[Preface] Speaking of ancient Chinese humans, I knew there was a "Zhoukoudian" in Beijing when I was in elementary school. In 1921, Swedish scholars discovered that a group of people who were later called "Peking people" lived there. It was 500,000 years ago. . I studied history in middle school and learned about Yuanmou in Yunnan. In 1965, Chinese paleoanthropologists found two teeth here. It was determined that Yuanmou Man lived 1.7 million years ago. But this is not the earliest ancient human on the land of China. Forty years ago, Chinese paleoanthropologists discovered ancient humans about two million years ago in the Yangyuan Basin in the upper reaches of the Sanggan River in the east of Yangyuan County, Hebei Province. signs of activity. From June to August 1996, the Sino-US joint archaeological team composed of American Indian University and Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics also conducted a two-month excavation and research work on the Nihewan site, and obtained a large number of precious treasures. Animal fossils and Paleolithic materials further prove that the Nihewan Basin is the cradle of human origin in China and one of the birthplaces of ancient humans. Since then, Yangyuan County, a national-level poverty-stricken county, has become globally recognized as "one of the origin centers of human beings and their cultures in the world". At the starting point of the historical bronze corridor. As a precious cultural treasure of Chinese mankind, the Nihewan Site Group was selected as one of the "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China" in 1998, and was selected as one of the "Top 100 Archaeological Discoveries in China in the 20th Century" in 2001, and was included in the fifth batch of national key projects. A cultural relic protection unit, it was promoted to a national nature reserve in 2002. How can I ignore such a place with a high status both domestically and internationally? So, here I come!
[Continued] On May 19, partly cloudy, 18/6 degrees, northwest wind, wind force 5-6, gust 7. Visit Yangyuan County Nihewan Museum, Jiulong Mountain, and return to Beijing.
(The big tripod in front of the Yuzhou Hotel shows Yuxian County, a large county with cultural relics and historic sites)
It may be that I walked a lot yesterday, felt a little tired, and slept deeply all night. Get up at 7:30, freshen up, have breakfast at the hotel, and then leave the room.
According to the team's plan, visit the Nihewan Museum at 10:30. There are two roads from Yuxian County to Yangyuan County. One is to take the Zhangshi Expressway and turn to Xuanda Expressway, which goes around a Dawan, but the road is high-speed. The other way is to go down the Guangxian and Tianxuan lines and cross the Taihang Mountains. The route is nearly 30 kilometers shorter, but the time required is slightly longer. Because I didn't take the bus with the big troops, I was relatively free, so I chose to take the Panshan Road, and enjoy the scenery of Taihang by the way.
I drove off at 9:00, and the first ten kilometers were national or provincial roads. Although the road was wide, there were many large vehicles transporting coal, and the speed could not be driven, and the speed was kept at more than 50 kilometers. After driving for more than 20 kilometers, I started to walk on the Panshan Road. The big trucks disappeared, and there were very few vehicles on the road. I occasionally encountered one, which was also a small car. Of course, you must be highly concentrated when driving, after all, it is a winding road. But after all, the road conditions are good, and it should be no problem to drive at seventy or eighty kilometers per hour.
After climbing this mountain, the vertical drop should be more than 800 meters.
Arriving at the top of the mountain, it feels very refreshing to look around.
But the wind was really strong. When I left the county, I could already feel the roar of the wind. On the top of the mountain, the wind must be above level 8. I couldn't wear a hat at all, and I would definitely be blown away.
Although the mountain is high, the road conditions are not bad. As long as you are careful and control your speed, it will not be a big problem.
Winding and circling on the mountain road, looking back at the road I just walked, it is already over 100 meters away.
Arrived at Yangyuan County on time at 10:30, and the large troops had not yet arrived. Take advantage of this time to take a good look at the exterior of the Nihewan Museum.
The Nihewan Museum is located in the Nihewan Cultural Square in the New District of Yangyuan County, facing north from the south, across the square from the county government building on the north side of the square. There are several red sandstone reliefs carved in the square, on which are pictures of ancient humans hunting.
