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Well-preserved wooden tools unearthed at the site of Jingtou Mountain Photo by Chen Binrong
On September 28, at the excavation site of the second phase of the Jingtou Mountain site in Yuyao, Sun Guoping, director of the prehistory research office of the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and leader of the Jingtou Mountain archaeological team, was burying his head in “digging the soil”, his face was dark and his hands were stained with mud.
The second phase of the foundation pit has been dug more than 8 meters underground, revealing the 7,800-year-old cultural layer at the shallowest part of the site, and the white objects mixed in the soil layer are shells that were eaten and discarded by the ancestors of Jingtou Mountain. These soil layers are the deepest and oldest coastal shell mound sites along the coast of China, pushing the history of ancestors living in the sea on the southeast coast of China to more than 8,000 years ago.
“At present, we only know what the ancestors ate, but the living environment and the layout of the village are still unknown. The history of human beings 8,000 years ago must be traced. Sun Guoping said that “finding a house” is the main purpose of the second phase of the archaeological excavation at the Jingtou Mountain site.
This year is Sun Guoping’s 34th year in archaeology, and at the age of 57, he has two hairs. “If no architectural remains are found, the mystery will be in the hands of the next generation of archaeologists!”
Archaeology is like that, multi-generational relay. On this planet in the vast universe, Jingtou Mountain may be just a coordinate point: 30.0265° north latitude and 121.3635° east longitude, but under the coordinates, this prehistoric site with a total “inventory” of 20,000 square meters is “resurrecting” the living life scenes of the earliest fishermen along the coast of China.
Just like “cutting tofu”, cutting through layers of silt, the coastal homeland of 8,000 years ago “shines into reality” step by step –
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Reinforced concrete frame structure foundation pit used for the second phase excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site Photo by Chen Jiesheng
Hemudu’s “grandfather”
Found it
“The second phase of the foundation pit is located in the northwest corner of the first phase, near the foot of the mountain, and there is a possibility of discovering the ruins of the dry-fence village.” In Sun Guoping’s eyes, the completed second-phase foundation pit looks like a huge “blind box” waiting to be opened, a process that may take two years.
Just northeast of the foundation pit, Sun Guoping couldn’t hold back, and relied on the drill bit to “test”: “If you are lucky enough, you may find a small pier on the edge of the village, similar to the small port where the ancestors went to the sea to find their way.” “Of course, there are some accidents underground, and the charm of archaeology lies in exploring the unknown.
Just like in May two years ago, after more than eight months of archaeological excavations, the Jingtou Mountain archaeological team finally sweated to open the most important strata of the first phase of the site – the cultural layer 10 meters deep from the surface.
After clearing and digging up the sticky silt up to six or seven meters thick, the first exposed soil layer resembles a coastal beach covered with shells, large and small oysters, cockles, and conch mixed in the soil layer, as well as a small number of animal broken bones, pottery fragments, stone tools, bone tools and other artificial artifacts. Sun Guoping, little by little, they “cut” out the more complete parts and cleaned up the archives. “The amount of shellfish and seafood is extremely large, it can be said that there are thousands of baskets, and it cannot be counted in a single piece!” Some of them were sealed in large plastic boxes and stacked outside the doors of the archaeological site’s working quarters, stacked four or five stories high. In the other two antiquities warehouses, the Big Mac shells also have several long tables, “like a prehistoric seafood market?” The ancestors are blessed! Sun Guoping picked up a particularly huge oyster shell and gestured it, several rounds larger than the palm of his hand.
The accumulation of a large number of shells left after humans eat meat is the archaeological definition of shells, which is the best empirical evidence of the seaside life of the ancients. The shell mounds of Jingtou Mountain are stacked layer by layer, the thickest place is more than 2 meters, and the carbon 14 dating is about 8000 years ago, the earliest is about 8300 years ago.
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Archaeologists observe and identify shell species Photo by Chen Binrong
What does 8000 mean?
Only 8 kilometers south from Jingtou Mountain is the Hemudu site, an important cultural source in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin marked as a milestone in the history of Chinese civilization. Since the discovery of the site in 1973, hundreds of coastal shell mound sites have been discovered in coastal areas of China, but most of them are about 5,000 years old, and few have exceeded the 7,000-year-old “benchmark”. Well, where are the “ancestors” of the Hemudu people? When and where exactly did Chinese begin to “eat the sea by the sea”? It was not until the appearance of Jingtou Mountain that this “ceiling” was broken.
“Jingtou Mountain is 1,000 years older than Hemudu, and he is the ‘identity of grandfather’, so he didn’t run!” Sun Guoping said jokingly.
This means that China, with its 18,000 kilometers of land coastline, is likely to have its earliest marine economic activities from Yuyao, Ningbo and Zhejiang, which is also the greatest contribution and scientific significance of the archaeology of the Jingtou Mountain site.
