploring the tombs, it is impossible for him to say that he can really find them one by one according to the order in which they are arranged.

Usually, one tomb is found in the east, another tomb is found in the west, another tomb is found in the south, and another tomb is found in the east.

As a result, when naming these tombs, it may be M1 to the east, M2 to the west, M3 to the south, and M4 to the east.

In this way, M1 and M4 become neighbors.

This is also the case on Jiangjiashan's side.

M1 was the first to be discovered, and after going around for a long time, 6 other tombs were discovered, and then another tomb was discovered next to M1, which became M7.

Tomb M1 is located in the east of the south row of the cemetery, close to M2 in the west, and adjacent to M7 in the east.

A small southeast portion of the tomb was damaged by a late pit.

The filling soil in the tomb pit is reddish-brown soil, with a small amount of off-white soil and gray soil clods, and the soil quality is relatively hard.

The tomb pit is 3.62 meters long, 1.35 meters wide, and 0.24 meters deep. The soil filled in the coffin is red gray spot soil, with many red and gray-white soil clods, and the soil is relatively loose.

Those who carried out the excavation work in advance only drew the sidelines of the tomb and the coffin on the scraped surface. This is all the preliminary preparations made by the staff of the Zhejiang Institute.

The next archaeological work will be taken over by the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences.

During the excavation, there were no obvious signs of decay on the coffin slab and the coffin cover, only a "rectangular" coffin body line around the coffin.

The entire coffin is 3.05 meters long and 1.05 meters wide. The thickness of the coffin board is unknown, but judging by the size, it is larger than the coffin of the M7 tomb just now.

Perhaps the tomb owner of this tomb is a male, so a larger outer coffin is required.

After Chen Han and the others took over, the first thing to do was to excavate 5 centimeters down horizontally from the tomb and scrape the surface.

The reason for this is simple, to determine the size of the coffin.

Yes.

In the ancient Liangzhu Kingdom 5000 years ago, there was already a "coffin" system that was not widely seen until the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The nobles of the ancient Liangzhu Kingdom were buried with a layer of coffins and a layer of outer coffins before they were buried!
In this regard, can we not think that Liangzhu is one of the sources of Chinese civilization?
Be it Liangzhu's funeral culture or jade culture, they are all very similar to Chinese culture!

This has to be said to be of the same strain!
Sure enough, after digging five centimeters below the level, a clear range of the coffin could be seen.

After Zhuang Yunpeng measured it with a soft ruler, he quickly got accurate data.

The coffin is 2.78 meters long and 0.7 meters wide.

In other words, there is a gap of about 30 centimeters between the coffin and the coffin.

"The soil filled in the coffin is light gray soil, mixed with a large amount of gray-white soil, and the soil is loose and fine."

"It is impossible to draw the decay marks on the side panels of the coffin on the plane, but the obvious traces of the bottom panel and side panels of the coffin can be observed from the reserved small partition beams. It is a fine off-white soil, about 4 cm thick."

"The bottom of the coffin is curved, so it can be speculated that the burial utensils are wooden coffins with a concave curved bottom like a canoe."

Zhuang Yunpeng kept reporting his discoveries.

Standing on the pit, Chen Han, Kong Jianwen and others became more and more aware.

According to the known situation, the traces of the coffin board have been completely lost, but luckily the traces of the coffin board are still there, and it can be concluded that the thickness of the coffin of the owner of the tomb is 4 cm.

This is also a number that fits well with Chinese funeral culture.

The bottom of the coffin has a concave arc shape, which is a very common shape in the tombs in the Yangtze River Basin.

This coffin is called "canoe style", which means it looks like a canoe boat.

In the Yangtze River Basin, canoes have always been the most common means of transportation, and they were first used 7000 years ago.

And coincidentally, many tribes and cultures in the Yangtze River Basin will use "canoe-style" wooden burial utensils to bury themselves after death.

As a country that lived and ruled in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the ancient Liangzhu Kingdom, it is not uncommon for their burial utensil culture to move closer to the "canoe style".

On the contrary, in the Central Plains, there are generally no such canoe-style burial utensils, and usually flat-bottomed square coffins.

"What should I say? Let's dig!" Professor Li said with a smile.

A tomb with a length and width of just over 3 meters by 1 meter, even if the entire excavation square is 5x5, it does not need a dozen people from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences to dig together.

In fact, in addition to the M1 tomb, there are also three tombs, M8, M11 and M14, which are also responsible for the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences.

There are four tombs, and an average of four people are arranged to excavate each tomb, which is just enough to arrange a group of people from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences.

After a little discussion, the excavation of tomb M1 fell into the hands of Chen Han, Zhuang Yunpeng, Lin Ya and Professor Li.

The main reason for arranging Professor Li is to have an experienced veteran lead the team.

Don't look at Chen Han and Zhuang Yunpeng who have dug a lot of tombs in recent years.

However, this kind of late Neolithic tomb has insufficient experience.

The simplest difference is that the tombs dug by Chen Han and the others were all underground tombs with complete chambers.

And this kind of tomb in the Neolithic period, the vertical pit of the earth pit, was excavated directly in situ, and it was a meticulous job to level the entire 5X5 square.

That's what Chen Han and the others did when the Lajia site was excavated.

A few years have passed in a flash, and the experience has not increased much.

"Let's do it, clean it from top to bottom bit by bit."

After Professor Li gave an order, he took the lead and jumped into the pit.

This kind of book cave tomb in the late Neolithic period is quite easy to dig.

It is nothing more than to delineate an area of ​​a few meters by a few meters, and then the archaeologists will use brushes and hand shovels to clean up all the soil in the area bit by bit.

Of course, it should be cleaned according to the shape of the coffin and the remains that may be found.

This is delicate work that requires patience.

The funerary objects of this tomb are all located in the coffin, and the cleaning process is like opening a blind box.

After sweeping down a piece of soil, you may see a corner of the burial object, and then clean up the soil next to it bit by bit, revealing the complete appearance of the burial object.

Not only the burial objects, but the remains of the owner of the tomb were the first to be cleared out, apart from the two inconspicuous jade beads on the upper part of the coffin filling.

The human bones of the owner of the tomb are poorly preserved.

During the cleaning process, only remnants of the skull, part of the ribs, the radius and ulna on both sides, the femur on both sides, and the tibia and fibula on both sides can be distinguished.

From the remains of the skull, it can be discerned that the owner of the tomb was buried with his head facing south and slightly west, with his head facing 190 degrees.

This is a bit different from the traditional Chinese saying of sitting south and facing north.

(End of this chapter)