The Nihewan Museum was developed and constructed on the basis of the Nihewan Site Group. In order to protect the Nihewan Site and the tens of thousands of cultural relics unearthed, Yangyuan County, Hebei Province invested 50 million yuan to build the Nihewan Museum.
In 2006, the project of Nihewan Museum was formally approved and included in the provincial key projects. Construction started on July 29, 2007, completed in mid-October, 2010, and officially opened to the public in 2011.
According to reports, the Nihewan Museum covers an area of 20 acres and adopts a reinforced concrete frame structure. The exhibition area is on the second floor, 91 meters long, 53 meters wide, and 17 meters high. It is the only special museum in the province that centrally protects, collects and displays the features of Paleolithic sites and a large number of fossils and stone artifacts. It is also the largest Paleolithic museum in China. Archaeological research base.
From the outside, the plane of Nihewan Museum is semicircular, which symbolizes the skull fossils of Homo sapiens.
Facing the northeast as a whole, the 30-meter-high "human"-shaped signpost stands tall, symbolizing the arrival of oriental humans from Nihewan. Several platforms of different sizes outside the museum represent the special landforms of Nihewan.
The striped granite blocks interspersed and combined on the façade of the museum reflect the standard stratum of Nihewan; the semi-circular roof imitating skull fossils and the granite striped outer wall all show "the hometown of human beings in the East——Nihewan" The charm shows the cultural characteristics of Nihewan.
Around 10:40, the main force arrived. Walk up and enter the Nihewan Museum.
The Nihewan Museum currently exhibits more than 50,000 pieces of cultural relics unearthed from Nihewan, and has become a world archaeological research base. The museum covers an area of 2,145 square meters. The exhibition guide line with a length of more than 500 meters divides the exhibition area into a preface hall, four main exhibition halls, a temporary exhibition hall and an event hall, mainly showing the changes in the Nihewan standard strata and the Nihewan ancient lake. process.
In Yangyuan County, as of November 2006, there were only 105 registered Paleolithic cultural sites, including 26 in the early period, 13 in the middle period, and 66 in the late period, not including some sites to be confirmed and some newly discovered sites. If this set of data is used to compare with China and the world, no country or region can match the density of ancient human remains.
In the Nihewan Museum, in the way of scene restoration, group sculptures are used to introduce to tourists the human hunting of elephants in Maquangou in the early Paleolithic age, the hunting of horses in Houjiayao in the middle Paleolithic age, and the tiger-headed Liangxi in the late Paleolithic age. The stone tool manufacturing factory, and some scenes of the collection industry and the germination of agriculture in Yujiagou in the late Paleolithic Age. At the same time, painting, sculpture, sound, light, electricity and other modern technological means are used to present a panoramic view of the production and life scenes of ancient humans in Nihewan hunting, gathering, using fire, eating and making tools from 2 million to 10,000 years ago.
The gate entrance of Nihewan Museum is on the second floor, and after entering the gate is the preface hall.
The Nihewan Museum attaches great importance to this time, and the detailed explanation specially arranged made me feast and gain a lot.
In front of the preface hall of Nihewan Museum is a stratum model made according to scale. The model is a sunken design, extending from the second floor to the first floor. There is a fence directly in front and you can look down.
On the right side of the front stratigraphic model, the strata of each site in the Nihewan site group are marked, and the age corresponding to the stratum is first-level. It can be seen that the most stratum is the Majuangou site 2 million years ago, and the upper layer is the Xiaochangliang site 1 million years ago.
Standing in front of the fence and looking down, the fossil of a mammoth is on the right, and the field archaeological scene from 40 years ago is restored on the left.
On the east wall of the preface hall is a schematic diagram of Nihewan ancient lake 1 million years ago.
On the left and right pillars of the preface hall, two theories of human origin are introduced with pictures and texts. One is the theory of single-region origin and evolution, which means that modern humans originated from early Homo sapiens in Africa, and they migrated and settled all over the world. The second is the theory of multi-regional origin and evolution, which believes that modern humans originated in different regions, and the formation of major human races is the result of continuous evolution of local ancients and a certain degree of mutual gene exchange.