Compared with the pottery unearthed at the two sites, “grandpa” and “grandson” are quite similar. “For example, pottery has two small ears on the side of the mouth, this is the ‘genetic code’, it can’t be wrong!” Sun Guoping also cited evidence that the Hemudu site is famous for rice farming remains, and a small number of rice cultivation remains have also been found at the Jingtou Mountain site. In two liters of soil and two days, plant archaeologists found 2,600 spikelet shafts!
In Sun Guoping’s eyes, the archaeology of Jingtou Mountain is to find pieces in the mud, make puzzles, and collect all aspects of the pieces, and the living and production conditions of Jingtou Mountain, the earliest coastal village in China, and the earliest fishermen living here on the coast of China are also restored. “If we lack pieces now, we will find them in the second phase. For example, the canoe that I have in mind. Sun Guoping said.
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Sun Guoping cleaning a fragile fish cover woven from reed stalks Photo by Chen Binrong
7 meter drilled hole opens memory gate
The 1,000-square-meter large foundation pit, reinforced concrete structure, and the second-phase archaeological site of the Jingtou Mountain site in front of you look more like the foundation of a high-rise building.
Yes, take the “foundation”! This project has just been completed from December 2021 to the present.
Chinese mainland archaeology, foundation pits with similar structures are rarely seen. “This is determined by the special environment in which the Jingtou Mountain site is buried.” Sun Guoping explained.
The Jingtou Mountain site is located in the corner of the coastal plain of Ningbo at an altitude of only 2 meters, but the buried depth of the site reaches 5 meters to 10 meters, far below the sea level, the underground soil layer “absorbs” water, it is easy to flow and collapse, and it is necessary to surround the “fence” to implement archaeology. Moreover, its complexity and particularity far exceed expectations, the “fence wall” needs to bear a weight of up to 20 tons per square meter, if not supported laterally, when it rains, the soil on both sides collapses in, and must be constantly adjusted.
“The geological environment is too ‘water’, and archaeology is like an adventure every day!” Sun Guoping’s “complaint” of “planting fences” has become a miracle in the archaeological community, together with the excavation of the “Nanhai No. 1” shipwreck in Guangdong and the excavation of the Shenyin site of Zhang Xianzhong in Jiangkou, Sichuan, it is included in the three classic examples of China’s excavation of special archaeological objects in different environments.
The ancestors of Jingtou Mountain were born from water, and after a while of advancing outside the ruins area, they arrived at the beach area outside the village at that time, and the sea was in front of them. But few people know that the discovery and excavation of Jingtou Mountain is also inseparable from the credit of “water”.
In 2013, when strong typhoon “Fite” brought nearly 500 millimeters of precipitation to Yuyao, as soon as the typhoon left, villager Wang Weixin and his cousin Wang Weiyao at the foot of Jingtou Mountain couldn’t wait to drive their sheep from north to south across the Liuyi provincial highway to graze sheep on an overgrown construction site. The rising sun shone obliquely in the grass, making people dizzy. The two brothers of the Wang family stepped forward to take a look, it turned out that this flood had soaked the soil core mud drilled before at the construction site, revealing piles of familiar and rare shells, pottery chips, and broken bones of animals.
“Tian Luoshan dug it up, isn’t it also like this?” Wang Weiyao’s eyes were sharp.
In the area of more than ten square kilometers around Jingtou Mountain, there are the ruins of Hemudu outside the famous epicenter in the front, and the ruins of Tianluoshan and the ancient rice fields of Shiqiao in the back, and the local villagers have some awareness of cultural relics. The Wang brothers thought that this thing was a treasure, so they picked up a plastic bag and packed it and sent it to the archaeological team at the Tianluoshan site, 1.5 kilometers away.
Two days later, Sun Guoping, the head of the Tianluoshan archaeological project, returned to the construction site from Hangzhou, opened the package, and his strong intuition instantly told him: “It seems to be related to the Hemudu culture, but it is not the same!” ”
“Pottery pieces and shells were unearthed mixed together, and they have not been found in the entire Yangtze River Delta region!” After graduating from the Department of Archaeology of Peking University in 1988, Sun Guoping returned to his hometown of Zhejiang to engage in archaeological excavation and research, and traveled almost all over the province. Since 2004, he has been conducting archaeological excavations at the Tianluo Mountain site in Yuyao for a long time, specializing in the Hemudu culture, and has been deeply engaged in it for many years. This is where his “intuition” comes from.
Soon, under the coordination of the local government, Sun Guoping led the archaeological team to begin small-scale test excavations. The stainless steel thin probe commonly used in archaeology “ding” at a depth of about 7 meters from the surface and touched a hard object. “I think, eight or nine is not far from ten, it is the shell layer!” Previously, the deepest buried site of Hemudu in Zhejiang Province was about 4 meters above the surface, so it touched the shell accumulation layer at an “extraordinary” burial depth, which means: “This is a ‘site that has never been seen before’!” ”
Sun Guoping reported the clues and judgments. Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Yuyao Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government quickly reached a consensus – official excavation!
