Gaomiao site

Gaomiao site

Gaomiao cultural site is located in Yanli village, chatou Township, about 5 kilometers northeast of Anjiang Town, Hongjiang City, Western Hunan Province. It is located on the first-class platform on the North Bank of Yuanshui River, covering an area of about 30000 square meters. The whole site is a platform with flat top and slope shape around. It is a well preserved Neolithic peiqiu site, covering an area of about 15000 square meters. The thickest place of cultural accumulation is more than 5 meters away from the ground.

On May 25, 2006, the State Council announced the Sixth Batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

Gaomiao site

Located in Yanli village, chatou Township, about 5 km northeast of Anjiang Town, Hongjiang City (former Qianyang County), Western Hunan Province, it is located on the first-class platform on the North Bank of Yuanshui River (middle reaches), with a distribution area of about 30000 square meters. The whole site is a platform with flat top and slope shape around. It is a well preserved Neolithic peiqiu site, covering an area of about 15000 square meters. The thickest place of cultural accumulation is more than 5 meters away from the ground. The site was first discovered in 1986. So far, three excavations have been carried out (1991, 2004 and 2005), with a total area of nearly 1700 square meters. In November 1991, Hunan Provincial Institute of archaeology conducted the first active archaeological excavation of the Gaomiao cultural site, and unearthed a large number of exquisite pottery and religious sacrificial works. In 2004, archaeologists found a well preserved 7400 year old female skeleton in the site, which attracted the attention of archaeologists. In early March this year, He Gang, a researcher of Hunan Institute of archaeology, who presided over the excavation of Gaomiao cultural site, led a team to the infrastructure of Tongwan power station in chatou Township, Hongjiang City to conduct rescue archaeological excavation of Gaomiao cultural site again. On March 21, they successfully excavated a couple's tomb at a depth of about 3 meters. In the tomb, they stored jade wares such as Yucheng, a symbol of the power of nobles or religious leaders, and jade ornaments such as jade huang and jade Jue for noble women. According to textual research, the tomb is the tomb of the couple of tribal leaders in ancient times, 5700 years ago. At the end of April, the archaeological team discovered a house site composed of more than 10 pillar caves more than 5800-5300 years ago and dozens of ancient tombs. According to the archaeologists, the sacrificial site was discovered during the extended excavation of the house site and the ancient tomb cave. It is about 7000 years ago. At present, the excavated area is about 500 square meters, and it is estimated that the actual area will reach 1000 square meters. In addition to its long history and huge scale, the structure of the sacrificial site is also quite novel. The main sacrificial hall has a trapezoidal symmetrical structure, with two huge pillar holes on one side. In front of the main sacrificial hall, there are square or circular human sacrificial pits and animal sacrificial pits. At the same time, the archaeologists also found a human skeleton in the two sacrificial pits, and found bones and residues of pigs, cattle, deer, turtles and other animals in the sacrificial pits, as well as traces of burning in the sacrificial pits.

On May 25, 2006, the State Council announced the Sixth Batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

Site staging

The site can be divided into lower remains and upper remains. The lower part of the remains is similar to the middle and late age of the lower part of Zaoshi (about 7400 years ago). There are quite a number of white pottery, cauldrons, pots, bowls, etc. unearthed, with peculiar shapes and few appendages. The most distinctive patterns are phoenix pattern and animal face pattern. The upper part of the remains is similar to the age of Daxi Culture (about 6500-5300 years ago), and has a certain connection with Daxi Culture. The patterns are mainly stamp and bump patterns. The pots and pots still retain the traditional style of crooked neck, so they are named "lower culture of Gaomiao" and "upper culture of Gaomiao" respectively by relevant scholars. The cultural relics excavated from the Gaomiao site not only confirm the rationality of the division of "huanshui cultural group", but also further show that after the Neolithic age, the stone culture here not only retained its distinctive regional characteristics, but also had an important impact on the culture of Dongting Lake area and even the cultural exchange in the south of the mountains. Gaomiao site is a representative cultural heritage in the ancient civilization history of Hongjiang City, which has high historical, scientific and special artistic value. In particular, the Fengniao pattern and tusk animal face pattern popular in the lower culture of Gaomiao can be compared with Liangzhu jade and Shang and Zhou bronzes in mystery and artistry, which will be of great value to Hunan Province and even the whole country The research of Ming Dynasty opens up a new way.

Cultural characteristics

The regional cultural features reflected in the remains of Gaomiao culture are very distinct. At that time, most of the residents chose to live close to mountains and rivers. Most of the residences are located on the first terrace on both sides of the main stream of the Yuan River, and the houses are trestle floor buildings with dug columns. Facing east or southeast, they are mostly rectangular two Bay and three Bay structures, with an area of 20-40 square meters. Some houses have pits nearby. The cemetery is near the home site. It is popular to bury in vertical holes and earth pits, with the head facing east and the face north. There are few funerary objects. Only a small amount of stone flakes, stone tools and animal bones are buried in the fill. However, a bamboo mat woven into square holes is found under the skeleton of a tomb.