The excavation of the Maquangou site in 2001 revealed for the first time the remains of human meals about 2 million years ago. This is the earliest place of human origin discovered in my country so far. Nihewan shows people that human beings not only come from the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, but may also come from China's Nihewan.
On the east side of the prologue hall is the activity hall, where our activities will also be held today.
After visiting the preface hall, go to the first exhibition hall on the third floor along the steps on the west side. On both sides of the steps are outstanding archaeologists in my country, Pei Wenzhong, Jia Lanpo, Yang Zhongjian, each with a famous name.
The permanent exhibition of the Nihewan Museum is divided into six exhibition areas. The exhibition halls are connected by a ring structure and separated from each other to form a self-contained system. At the same time, a large-scale cultural relic storage room, data archive room and cultural relic restoration room are designed in the main construction.
The museum ranks among the top in terms of building scale and number of collections, and has become a world archaeological research base together with national museums such as Yuanmou people in Yunnan and Zhoukoudian in Beijing.
What we see here is only the centralized exhibition area, and there are also on-site exhibition halls at the sites of many ruins in the Nihewan ruins group. As an integral part of the Nihewan Museum, it focuses on building sheds for permanent protection of important sites such as Xiaochangliang, Hutouliang, Houjiayao, and Maquangou. Through exhibitions, it reproduces the scenes of ancient human life.
Going up to the first exhibition hall on the third floor, the first thing you see is a large picture of the Xiaochangliang site. The Xiaochangliang site is located in Guanting Village on the south bank of the Sanggan River, an earthen beam "Xiaochangliang". On August 21, 1978, when You Yuzhu, Tang Yingjun, and Li Yi of the Shuanggu Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a Quaternary geological survey on the Datianwa platform, they discovered stone artifacts and mammal fossils.
On the other wall at the entrance of the exhibition hall is a photo of Haojiatai, which was the bottom of the Nihewan ancient lake millions of years ago.
There is a table in front of the large picture, which introduces the process of the evolution of the earth. Go north with amphibians and reptiles, mammals are too young, and humans can only be regarded as infants in swaddling.
From here we have entered the first exhibition area: the ancient prehistoric—the prelude to the emergence of eastern humans. Focuses on the early Paleolithic period. The Paleolithic Age is the era when human beings first appeared. Stone tools were used as tools. The human body has primitive characteristics. The remains coexist with some extinct animals. The geological age belongs to the Pleistocene, which lasted from 2.5 million years ago to the present. 10,000 years ago. The Early Paleolithic period lasted from 2 million years ago to 200,000 years ago.
This exhibition area restores the ruins of Maquangou, Xiaochangliang, Donggutuo, Cenjiawan, Feiliang and so on. During the display, the murals of the natural environment and human activities at that time echoed the specimens of cultural relics, showing the scene of human beings making and using tools. During this period, human beings used stone as the material for making tools, and the method of making tools was the hammering method, that is, using stones to strike each other to form a shape suitable for use.
The pictures on the wall clearly introduce the distribution of the early Paleolithic sites in the Nihewan Basin. The essential difference between man and other animals is that he knows how to use fire, and the other is that he knows how to use and make tools. A history of human development is from the manufacture of simple tools to the Nth industrial revolution step by step.
Below the image is a table detailing the sites, including their age, type of site and relics found. According to statistics, my country has discovered 16 Pleistocene Paleolithic sites 1 million years ago, and the Nihewan site group accounts for 12 of them.
In this exhibition area, we saw the first restored scene - the scene of humans hunting elephants in Maquangou in the Early Paleolithic Age. Four men hunt a mammoth with simple tools.
In the scene, the exhibits are exhibited in a combination of painting and real objects, and the hands of the crowd holding weapons in the painting are hollowed out to place real cultural relic specimens. Breaking through the stereotypes of general museum displays, the audience can directly understand how distant and unfamiliar stone tools are manufactured and used.
The oldest is the 2 million-year-old Majuangou site located in the eastern part of the Nihewan Basin. Since 1993, a large number of stone cores, stone flakes, stone hammers, scrapers and other ancient humans have been discovered at the Maquangou site. tools, as well as a large number of animal bone fossils such as elephants, rhinos, deer, horses, and rodents.
