Nuomuhong site

Nuomuhong site

Nuomuhong site is located in Dulan county. Nuomuhong culture is equivalent to the culture of the late Bronze Age in the Central Plains. It has a history of more than 3000 years ago. The ruins and unearthed cultural relics prove that the material and spiritual life of ancient Nuomuhong reached a certain level, which completely negates the claim that Qaidam was deserted since ancient times.

In nearly half a century's comprehensive archaeological excavation of the nuomhongtalitaha site, 11 house remains, 9 Adobe pit circles, 1 wooden fence and 3 urn coffin tombs have been found. At the same time, thousands of historical relics such as stone tools, pottery, bone ware, bronze ware, wood ware and fur sewing products have been unearthed.

Relic information

Nuomuhong cultural site is located in Nuomuhong Township in the south of Qaidam Basin, Qinghai Province. It is an ancient cultural heritage newly discovered after the liberation of China. It has a unique cultural connotation. Because it was first found in nuomhong, Dulan County, Qaidam Basin, it is called "nuomhong culture" in archaeology.

The cultural heritage is equivalent to the late Bronze Age culture in the Central Plains, which is the indigenous culture in the special environment of Qinghai Plateau. Nomuhong culture is mainly distributed in more than 20 places in Southeast Qaidam Basin, such as Nomuhong, talitalitaliha, balongtawentaohai, Xiangride xiachaike, shangchaike, chahanwusuxiariha, kerergou, etc. This culture is of great value to the study of Chinese Qiang and Tuyuhun culture. Talitaliha is a provincial key cultural relics protection unit in Qinghai Province.

The Nuomuhong cultural site is close to haixiwa River in the East and dalitaliha village in the west, covering an area of more than 50000 square meters. The site is composed of three small sand dunes in the shape of Pinyin. Between the three sand dunes is a natural square. Its cultural remains are mainly houses, adobe walls, livestock pens, coffin tombs and a large number of unearthed cultural relics. Adobe wall is made of loess adobe, which is rectangular. There are two kinds of walls, one is oval or oval in plane, the other is rectangular or irregular rectangular. The houses are square or round wooden structures. In addition, there is a large livestock pen, the plane is oval.

From the Neolithic Age to the bronze age, there are 40 Nuomuhong cultural sites, represented by the Nuomuhong talitaliha site. According to the survey, the distribution of Nuomuhong cultural sites is limited to the eastern and southern Qaidam Basin. Only one site of talitaliha has been excavated. The thickness of cultural accumulation is more than 5 meters, and the thickest is 6-8 meters. The Maobu unearthed in the fifth layer of the Nuomuhong culture is 2905 ± 140 years ago, which belongs to the Western Zhou Dynasty, and its lower limit should extend at least after the Han Dynasty.

archaeological discovery

The social existence of Qiang people

The residents of Nomuhong culture are mainly engaged in animal husbandry. A slightly oval large fence was found in the north of talitalitaliha site, about 40 meters to the south of No. 6 earth ring wall. There is a large amount of sheep dung accumulation in the pen, and a small amount of cattle, horse and Camel dung. From the above ancient documents and archaeological data, it is proved that there was a relatively developed animal husbandry economy in the Qiang society in the pre Qin period.

The discovery of shoes made of cow skin, wool thread and rope spun from yak hair and hair belt (with a small amount of yak hair) in the ruins of nomuhongtalitalitaliha not only reflects that the ancient Qiang people were able to domesticate yaks at that time, but also could process yak skin and yak hair into daily necessities. This shows the development of animal husbandry

A pottery yak was found in the talitaliha site. Its horns and tail were slightly damaged, its back was wavy, and its abdomen was covered with hair to the ground, showing the image of a yak. (investigation and trial excavation of Nuomuhong and talitaha sites in Dulan County, Qinghai Province by Qinghai Provincial Cultural Relics Administration Committee and Qinghai team of Institute of archaeology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) these data further show that yak played an important role in the animal husbandry production of the ancient Qiang people and was an indispensable source of living materials in clothing, food, housing and transportation.

Tibetan carpet originated in Qinghai

In 1959, a large number of wool fabrics and spinning wheels of the 10th century B.C. were unearthed from the nuomhongtalitaliha site in Dulan County, Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Among them, there are wool rope, wool cloth and a piece of colorful wool mat. Although it has been 3000 years, the bar pattern woven with yellow, brown, red and blue wool can still be seen clearly. It is proved that the Tibetan ancestors in Qinghai had mastered the weaving skills of the original Tibetan blanket more than 3000 years ago. According to textual research, the raw material of the "Maoxi" fragment is Tibetan wool from Qinghai, which is known as Xining "big white wool" in the world. This is the earliest piece of wool mat unearthed so far, which is the rudiment of Qinghai Tibetan carpet. This shows that 3000 years ago, the Qiang people scattered on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau had mastered the technology of wool weaving and dyeing, and could weave colorful wool mats with geometric patterns, that is, weaving carpets. It also shows that the Tibetan carpet originated in Qinghai.

