Xiawan site

Xiawan site in Luxi

synonym

Xiawan site generally refers to Luxi Xiawan site

Luxi Xiawan site, formerly known as Xiaan, is located in the middle reaches of the Yuan river. It belongs to yinjiaqiao community, Pushi Town, Luxi County, Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Western Hunan. It is a high temple cultural site in the middle Neolithic age. Located in the northern suburb of Pushi ancient town, the site is located on a low platform on the left bank (West Side) of Yuan river. It belongs to a low-altitude Intermountain basin on the northeast edge of Yunnan Guizhou Plateau. Yuan river flows northward into Dongting Lake through the eastern edge of the site.

On February 26, 2018, Luxi Xiawan site was shortlisted as one of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in China in 2017.

Excavation

Explore history

In 1973, in order to cooperate with the construction of Wuqiangxi Hydropower Station in Yuanling, the cultural relics department of Hunan Province carried out a comprehensive investigation on the underground cultural relics within the inundated area of the reservoir area. Xiawan site was found in the process of this investigation. In 1980, the Hunan Provincial Museum, together with Xiamen University and other units, carried out the first archaeological excavation of the site, and excavated the late Neolithic cultural relics in the Yuanshui river basin for the first time. In 2016, in order to cooperate with the reconstruction and expansion project of Baichen highway (Baisha to Chenxi, Baisha is the name of Luxi new county), the cultural relics department of Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture and Luxi County carried out a small-scale rescue archaeological excavation on the site, and found the Gaomiao cultural relics in the middle Neolithic Age. Soon afterwards, the Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture Government announced that the site was a state-level cultural relic protection unit.

In 2017, with the approval of the State Administration of cultural relics, Hunan Institute of cultural relics and Archaeology carried out the first active archaeological excavation of the site in order to cooperate with the demolition and collection of the phase I project of Pushi chemical plant in Luxi County.

Although Xiawan site was found earlier, it did not attract enough attention from the relevant departments. The infrastructure construction in the site area is continuous, and the site has not been effectively protected. Especially since the middle and late last century, after the construction of a number of infrastructure projects, such as the second middle school of Luxi County (moved in 1986), Pushi phosphorus plant (built in 1969, later renamed Pushi Chemical General Plant, stopped production and restructured in 2005), Yuanshui protective dike (completed in 1997), the site has suffered unprecedented serious damage. Among them, the Pushi phosphorus plant, located in the central area of the site, has caused the most damage to the site. Many building foundations are built directly under the raw soil. It can be said that the cultural accumulation in the plant area has been almost destroyed (Fig. 1). In 2015, the chemical plant was expropriated by the government as a commercial development site. In the process of demolition and construction waste cleaning, the site suffered heavy losses again. In addition, the construction of Baichen highway and Pushi tourist center also caused great damage to the site. Today, the original landform of the site has disappeared (Fig. 2).

Xiawan site is a peiqiu site. According to the analysis of the surrounding environment, the platform of the site is close to the mountain and water, and the terrain inclines from northwest to Southeast. The northwest part of the site is occupied by Baichen highway and "chrysanthemum goddess" square, and further west is the steep hillside; the east part of the site is covered by a high protective dike, with a thick cultural layer and spiral shell accumulation on the inside of the dike. At present, only smelting slag accumulation of Ming and Qing Dynasties with a thickness of more than 10 meters can be seen on the outside of the dike. Due to the river dike slope protection, there is no earlier cultural accumulation under it According to the law, further east is the river bed of Yuanshui River; the southeast and south of the site belong to the residential area (i.e. the demolition scope of phase II project) where the chemical plant has not yet been demolished and the parking lot of Pushi tourist center, which has been built, can no longer be explored. Due to the existence of these objective factors, it is difficult to grasp the exact boundary of the site, so the actual area of the site can not be estimated.

The excavation area is located in the northeast of the site. In view of the particularity of the accumulation and burial of the shells and the fact that a large number of ruins have been destroyed and exposed in the central area, we have taken 10 m × 10 m exploration square to excavate and clean up, and laid three groups of exploration square successively. Among them, the actual excavation area is about 500 square meters, and the clean-up area (damaged without stratum accumulation) is about 1200 square meters. The excavation work started in mid August 2017 and ended in mid December. This work not only excavated a large number of precious relics, but also revealed a number of important relics (Fig. 3).

