Taosi site

Taosi site

Taosi site is the main type of Taosi site in the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China. It also includes Miaodigou phase II culture and a small number of remains from the Warring States, Han, Jin and Yuan Dynasties. One of the sources of Chinese civilization is created by the ancestors of Chinese people.

Taosi site is located in the south of Taosi village, Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province, with an area of 2.8 million square meters. It is one of the largest Longshan cultural sites in the Central Plains. In recent years, in the excavation of the Taosi site, a number of scientific and technological archaeological methods have been used, including magnetometer and ground penetrating radar geophysical exploration, environmental archaeology, animal archaeology, plant Archaeology (sporopollen, flotation, seed selection), human bone analysis, DNA analysis, astronomy, etc., including carbon 14 dating technology, The absolute age of Taosi culture is between 2300 BC and 1900 BC. More than 70 similar sites have been found in the lower reaches of Fenhe River and Huihe River in southwest Shanxi. The Taosi site is of great academic value to the restoration of the social nature of the late Neolithic age, the history of the country and the exploration of Xia culture

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During the excavation, the archaeologists found a city site of unprecedented scale, a matching King's tomb, the world's earliest Observatory, a magnificent palace, an independent storage area, a handicraft area under the official management, etc. Many experts and scholars have proposed that the Taosi site is the capital of Emperor Yao and the earliest "China". According to the results of the excavation, there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor in Taosi society. A small number of nobles amassed a lot of wealth and formed a privileged class. They came to the edge of the state era and the Fangguo era

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In addition to the remains of Taosi type, the site also includes Miaodigou phase II culture and a small number of remains of Warring States, Han Dynasty, Jin and Yuan Dynasties. The discovery of Taosi site is of great significance for exploring the origin of ancient Chinese civilization and the social history of Yao and Shun dynasties.

Explore history

From 1978 to 1987, the Shanxi team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in cooperation with the Cultural Bureau of Linfen administrative office, uncovered residential and burial areas and excavated more than 1000 tombs. Among them, there are 9 tombs of the great nobles, which unearthed such exquisite cultural relics as pottery dragon plate, pottery drum, alligator drum, big stone chime, jade ware, painted wooden ware, etc., which shocked both at home and abroad and determined the pottery temple culture.

From 1999 to 2001, the mid-term site of Taosi culture was determined. The site is a rectangle with rounded corners, 1800 meters long from east to west and 1500 meters wide from north to south. The total area of the mid-term site is 2.8 million square meters, and the direction is 225 degrees. From then on, the purpose of the field excavation and research of Taosi site has changed from exploring a super large settlement in the late Longshan culture to exploring the layout and nature of a capital settlement and whether its social organization development level has entered the national society. From the perspective of archaeology, a capital site can be determined by archaeological remains such as city walls, palaces, mausoleums and religious buildings.

Since the spring of 2002, the research on the settlement archaeology of the Taosi site has been included in the project of exploring the source of Chinese civilization. The Shanxi team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in cooperation with the Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province and the Bureau of cultural relics of Linfen City, excavated a total of 4000 square meters at the Taosi site, and determined an area of 560000 square meters, including the early town of Taosi, the lower aristocratic residential area, the palace area, and the eastern large-scale residential area The storage area, the Royal Cemetery in the middle of the small city and the base of the astronomical observatory in the sacrificial area.

The archaeological excavation of Taosi North cemetery in 2016 made great achievements, with a total of 5 tombs excavated in the late spring and Autumn period. Among them, two large-scale tombs were in the late spring and Autumn period. They were also the tombs of noble ladies with the rank of a senior official. They unearthed 35 bronze containers such as Ding, Dou, Jian, Hu, Gu, Zhou, Gu, Gu, pan and Gu, as well as 8 musical instruments such as bronze Gu, 9 bronze bell, 4 sets of stone chimes and 20 jade ornaments, which provided valuable materials for the study of the 800 year history of Jin State. The site of the southeast gate and the tomb were found during the excavation The side door on the southeast corner.

During the spring excavation in 2017, archaeologists expanded the excavation of the suspected southeast Gate site and the side gate at the southeast corner, basically confirming that the foundation trench was dug to tamp the wall in the early stage of Taosi culture, and continued to be used in the middle stage. In the late stage of Taosi culture, the shallow foundation trench of the late wall was excavated to tamp the wall. At the same time, the location of the east wall was confirmed through anatomy This excavation basically confirmed the existence of Taosi site palace city

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Explore achievements

Eight "best"

1. The earliest solar shadow astronomical observation system

2. The earliest writing up to the excavation of the site was found

3. Found the oldest musical instrument in China

4. The earliest dragon totem in Central China was discovered

5. We found the earliest building material in the world up to the excavation of the site - slate

6. The largest prehistoric tomb in the middle reaches of the Yellow River was found

7. The largest city in prehistoric Central Asia

8. The oldest Observatory in the world was discovered, 500 years earlier than Stonehenge in England

(source of Atlas)