Wool fiber has a long history

In the ruins of nuomhongtalitaliha, Dulan County, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, there are woolen cloth, ribbon, thread and rope made of sheep and cattle hair dyed brown, black, red and blue. The main raw material of woolen cloth is sheep hair, some of which are dyed yellow and brown, and a few are gray black, red or white. Wool is processed and woven into wool by pottery or copper spinning wheel and bone spinning wheel, and then woven into wool cloth. In Chinese literature, it is called "Brown", which means wool cloth. Its "thick and warm, but also can be used to keep out the cold" (Volume 5 of tangar Hall annals) is suitable for Hehuang Qiang people in Qinghai Tibet Plateau. Residents of Nuomuhong cultural site use this kind of wool cloth to sew clothes or other daily necessities, such as wool The belt is made of sheep's hair, with a few yak hair in it; the wool and wool rope are mostly made of wool and yak hair. A large number of archaeological data prove that the animal husbandry economy of Hehuang ancient Qiang people was relatively developed at that time, which shows that China has a long history of using wool fiber.

Entering the Neolithic Age

The stone knives and axes found in the site show that human beings learned to make tools with stones and entered the stone age. At first, people could only make stone tools. When people mastered the technology of grinding stone tools, human society entered the Neolithic age from the Paleolithic age. Among them: stone knife is stone, black, oval. It is 11.5 cm long and 5.8 cm wide. It is made by grinding. The shape of the instrument is regular. The blade is rough and sharp, belonging to the bronze age Nomuhong culture. The stone axe is made of stone, gray and rectangular. It is 23.5 cm long and 12.5 cm wide. There are three pairs of symmetrical notches on both sides, with strike marks reserved. They are ground and inclined blades, belonging to the Nomuhong culture of the bronze age.

The use of wind instruments

A bone whistle unearthed from the Nuomuhong site of talitalitaliha bronze age is made of animal bones and is tubular. One end is ground with a flat round hole, and the middle part of the outer wall has a circular groove, which is designed for tether carrying. The unearthed ancient musical instruments prove that the pottery drum and stone chime of percussion instruments can only produce monotonous rhythm. While the Cuan and Shao in the wind instruments appeared multi scale, which made the sound quality of ancient instruments move towards perfection. From the indefinite to the fixed, from the indefinite to the fixed, from individual single tone to multi tone. This development trend is just in line with the development law of things from simple to complex, from low level to high level.

Introduction to bone flute

A bone flute unearthed from the site is 8 cm long and has four holes with a diameter of 0.4 cm. The distance between the holes is 1.2 cm, 1.3 cm and 2.7 cm. This kind of bone flute has also been unearthed from the tomb of kayo culture in zhujiazhai site in the western suburb of Xining city. The remnant is 15.4cm long and has eight small holes with a diameter of 0.4. The small holes are divided into two groups. One group has holes 1-5 (from left to right) with a distance of 1.1-1.3cm, and the other group has holes 6-8 with a distance of 0.8-0.9cm. The distance between holes 5 and 6 is 1.9cm, which is the boundary between the two groups of holes. From the stone chime of percussion music to the Tao Xun of wind music, and then from the Tao Xun of wind music to the bone flute of wind music, all strongly show that the primitive dance music activities in the western plateau are extremely rich. These materials show that as early as in the late primitive society or even earlier, Chinese primitive dance activities accompanied the ancestors of the Chinese nation through the arduous journey in the motherland, recording the footprints of each step of the primitive ancestors' hard work. Whether it was pottery pots, pottery drums, pottery Cuan and bone flute, they all expressed the feelings and thoughts of the ancestors, It inspires the fighting spirit of the ancestors and their confidence in conquering nature, so as to play their unique social functions.

cultural heritage

Nuomuhong is a newly discovered ancient cultural relic, which occupies a certain position in archaeology.

In addition to architectural remains, various stone and bone production tools and pottery utensils were also unearthed. Also found are woolen goods, a variety of pottery utensils. There are also bone flute, bone whistle and pottery yak in the soil. According to carbon dating, the site is about 2900 years ago, which is equivalent to the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The cultural relics unearthed from the Nuomuhong cultural site include various stone and bone production tools, such as stone knives and bone needles; pottery utensils, such as curved abdomen pottery basin, round foot pottery bowl, deep abdomen pottery cup and ear basin; the pottery is coarse red pottery with sand and gray brown pottery with sand; and bronze axes and knives

Chinese PinYin : Nuo Mu Hong Yi Zhi