In the third cultural layer of the Majuangou site, an extremely rare scene of human ancestors eating an elephant was found. In the photo on the upper right, there is a scraper next to the rib of a mammoth, and there is meat residue on the scraper, which shows that people at that time had already After using stone flakes to cut meat and tendons, knock bones and suck marrow, it is possible to eat large animals. This discovery is the only one in Paleolithic archaeological excavations in the world.
The significance of the Majuangou site not only advances the age of the Paleolithic site in the Nihewan Basin by hundreds of thousands of years, reaching about 1.8-2 million years ago, it is the earliest site with definite strata found in East Asia so far. The site of human activity, and more importantly, challenges the monism that humans originated in Ethiopia, Africa. Inside the showcase are found stone tools.
In chronological order, the next showcase will introduce the Xiaochangliang ruins. After many excavations, a large number of mammal fossils have been discovered. The species that can be identified include mink, ancient diamond tooth, Chinese three-toed horse, three-door horse, woolly rhinoceros, deer, antelope, and cattle. The three-toed horse is a symbolic animal of the Tertiary period, which can last to the early Quaternary period. Among the Nihewan sites, only the Xiaochangliang site has found the fossils of this ancient animal.
The stone tools unearthed at the Xiaochangliang site are mainly small, including more than 1,000 pieces of stone cores, stone flakes, and stone tools, as well as blow bone fragments. The Xiaochangliang site was formed in the lacustrine facies sedimentary layer, and the relics were hardly disturbed, which belonged to in situ burial. The discovery of the Xiaochangliang site means that early humans lived in the Xiaochangliang area.
In 1994, geologists and paleontologists discovered a large number of the world's earliest small stone tools at the Xiaochangliang site in the Nihewan Basin. These stone tools are relatively small, most weighing between 5 and 10 grams, and the smallest is less than 1 gram. It can be divided into types such as pointed devices, scrapers, engravers and cones, with a total of about 2,000 pieces. These stone tools have been determined by paleomagnetic experts and proved to be about 1.6 million years ago. The Xiaochangliang site is the first discovery of Paleolithic cultural remains dating back 1 million years in the early Pleistocene strata in the Nihewan Basin. For the Paleolithic archaeological research in the Nihewan Basin, this discovery has epoch-making significance. It is for this reason that the name of the Nihewan Xiaochangliang site is engraved on the first step of the bronze corridor that symbolizes the 262-meter long history of the Chinese nation at the China Millennium Monument in Beijing. Below the photo is a reduced copy of the bronze plate of the corridor of the China Millennium Monument.
The Donggutuo site is located on the eastern edge of the Nihewan Basin, and is one of the Early Pleistocene Paleolithic sites with the largest number of excavations and unearthed remains in the area. The unearthed cultural relics include more than 1,600 pieces of stone products, including stone cores, stone flakes and stone tools. The types of stone tools include scrapers, pointed tools, and chopping tools, as well as battered bone fragments. According to paleomagnetic dating, the Donggutuo site is about 1 million years ago, and the geological age is at the end of the Early Pleistocene or the early Middle Pleistocene.
Archaeologists analyzed the palyn, particle size, magnetic susceptibility and iron oxide of the layer profile of the Donggutuo site, showing that the site generally belongs to the lakeside sedimentary forest and grassland environment. It has undergone four changes, but all of them are suitable for the growth of ancient humans. . The Donggutuo site and the nearby Xiaochangliang site are collectively called the "Donggutuo-Xiaochangliang Culture".
The Feiliang Site is located in the east of the Nihewan Basin. It was discovered in 1985 and is located in the dense distribution area of early human activities in the Nihewan Basin. More than 3,000 stone artifacts and animal fossils were unearthed from the Lower Pleistocene Nihewan River and Lake Facies. within the stratum. There are many excavated small stone tools such as scrapers and chopping tools on display in the showcase. The live video of the excavation of the Feiliang site is played above the booth.
According to paleomagnetic dating, the time when ancient humans were active at the Feiliang site was 1.2 million years ago. The relics of the Feiliang site are buried in the lacustrine silt and clay layer, and the stone products and animal fossils are fresh on the surface, which is a rare material for revealing the origin of early human sites and stone tool technology.