Once the largest prehistoric city site in China, its scale is now second only to Liangzhu ancient city in Zhejiang Province and Shimao site in Shenmu, Shaanxi Province.

written words

In 1984, archaeologists found a fragment of a flat pot in the Taosi site. The fragments were painted red around the stubble. There were two characters written in Zhu script on the fragment, one of which was "Wen", the other was "Yao", "Yi" and "Ming" and so on. Writing is the product of the development of human society to a certain stage. As for the origin of Chinese characters, it is generally accepted that oracle bone inscriptions are a preliminary and mature writing system, but at the same time, it is also believed that there is a long history before oracle bone inscriptions. The characters of Zhu script on this fragment show that people began to use characters as early as the Taosi period, which was seven or eight hundred years earlier than the Yin Ruins. Their discovery is of great significance to the study of the origin of Chinese characters.

Architecture

Many small houses were found in the Taosi residential sites, surrounded by roads, wells, pottery kilns and dense ash pits. There are three kinds of house sites: ground, semi cave and cave, and the latter two are mostly. The plane of half cavern house foundation is mostly round square, and a few are round. The length and width are generally 2-3 meters. The indoor ground is coated with grass mixed with mud. After compaction or roasting, most of them are coated with a layer of lime surface, and the lime is used to coat the wainscot. It can be seen that the lime has been widely used at that time. There are pillar holes and cooking pits in the center of the residential area. There are often large or small niches on the wall. Some also set up a stove on one side of the room, and there is a flue connected to the outside at the back of the stove. The four walls of the cave house are curved upward to form a dome, which is about 2 meters high. The plane shape and structure of the cave house are similar to those of the semi cave house. The well is round, more than 13 meters deep, and near the bottom there is a wooden wall structure built by logs. The kiln is of "transverse cavity type", with a diameter of 0.7-1 m and many parallel fire channels or vein like fire channels. Ash pit has tube shape, bag shape, pot bottom shape and so on. In addition, rammed earth fragments and grey wall skin depicting geometric patterns were also found.

Since March 31, 2013, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province have continued to excavate the suspected palace city wall of Taosi site. By the middle of 2017, the problems of the accumulation, structure, age, development and evolution of the palace city walls have been basically cleared up. Taosi palace city is located in the northeast of Taosi site. It is rectangular, 470 meters long from east to west and 270 meters wide from north to south, covering an area of nearly 130000 square meters. The direction is generally 45 degrees north by west, that is 315 degrees, which is basically consistent with the direction of Taosi city. It is composed of north wall, east wall, south wall and west wall. The above ground part of the city wall no longer exists, only the underground foundation part remains. The west section of the south wall and the southwest corner were destroyed by Danangou.

The excavation found that there was a gap between the east wall and the south wall of the palace city wall. The gap was more than 10 meters wide and was located in the southeast corner of the palace city. It should be the side gate to enter and leave the palace city. More importantly, a rammed earth foundation site was connected near the inner side of the east wall, which was about 10 meters long and 11 meters wide. It was likely to be the "inner pier" foundation on the east wall of the side gate. At this corner, the south wall continues to extend outward (East) for about 15 meters, forming a short "L" shape. In addition, a pier type column foundation was found on the outside of the south wall foundation trench at the same time as the foundation trench. Through further dissection of the south wall and the east wall, it is confirmed that there are two wall foundation troughs in the early and late period of Taosi culture in both of them, while the inner pier is in the late period of Taosi culture. That is to say, in the early period of Taosi culture, the foundation trench was excavated to tamp the city wall, and it continued to be used in the middle period. In the late period of Taosi culture, the shallow foundation trench was excavated to tamp the city wall.

Archaeologists speculate that in the early period of Taosi culture, the gate site was only located on the south wall of the original Palace City, which continued to be used in the middle period. In the late period, the gate site was simply reconstructed or reconstructed, and the rammed earth foundation sites on both sides were connected outward, forming a gate site similar to "Que Lou style".

The archaeological team also carried out anatomical excavation on the east wall of the palace city, and confirmed the existence of the east wall through the dissection. The overall width of the east wall is 13.6 meters, which actually includes the wall foundation trench of the early and late Taosi culture. The two are slightly misplaced. The wall foundation trench of the early Taosi culture is to the East, and the residual width of the wall foundation trench is about 10 meters. The wall foundation trench of the late Taosi culture is to the West and breaks the wall foundation of the early Taosi culture, with the residual width of nearly 4 meters and the foundation of more than 4 meters. In the early stage of Taosi culture, the ramming quality of the east wall foundation is good, and the ramming plate of the plane section is very obvious

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Chinese PinYin : Tao Si Yi Zhi