“Here, it’s almost 7 meters deep!” Follow Sun Guoping to the “deep archaeological site”. However, it is precisely because the “water content” of the Jingtou Mountain site is extremely high, almost all the relics and relics are soaked in water, isolated from the ground air, and the weak alkaline components formed by a large area of humus have become natural preservatives and protect the essence of the site. “Wood, fruit pits, knitters, etc., dug up, the color and shape are still like new!”
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Bird’s eye view of the ruins of Jingtou Mountain (Phase I) Photo by Chen Binrong
Prehistoric “ruins circles” packed out of circles
The foundation pit of the second phase of Jingtou Mountain has many “prefixes” on its head: a unique archaeological foundation pit with cement and steel structure that can be used for a long time, in the archaeological history of China’s coastal areas.
In addition to building a “protective cover” for archaeologists, the “permanent foundation pit” is also an extension of archaeology – “the end of archaeology, leaving the site as a display area for the Jingtou Mountain site”. According to Yang Yuhong, Secretary of the Party Committee of Yuyao Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports, this is also one of the important areas of the “Hemudu National Archaeological Site Park” planned by Yuyao.
1.5 kilometers east of Jingtou Mountain, is the site of Tianluo Mountain, 7 kilometers to the south, is the site of Hemudu, not far to the west, is the same national key cultural relics protection unit of the mullet mountain site, within a radius of 20 or 30 square kilometers gathered four important archaeological sites, in addition, there are more than 40 Hemudu cultural prehistoric sites around, the entire Yao River Valley forms a rare prehistoric “site circle”. On the “site circle”, a huge “Hemudu National Archaeological Site Park” is in full swing.
On August 17, the winning bid result of the Hemudu National Archaeological Site Park Start-up Area Project – Ancient and Modern Natural Environment Exhibition Area Design Service announced that the design bid of 3.95 million yuan will draw the first partial blueprint for the National Heritage Archaeological Park. This “partial” area reaches 676 acres.
Hemudu “Ruins Circle” is undoubtedly a golden business card. Sitting on 18,000 kilometers of coastline, under the background of a series of major strategic deployments such as the “Belt and Road” initiative, accelerating the construction of a maritime power and the “Asian Cultural Heritage Protection Action”, China traces the origin of marine civilization to consolidate cultural self-confidence, innovatively transform into the city’s “siphoning” ability, and is also one of the main battlefields for landing the “marine strategy”.
This year, the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government “painted” a 600,000-mu super “cultural circle” along the Cuiping Mountain of Siming Mountain, planning to “build a cultural heritage area with world influence and a cultural and tourism integration area that highlights the unique charm of a modern coastal metropolis”. This “circle” has been “shortlisted” by 15 towns, 138 villages and hundreds of cultural sites in Ningbo, of which Hemudu “Site Circle” is the core area in the large cultural circle.
Culture builds cities. While the governments of Ningbo and Yuyao are planning to get out of the “ruins” circle of Hemudu, some pioneering projects have begun to leverage cultural momentum.
During the “Eleventh” holiday, Chen Hua, a tourist from Ningbo who came to visit the Hemudu Site Museum in Yuyao City, found that a new “signboard” was added at the entrance of the museum – Yuyao Hemudu Archaeological Site Park Management Center, he took a photo, sent a circle of friends, with the text: “Come and check in as a souvenir, the 30-year-old museum wants to ‘change shotguns for cannons’!” ”
Inside, the archaeological discoveries of three “mountains” have been “merged” here, including the rice grains of Hemudu, the skulls of the holy buffalo of Tianluo Mountain, and the shells of Jingtou Mountain that make people drool. “Every tourist who comes to visit Hemudu looks at the cultural relics here, and talks about the bloodline from Jingtou Mountain to Hemudu!” In the eyes of Shen Qingyun, deputy director of Hemudu Site Museum, the small climax of tourists ushered in by “Eleventh” also shows that the influence of “site circle” packaging is gradually converging.
Not far from Hemudu Museum is Langshuqiao Village, a famous historical and cultural village in Ningbo. Along the way, you can pass by the elaborate agricultural culture impression hall, the ancient village wearing new clothes, and the Zhubai field turtle breeding demonstration field…”This is a 5-kilometer-long ‘Zomei Gudu’ tourist line, and we hugged the ‘thigh’ of Hemudu culture.” Xiang Guocan, secretary of the general party branch of Lushan Temple Village, “said that the words were not rough and reasonable”, and the villagers opened homestays, sold local products, and their money bags bulged. The 15,000 mu of cocoon white field turtle in Hemudu Town has been uniformly replaced with the “7,000 years” trademark this year, leveraging the water element in Hemudu culture to make an ecological brand, “This year’s selling price has increased by 10% compared with before.” Xu Yongrong, a farmer who has planted fields for half his life, said happily…
Reporter Chen Zui, Sharing Alliance, Yu Yao, Cao Yi, and Lao Chaojie