At the same time, in the first exhibition area, stone tools and animal bones and animal fossils unearthed in Cenjiawan, Banshan, Dachangliang and other sites are also exhibited.
Next is the second exhibition area: Inheriting the Past and Inheriting the Future—the origin of modern humans. The focus is on the Middle Paleolithic period. The entire Paleolithic Age started from 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 years ago. The middle period is from 200,000 years ago to about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
Ancient humans in this period still used local materials to manufacture stone tools, using simple processing methods such as bumping anvils, wrestling, hammering, and smashing.
This exhibition board introduces the distribution of the Middle Paleolithic sites in the Nihewan Basin, which are also densely packed and scattered. I think it must have been ecologically lush and absolutely "green water and green mountains", but there was no "gold, mountains and silver" at that time. Mountain" Oh.
In the second exhibition area, we saw the second restoration scene - the ancient horse hunting in Houjiayao. The background is the natural environment of the Nihewan Basin 100,000 years ago. In the foreground is a sculpture.
People at that time had already learned how to connect two stone balls together with strings, spin them and throw them at the running wild horses. Using this method, the hunting efficiency has been greatly improved.
When displaying the scene, the murals of the natural environment and human activities at that time echo the cultural relic specimens, showing the scene of human beings making and using tools.
The Houjiayao Site is located in the northwest of the Nihewan Basin. In 1974, Professor Jia Lanpo and his student Wei Qi discovered the site.
According to the carbon fourteenth method, the age of the site is 104,000-125,000 years ago. It is a typical representative of Middle Paleolithic sites.
Thousands of stone balls were unearthed from the Houjiayao site, which are representative artifacts of the site. A large number of human bone fossils were also found, including 18 human fossil materials, 2 occipital bones, and 11 parietal bones.
On the left side of the photo is a stone ball with traces of threading in the middle. On the right are fossils of human skulls, left upper jaws, and teeth from 100,000 years ago. There are obvious jagged cutting marks on the skull specimen on the right and left, and scholars speculate that this may be the result of cannibalism. There is a hole with a diameter of 9.5 mm in the back of the parietal bone of the middle skull. The edge of the hole has been healed, and the healing time has been at least two weeks. This may be the earliest surgical trephine operation discovered so far.
The exhibition area also exhibits animal fossils such as the teeth of Mangulodon, the limb bone of Naumangulodon, and the original bovine limb bone from 100,000 years ago.
Next, I introduced the Banjingzi site 70,000 years ago, which is one of the most important Middle Paleolithic sites in the Nihewan Basin. The site was discovered in 1984, and nearly 10,000 pieces of stone artifacts and animal fossils were found. Since 2003, the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics has carried out several Paleolithic surveys around the site, and discovered 12 new Paleolithic sites, bringing the total number of Paleolithic sites in this area to 14.
The buried sites and strata of the cultural relics in these sites around the Banjingzi site are similar, which confirms that there is a densely distributed Middle Paleolithic site group in this area, which provides a basis for the study of ancient human activities in the Middle Paleolithic in the Nihewan Basin. new material.
This is the Xinmiaozhuang site dating back 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. It was discovered in 1984, and tens of thousands of stone artifacts and animal bone fossils were unearthed. shaped utensils, indicating that the stone tool processing technology has made great progress.
In the Nihewan Basin, 13 Middle Paleolithic sites have been discovered. This exhibition board introduces the situation of other sites.
Next, enter the third exhibition area: Farewell to ignorance --- Great changes in human society, focusing on the Hutouliang site group in the late Paleolithic age and the germination of the Neolithic age.
There are 66 late Paleolithic sites discovered in Yangquan County, and the locations of these sites are displayed on this panel.
The first exhibition board in this exhibition area introduces the "West Baima Camp Ruins". In 1985, it was excavated for the first time, and small stone tools and bone products dating back 15,000 years were found.
In April 2017, the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences excavated the Xibaimaying site again, and found traces of ancient humans dismembering animals and using fire. This function is similar to modern kitchens, so academics also compare this discovery to "The Prehistoric Kitchen". The scene from the "prehistoric kitchen" was reproduced in the exhibition hall.
