Tourists are visiting the Shangshan Archaeological Site Park. Photographer Zhang Haozhen photo
Editor’s note: The sunshine in 2023 has arrived as scheduled. History and the future are intertwined. Let us define the coordinates of the times with culture. How far Zhejiang will go, just look for the answer from how deep Zhejiang culture is. Going up the mountain in 10000, Hemudu in 7000, Liangzhu in 5000, Southern Song Dynasty in 800, and South Lake in 100 … This newspaper will launch a series of reports on “Looking at culture first” from now on, listening to the sound of progress in the new year from the profound place of civilization and the new look of culture.
Facing the dawn of the new year, the reporter stood on the land of Pujiang “going up the mountain for thousands of years”. A few days ago, the culture of going up to the mountain in Zhejiang just got a good news: Going up to the mountain archaeological site park, together with Hemudu in Yuyao and Songliu Mausoleum in Shaoxing, was selected as the fourth batch of national archaeological site parks.
Understanding Zhejiang, culture is a window. Opening this window, the culture of going up the mountain 10 thousand years ago stands proudly-it tells the world how rice and Chinese civilization achieved each other.
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In the cold winter, the Shangshan Site Protection Exhibition Hall in Pujiang County welcomes a wave of tourists. Here, people are amazed at a carbonized rice, which is more than 10000 years old and is an example of domestication and cultivation of rice seeds by ancestors who went up the mountain. Here, people can see the rare rice fields in the museum. Nearly 30 different varieties of rice are planted in more than two acres of land, which are all kinds of high-quality varieties of rice carefully cultivated by modern Zhejiang people.
Wheat and rice are the main food crops of China people. For people living in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it has been a custom for thousands of years to eat rice and soup fish.
People in Zhejiang often think of Hemudu when they mention rice. For a long time, the focus of archaeological work in Zhejiang Province has been basically around the two lineages bounded by Qiantang River: Majiabang culture in the north of the Yangtze River, Liangzhu culture and Hemudu culture in the south of the Yangtze River, and everything seems to have reached its source. But is this really the case?
In 2000, 38-year-old Jiang Leping came to Pujiang. The researcher of Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology had been engaged in the archaeological research of Hemudu culture. To Jiang Leping’s surprise, China’s rice culture history is following him from Hemudu in Yuyao to Pujiang Mountain.
At first, it was just a small pit. Pottery pieces and stone tools that made Jiang Leping feel strange appeared in the pit. Then, there are more and more historical sites. In November, 2000, on this small mound called “Up the Mountain” in the north of Qunan Village, Huangzhai Town, Pujiang County, a picture of human life in the Neolithic Age reappeared in front of the world, which is the earliest Neolithic culture in Zhejiang and even the whole southeast of China, 10,000 to 8,500 years ago.
A remarkable “black” spot was found here: a carbonized rice with a grain length of 3..732 mm, grain width 1.667 mm, grain thickness 1.723 mm, small enough to be seen clearly with a microscope. This carbonized rice proves that the ancestors who went up the mountain thousands of years ago began to domesticate and cultivate rice; It is the earliest remains of cultivated rice in the world in archaeological discoveries, which proves that Shangshan culture is the origin of world rice culture.
Pieces of pottery with charcoal were also found here, each with a big mouth. Archaeologists have been mending and piecing together fragments of people’s lives on the mountain. Painted pottery of Shangshan culture is the earliest painted pottery in the world discovered so far. It is as bright red as the sun, and it is a symbol of spiritual civilization of the people who go up the mountain. The mysterious symbols on the pottery arouse people’s infinite imagination.
There are also rows of column holes and houses with grooved foundations, which form a rectangular plane, which hides the wisdom of the ancestors who went up the mountain. Shangshan cultural relics group is the source of farming village culture in China. Regular house relics, dry-column houses and ground-type houses indicate that the ancestors of Shangshan have settled in the wilderness. Therefore, Yan Wenming, an archaeologist, called it “the first village in ancient China”.
The “most” of Shangshan culture corresponds to the key words such as the origin of agriculture and the beginning of villages. Jiang Leping said: “Going up the mountain is the earliest sample of rice culture in the world, the ten thousand-year demonstration of human settlement from cave dwelling to wilderness, and the earliest Neolithic site in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China.”