Stone tools are mainly a large number of various types of objects, heavy choppers, various kinds of stone chipping tools used as scraping tools, and flat sub waist shaped net pendants. Most of them are made by hammering on one side, especially the stone chipping tools. Their production and use are very casual. The stone tools are all made of gravel from the riverbed of Yuanshui river. In addition, there are a large number of stone balls (mostly round or oval gravel), stone hammers, stone anvils and stone tools for making stone tools, as well as stone grinding plates and rods for processing food. The number of ground stone tools (such as axe, chisel, etc.) is very small. The bones (knives, daggers, needles, cones, hairpins, and engraved ornaments), teeth (cones, ivory ornaments) and clam utensils (all perforated, should be hanging ornaments or clam knives) unearthed at the same time with the stone tools were finely ground and polished. From the production and classification of stone tools, as well as the great disparity between the number of stone tools made by beating and grinding, it can be seen that the main mode of production of Gaomiao culture is not hoeing agriculture. There are dozens of freshwater snails and shells in Gaomiao cultural relics, including deer, pig, muntjac, ox, bear, badger, elephant, tapir, rhinoceros and other aquatic and terrestrial animal skeletons and plant remains. The huge amount of them indicates that the main means for human beings to obtain food at that time may be the economic way of fishing, hunting and gathering It is in great contrast with the developed rice farming in Dongting Lake area at that time. At present, we have not found any information about rice remains in the field excavation and sample flotation, and the sample test of Phytolith has not been completed yet. Only after all these results are available can we draw a conclusion on whether rice has been planted at that time. It is worth noting that through the identification of some pig tooth beds, it can be identified that they were domesticated pigs, indicating that there was animal domestication at that time.

The pottery is hand-made, but the thickness of the wall is uniform, the shape is regular, but the color is mottled, most of them are mixed with sand, and there are few muddy pottery. There are exquisite white pottery unearthed. The pottery models are mainly round bottomed pottery and round footed pottery, but not tripod and pointed bottomed pottery. The utensils mainly include cauldron, pot, plate, bowl, bowl, cup and foot. Among them, pot utensils are particularly abundant, with more than ten types. The decorative art of pottery is one of the most prominent features of Gaomiao culture. The rope pattern is the main decoration on the belly of Gaomiao culture pottery, but the decoration technique on the shoulder and neck of the ware has changed sooner or later. In the early stage of Gaomiao culture, it was commonly composed of double line or single line carved patterns, such as grid, ribbon large square cross, bird head, bird wing, animal face and star octagonal. The images were very simplified. From the middle period and beyond, it became popular to use stamp printing grate to form various patterns, the most representative of which were bird pattern, tusk animal face pattern, sun pattern and octagonal pattern In addition, there are parallel band pattern, connecting line zigzag pattern, continuous trapezoidal pattern, vertical pattern and circle dot pattern. At the same time, there are also red or black mineral pigment painting, color filling art and color image. Especially the pottery decorated with bird pattern, tusk pattern, sun pattern and star pattern. The texture is quite good, the production is quite fine, and the types and types of utensils are relatively fixed. These potteries are probably used as sacrificial utensils for display rather than practical utensils.

In the Gaomiao site. A large-scale sacrificial place about 7000 years ago has been unearthed, covering an area of more than 700 square meters. According to the layout of the sacrificial pit, it is estimated that the whole area is about 1000 square meters. The whole sacrificial relic is arranged along the north-south axis and consists of three parts: the main sacrificial (Master of ceremonies) place, the sacrificial pit, the subsidiary building connected with the sacrificial place, the house for discussion or rest, and the cellar attached to it. The main sacrificial (MC) position is in the north of the whole sacrificial place, which is composed of four main pillar holes. It is a symmetrical and slightly fan-shaped "shuangkan" style building, facing the South Yuan river. There are one and two side pillars on the East and west sides of shuangque. A total of 39 sacrificial pits were found (one of which is people's sacrificial pit), all located in the south of the master of ceremonies place. The house is a structure of two rooms and one kitchen, on the west side of the master of ceremonies, covering an area of about 40 square meters, with the door facing east. The pits are located in the east of the kitchen door and the right front of the sacrificial place. Among the prehistoric sites of the same period in China, this site is not only of early age and large scale, but also has various facilities for sacrifice, which is of great significance to the study of prehistoric human religion in China

Chinese PinYin : Gao Miao Yi Zhi