If the Xiawan site can be preserved as it is, the cultural accumulation of the site is relatively rich. According to our current exploration and excavation, the northern and western parts of the site are only partially close to the raw soil due to the great damage. In the southern part of the site, due to the low terrain, there are several meters of modern deposits and silt under the surface, so conventional exploration can not be operated at all. Therefore, the accumulation in the southern part is still unclear. In the eastern part of the site, because it is close to the outer slope of the hillock, the cultural accumulation is well preserved, buried deeply, and the stratigraphic accumulation is complex, with several obvious characteristics. First, the more eastward the deposits are, the thicker they are. In general, a large number of shellfish shells (mainly snails and mussels) left by people can be seen. The thickest part of such deposits is more than 3 meters. Second, the deposits are mostly in steep slope shape, and the slope is generally more than 30 degrees. The depth of this exploration near the bottom of the slope is generally more than 5 meters, and some of them are even more than 7 meters. Third, most of the strata The discontinuity is not only that it is difficult to unify the adjacent exploration strata, but also that the strata in the same exploration are often distributed in blocks. Moreover, there are many differences in soil quality, soil color and inclusions in different areas of the same stratum.

Take the south wall of t20509 as an example. The upper part of the exploration area has been destroyed, and there are still 20 layers of preserved deposits: the first and second layers are Han Dynasty strata, the third and fourth layers are Shang Dynasty strata, and the fifth to 20th layers are Neolithic strata. Among them, in the Neolithic strata, layers 6-14 and 17-19 are spiral shell accumulation layers, and spiral shells are not found in other strata. In these layers, although the soil quality and color are not different, there are often thin soil layers between them, and the density and structural characteristics of shells in each layer are also different. For example, some strata have dense shells, some are rare; some are powdery or burned, some are basically complete; some contain more carbon powder, some even have pieces of sintered surface. The formation of these different accumulations is obviously not a simple natural process, but an extremely complex accumulation process related to human behavior (Fig. 4).

From this excavation, we can see that since the Neolithic age, human beings have been living and reproducing in Xiawan site. In addition to Neolithic remains, there are also remains from Shang Dynasty, Warring States period to Han Dynasty and Song Dynasty to Ming and Qing Dynasty. Among them, the Neolithic age, Shang Dynasty and Song Dynasty remains are the most. Gaomiao culture is the main part of Neolithic relics, and a number of tombs were excavated in Shang Dynasty and Song Dynasty.

Explore the harvest

1. A number of Shang Dynasty cultural relics including tombs have been excavated. The Shang Dynasty cultural deposits are mainly distributed in several exploration areas in the southeast of the excavation area. Generally, there is only one stratum, and a few exploration areas have 2-3 strata. There are not many relics unearthed in the strata. The shape of the vessels can be identified as high collar jar, big mouth jar, kettle, bamboo handle bean, etc. The tombs are mainly distributed along the top line of the hill, and most of them are sporadic except a few. The opening layers of the tombs have been basically destroyed, but the plane shape is still intact. They are all rectangular vertical pit tombs with narrow and long pit. Generally, there are no human bones, and a few poorly preserved limb bones can be seen in some tombs. Most of the funerary objects are pottery, and there are more than ten. Clay pottery is the most common type of pottery. Black or gray pottery beans and high collar pots are common. Red and brown pottery cauldrons are common on sand pottery, and some are buried with pottery spinning wheels or stone tools. The features of these tombs are distinctive: first, the tomb is very narrow and long; second, the burial objects are often covered with the bottom of the tomb; third, the burial objects have strong regional characteristics.

2. The Neolithic tombs with a small amount of jades were cleared. The Neolithic tombs were rarely found, and most of them may have been destroyed. The tombs were mainly found in t20913, which is located in the northwest of the excavation area. The opening layer of the tomb has been destroyed, and the tomb is rectangular. There were no human bones in the tombs, and some of them were decayed. There are few funerary utensils, less pottery, more stone tools and a small amount of jade, some tombs also have bone ware. Most of the stone tools are stone axes, and a small number of chisels, shovels, knives, Huang, Jue, etc. The jade ware is mainly made of Huang, which has two shapes: bridge and ring. According to the characteristics of a small amount of pottery unearthed from the tombs, the relative age of these tombs is close to or slightly later than that of tangjiagang culture in Dongting Lake area.

3. More than 200 Neolithic "ash pits" with special uses have been revealed. These "ash pits" are concentrated in the northeast of the site, and most of them are banded along the top of the mound near the outer slope. The strata at the opening of the pit have been destroyed, and most of the raw soil at the bottom of the pit has been broken. Most of the plane shapes are square and rounded square, and there are a few rounded rectangles, circles or ellipses. The fill in the pit is generally gray black soil, and a small amount of spiral shells are accumulated. Some pits can be layered, and some have a layer of gray yellow soil in the middle. The pit wall is smooth, mostly straight wall, a few pit walls are slightly inclined inside, and some pit walls are inclined into bags outside. The bottom of the pit is very flat. Large pieces of stone or pottery support are common. Some pits have barbecue marks, and some pits are filled with gravel and stone products. The pit body is different in size and depth. The length and diameter of the pit mouth are generally about 1 m, and the depth of the pit varies from 0.5 m to 1.0 M.

Chinese PinYin : Xia Wan Yi Zhi