The second panel exhibits the "Youfang Ruins". When the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics excavated in 1986, more than 3,000 pieces of stone tools belonging to the "fine stone tool technology" were unearthed. The length of this kind of stone tool is generally 2-3 cm. Common shapes include stone leaves, stone arrowheads, small stone knives, and stone flakes.
By the end of the Paleolithic Age, human tool-making skills had been greatly improved, and humans learned to make and use composite tools. The so-called "fine stone tool technology" refers to the use of compound tools and the "indirect strike method" to process small stone tools, such as fine stone cores, fine stone leaves and their processed products.
The so-called "indirect blow method" is to place a wooden stick or aggregate on the selected stone, and then use a stone as a stone hammer to beat the wooden stick or aggregate hard to transfer the gravity to the stone, making it Peel off the flakes. In the exhibition hall, the scene of people making microliths at that time was restored.
The third panel introduces the "Ma'anshan Ruins". The Ma'anshan Site is located in the southwest of Xishuidi Village in the central part of the Nihewan Basin. It belongs to the Hutouliang Site Group and is about 16,000 years old. In January 2017, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed that beaded ornaments made of quartz sandstone by ancient humans were discovered at the Ma'anshan site, providing important information for the study of the origin of religion and aesthetics in northern China.
The Yujiagou site is a site spanning from the late Paleolithic period to the middle period of the Neolithic period, and is located in Yujiagou, about 500 meters southwest of Hutouliang Village, Yangyuan County. The cultural deposits discovered at the site are divided into two parts. The upper part is dated to the Neolithic Age, and the lower part is dated to 14,000-8,000 years ago.
The total excavation area from 1995 to 1998 was 120 square meters, and unearthed fine stone artifacts such as wedge-shaped stone cores, fine stone leaves, end scrapers, pointed objects, engravers, and adzes, as well as bone products and decorations There are more than 10,000 pieces of cultural relics and mammal fossils.
Among them, the most precious is the discovery of sandy yellow-brown pottery sherds over 10,000 years old. This is the oldest pottery sherd in North China. The excavation of the Yujiagou site is of great significance to the study of the transition from the Paleolithic age to the Neolithic age and the origin of agriculture and pottery, filling a gap in the Paleolithic culture series in North China. It was rated as one of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 1998.
This exhibition area shows the exploration section of the Yujiagou site in the form of a plate, and each layer from top to bottom is inlaid with real typical microlithic specimens, animal fossils, and pottery fragments.
The late Paleolithic cultural relics in the Nihewan Basin are relatively rich, and the Erdaoliang site is one of them. 1,915 pieces of stone artifacts were unearthed at the Erdaoliang site, which is the first discovery of microlithic industrial remains with boat-shaped stone cores. The existence of these boat-shaped stone cores, fine stone leaves, exquisite carving tools, and back-cut knives demonstrates the developed microlithic tool industry.
The Dadiyuan site is a cultural relic of the late Paleolithic age. It was discovered in 1984, and 153 relics were unearthed, as well as fragments of skull fossils of late Homo sapiens.
From 1972 to 1974, archaeologists discovered a large number of animal fossils in the Hutouliang area. The identified fossils include: frogs, ostriches, cloth voles, Mongolian chinchillas, Chinese zokors, mutant hamsters, wolves, wild horses, Wild ass, deer, cattle, Przewalski's antelope, goose-throated antelope, kudu, wild boar.
Stone hammers, stone anvils, wedge-shaped stone cores, bipolar stone flakes, and round-headed scrapers were also found, indicating that humans were able to skillfully cut and process animal meat and hides around 10,000 years ago. Before the end of the third exhibition area, a scene of Chinese ancestors slaughtering cattle and sheep, and processing animal meat and animal skins was restored.
A primitive horn fossil is also exhibited in this exhibition area.
The last display board in the third exhibition area summarizes the production and use of stone tools by humans in the early, middle and late Paleolithic Ages with a list of ashlars.
Seeing this, the content of the exhibition hall on the third floor is over, go downstairs from the gate to the first floor and continue to visit! 【To be continued】
