Master Archaeologist

Chapter 6 Fireplace? (Please collect! Please follow up!)

In prehistoric settlements, trenches are a very important fortification.

In that era of low productivity, it was obvious that city walls could not be built on a large scale.

But the Chinese ancestors were very clever and created trenches, which are fortifications against wild animals.

Simply put, trenches are like moats common in ancient cities.

As long as a trench with a depth of several meters is dug along the periphery of the settlement, it can effectively block the attacks of wild animals.

However, even a trench is a huge project for the Chinese ancestors with low productivity more than 4000 years ago.

Therefore, not all prehistoric sites can find trench remains.

Not to mention the large trenches like the Lajia ruins, which are more than ten meters wide and 5-6 meters deep.

Among all the prehistoric sites that have been excavated, it is very rare to have trenches!

Su Sa, who was standing in the crowd, was very surprised and said: "I remember that no trenches were found in the ruins unearthed before the Qijia Culture, right?"

The Qijia culture is a culture that existed in Gansu and Qinghai during the transition from the late Neolithic age to the early Bronze Age between 4300 and 3600 years ago.

At present, in the Gansu and Qinghai regions, as many as hundreds of ruins of the Qijia culture have been unearthed.

But nowhere has such a large trench appeared!

"Yes." Kong Jianwen nodded, and said thoughtfully, "So, I'm afraid this Lajia site has a very special status in the Qijia culture."

"Perhaps... a cultural center? Similar to the capital of Fang Kingdom's era?"

The staff of the Qinghai Institute of Archeology nodded in agreement: "The guesses of several researchers in the institute are the same as Professor Kong's."

"The Lajia ruins discovered this time must have a special status in the Qijia culture."

After briefly looking at the traces of the trenches, before everyone could take a closer look, the staff of the Qinghai Archaeological Institute continued: "In addition to the first excavation site here, we have opened up a new excavation site in the northeast of Xialajia Village. No. construction site."

"At the No. 1 construction site, there should be five house sites that are neatly arranged."

"However, due to the current shortage of manpower, only the cleaning of the No. 1 house site has been completed, and the next four house sites have just been deployed."

"In the next period of time, these four housing sites will need to be handed over to the comrades of the Academy of Social Sciences."

After speaking, he hurriedly planned to take everyone to step on the spot first.

The people from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences are not here to visit or investigate, they are young men who have been arrested!
To visit or something, just take a few glances.

What matters is the work!
The staff of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences couldn't help but take Kong Jianwen, Chen Han and his party to the construction site in the northeast of Xiala Village, where the protective shed had been built.

The staff of the Qinghai Archaeological Institute, together with the local residents, has prepared their respective areas of responsibility for the other archaeological teams who came from all over the country to support them.

On construction site No. [-], construction site No. [-], and construction site No. [-], there are as many as dozens of detectives laying down on each construction site, waiting for distribution.

Because the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Social Sciences is a direct line of troops above, the Qinghai Institute of Archaeology arranged for them to be on the No. [-] construction site for good luck.

As soon as we arrived at the No. [-] construction site, there were five detection squares arranged opposite to each other in front of everyone's eyes, and each detection square was more than three meters long and wide.

Among them, the detection square marked as F1 seems to have been cleaned up almost, revealing the clearly visible ruins.

The remaining four exploration areas are muddy, obviously they just asked the villagers to help dig out the pit, and they are still waiting for the archaeologists to start work.

Naturally, the unfinished explorations did not attract anyone's attention. The archaeologists from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences all set their sights on the No. 1 exploration.

It can be seen that the No. 1 exploration square should be a house site composed of a living room, a doorway, and a place in front of the door. It is a "housing" building in the early Chinese civilization.

It must be very simple, after all, it is a house from 4000 years ago.

And after being buried deep in the ground, the shape of any house is actually invisible.

Just relying on the different colors of the soil layers, it can be roughly seen that there used to be walls here.

Moreover, the traces on the four walls can still be vaguely seen that the plaster surface was smeared, which shows that the ancestors of the Lajia site also mastered the technique of "puttying" the house at that time.

