In mid-December, 2021, Yunhe County Cultural Relics Protection Center teamed up with Zhejiang Archaeological Research Institute and the archaeological exploration team of Shaanxi Longteng Cultural Relics Protection Co., Ltd. to conduct key investigations in Yunhe County. After more than 30 days of in-depth archaeological exploration, 28 cultural sites from Neolithic Age to Shang and Zhou Dynasties were discovered, covering an area of more than 400,000 square meters. According to the information of pottery pieces and porcelain unearthed from the cultural layer of the site, it is preliminarily determined that the age of these sites spanned from the Neolithic Age to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, mostly from 3000 to 4000 years ago. This archaeological exploration has further enriched the cultural resources from the Neolithic Age to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties in Yunhe and southern Zhejiang, and provided important clues for studying the civilization of this period.
Recently, in the archaeological exploration site, the staff carefully observed the newly excavated pottery pieces and stone tools, analyzed the cultural relics of the period, and judged whether the site here has a rich cultural layer. During more than 30 days of archaeological exploration, an archaeological team composed of 9 people has been working in the field, moving around the clouds and counties. Mainly using Luoyang shovel, hand shovel and other archaeological tools, and comprehensively using traditional field investigation methods such as ground investigation and exploration, we have carried out systematic investigation, mapping and exploration, and achieved important results. “We scrape the surface with a hand shovel and punch holes with a Luoyang shovel. According to the changes of soil layers and the inclusions in the soil, we can judge whether there are sites and the scope of the sites.” Li Qiangqiang, a staff member of Zhejiang Institute of Archaeology, said.
“This cultural site, relatively concentrated in the clouds and basins, actually constitutes a site group. This shows that many people lived here at that time, and it is even possible to form a regional regime. Its discovery can advance the history of the cloud to more than 3,000 years ago, and this era will make breakthrough progress for the whole Lishui and the whole southern Zhejiang region. ” Chen Minghui, deputy director of the Prehistoric Archaeological Office, a researcher at Zhejiang Institute of Archaeology, said that 28 cultural sites were found in this archaeological exploration, which were distributed on the hills of Qinglong Mountain, fox hill, Shiqianqiao, Maanshan and Huangshan in Yunhe County, with an average elevation of about 100 meters to 300 meters and an area of more than 400,000 square meters. The biggest feature is high density and thick cultural layers.
“It is very rare to find high-density cultural sites in the mountainous areas of southern Zhejiang. We will analyze them according to the collected cultural relics, which may have a horizontal connection with Shoulanlong culture.” Yang Kexin, director of the County Cultural Relics Protection Center, said that in recent years, the staff of Yunhe Cultural Protection went deep into Yunhe and various hills to conduct field investigations, and obtained nearly 1,000 cultural specimens such as stone tools, pottery and arrowheads, most of which belonged to the Neolithic Age to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Relying on rich cultural specimens, Yunhe County carried out this archaeological exploration in order to explore Yunhe’s profound history and culture. According to experts from the Archaeological Office of Zhejiang Institute of Archaeology, before that, the archaeological culture of Zhejiang in Shang and Zhou Dynasties was mainly distributed in Maqiao culture in northern Zhejiang (equivalent to Shang Dynasty) and Zhejiang..South’s shoulders cultivate culture. Among them, Shoulder Lane culture only finds a few ash pits, tombs and other relics in a few sites such as Shoulder Lane and Cliff End of Jiangshan Mountain, and its connotation is little known, so the cultural pedigree needs to be constructed. The appearance of the relics unearthed in Yunhe site group is close to Shoujianlong culture (Maling type), but it may be a new culture or type, which needs further study. Relevant discoveries and research will undoubtedly fill a gap in archaeology from Neolithic Age to Shang and Zhou Dynasties in southern Zhejiang.
“In 2022, we will choose two or three sites in 28 sites for archaeological excavation, and we will continue to push forward if necessary. It is planned to basically clarify the distribution and cultural types of early cultural sites in Yunhe Basin during the 14 th Five-Year Plan period.” Yang Kexin said.
Yunhe News Network reporter Lei Qian