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Rice nourishes Chinese civilization, and Chinese civilization also makes rice. In the years of slash-and-burn cultivation, the logic of ancestors trying to plant a crop is often to accidentally pick up a fruit and then find that “this is delicious, all kinds of things to see.”
The encounter between rice and people is not so logical. Wheat, barley and oats are all dry crops, but rice lives in wetlands. “Rice is a plant that people will discover and use when they consciously use the special environment of wetlands. This is the most fundamental difference.” Qin Ling, an associate professor at Peking University Institute of Archaeology and Culture, said.
Even more amazing is that before being domesticated by human beings, the original ancestor of rice was not even an annual plant, that is, it may not bear seeds every year. It is not known how the people who went up the mountain dug up the potential of rice. However, some studies have shown that during the Qiaotou site in the middle period of Shangshan culture 9000 years ago, the domestication rate of rice may have reached 80%.
The first mountaineer who took the “weeds in the pond” home to “see them all” would never have thought of what a magnificent history of human civilization he had started.
Chinese civilization is the only civilization in the world that has continued to this day and has never been interrupted. There are many carriers that make a civilization last, and this mutual achievement between China people and rice is undoubtedly one of the best examples. From going up the mountain to Hemudu and then to Liangzhu; From a “pond weed” to a carbonized rice, and then to “Su Hu is ripe and the world is full” … Rice has always nourished people in this land in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. People have never stopped domesticating to be more perfect..The pursuit of rice seeds. Just like nearly 30 rice varieties planted in more than two acres of paddy fields in Shangshan Site Protection Exhibition Hall, “Yongyou No.9”, “Laolaiqing” and “Zhejing 22” … the continuous innovation is not just a tribute and inheritance to ancestors.
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Walking 300 meters northeast from the Shangshan Site Protection Exhibition Hall, there is a grape trellis. In 2023, the Shangshan Site Museum (World Rice Source Museum) and Shangshan Culture Research Center will start construction here.
The future Shangshan Archaeological Site Park will have a total construction area of about 148,000 square meters. On the existing basis, there will also be new Shangshan Site Museum (World Daoyuan Museum), Shangshan Cultural Research Center, tourist service block, leisure resort, popular science research school district, cultural exchange area and other areas. Among them, Shangshan Site Museum (World Rice Source Museum) and Shangshan Cultural Research Center are scheduled to open in 2025, and Shangshan Archaeological Site Park will strive to declare a national archaeological site park. Relying on this, it will become a national research base, display the characteristic landscape of rice farming, promote the integration of Chinese and foreign rice farming cultures, let young people around the world walk into the mountains, appreciate the culture of the mountains, and build a world-renowned international humanities exchange base.
No matter archaeologists, cultural relics experts or governments at all levels … they are working tirelessly to find pieces of puzzle for Shangshan culture, and never forget the more ambitious goal-applying for heritage. “Liangzhu culture has been successfully used for 80 years from discovery to application, and the protection and utilization of Shangshan cultural sites have a long way to go.” Jiang Leping said.
At present, the declaration text and management plan of “Shangshan Cultural Heritage Group” have entered the stage of judging the draft, and the text will be compiled as soon as possible, so as to strive to include Shangshan Cultural Heritage Group in the China World Cultural Heritage Preparatory List as soon as possible.
Up to now, Zhejiang has excavated 21 cultural sites in Shangshan. However, there are still many unsolved puzzles. In 2022, Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology launched an archaeological investigation in an ancient water area on the north side of Shangshan Ruins.
A few days ago, the reporter came to the mountain workstation of Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the staff member Jiang Fusheng was carefully examining the collected pottery pieces. He said: “These are pottery pieces from two sections on the north side of Shangshan Ruins, belonging to different cultural layers. I am analyzing the typical pottery pieces unearthed, judging the age of the pottery pieces, and drawing and recording the cultural layers.” Further excavation of the Shangshan site in 2023 is being planned, and the rich connotation of Shangshan culture will be further opened to the world.
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