It's not easy!
Chen Han carefully observed the site of House No. 1 with great interest, but it is a pity that all the useful cultural relics have been collected and preserved, and will not be placed on the site in the open air.

Apart from a general outline of the house, Chen Han couldn't see any more valuable items.

However, the staff of the Qinghai Archaeological Institute introduced the excavation of the No. 1 house site to everyone in a timely manner.

"No complete daily-use pottery was found in Room 1, only a remnant pottery pot, half-finished stone tools and jade ware on each side were unearthed."

"Researchers in the institute speculate that this house site may have been abandoned, or a non-living house site."

The tone of the staff was a little regretful.

It was a pity that the archaeologists of the Qinghai Archaeological Institute spent more than half a month cleaning up the excavations, but they did not obtain any particularly valuable cultural relics.

But this is also normal.

In many cases, archaeologists spend several months carefully excavating the exploration site, which may end up as an empty room.

It is common to be busy in vain.

In archaeology, every shovel is a gamble on luck.

Not all efforts will be reaped.

After a little bit of regret, everyone continued to observe Room 1 to make some preparations for the next few houses to be cleaned up.

The layout and structure of different rooms under the same large ruins must be quite similar.

Looking at it, a very distinctive place in Room 1 quickly attracted Chen Han's attention.

On the edge of the northeast corner of Room [-], there are two stone slabs in an abrupt shape.

It looks like there is an extra horn on the square box, making the entire 1-bedroom apartment look like a "convex" shape.

This made Chen Han very puzzled.

Pointing to the two protruding stone slabs, he asked, "What's the situation with these two stone slabs?"

After a glance, the staff member smiled and said, "It should be a rather peculiar stove."

Chen Han frowned, feeling something was wrong.

If it is a stove, it is usually in the living room, rather than protruding out of the living room, it looks like it is embedded in the wall.

Moreover, Chinese people have not had the habit of cooking in the living room since ancient times.

Even if you need a stove for heating or boiling hot water, or even burying a pot for cooking.

From prehistoric times to later Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties and even Qin and Han Dynasties.

Most of them choose to dig down a 20-30cm long and wide concave area in the center of the living room. After hollowing out the middle, burn a stove or burn wood directly.

This structure is called a "fire pit".

Many Paleolithic sites that have been unearthed have found a lot of such situations in the room where an area was hollowed out in the center of the room for a stove.

Now remote villages in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places, as well as some ethnic minority gathering places, still use this primitive firepit.

Not only in China, but in the whole of Asia, using firepit for heating and boiling water for cooking is the mainstream situation.

The firepit culture has also been used in RB to this day, and the old-fashioned buildings in RB still retain this heating structure, which is usually arranged in the center of the tatami mat.

The word "stove" originally came from the acupoint, and the original meaning of the coinage is a stove pit for cooking food with a pot.

It shows that the ground stove dug into a pit is the earliest form of stove!
And the two stone slabs protruding from the wall in Room [-] have nothing to do with the stove.

Chen Han touched his chin, staring at this strange shape, pondering thoughtfully.

Suddenly, a flash of light flashed through his head.

"Crack!" Chen Han clapped his hands and shouted excitedly, "This is not a fireplace, is it?!"

His sudden exclamation attracted the attention of all the staff and archaeologists present.

After a short moment of astonishment, everyone seemed to be enlightened, and suddenly turned their heads to look at the northeast corner of Room 1.

"fireplace?!"

If Chen Han's guess in a flash of inspiration is correct, then this will be a great discovery that shocked the archaeological circles both at home and abroad!

In Chinese houses, there is basically no tradition of building fireplaces since ancient times.

But in the Lajia ruins more than 4000 years ago, there is actually a heating device similar to a fireplace? !

Fireplaces have long been considered a room heating device that originated in the West and Central Asia, not part of Asian culture!

Is this a cognition that has long been agreed by scholars in the world, is it wrong? !

The Chinese ancestors also mastered and widely used fireplaces? !

This is a conjecture that shocks everyone, even Chen Han himself, who proposed it, is a little hard to believe.

"I just made a random guess." Chen Han added in a low voice with some confidence.

(End of this chapter)