На днях четыре департамента, Управление лесного хозяйства провинции Чжэцзян, Управление по гражданским делам провинции, Провинциальная комиссия по планированию здравоохранения и Управление китайской медицины провинции совместно обнародовали список лесных медицинских баз провинции Чжэцзян в 2021 году, четыре лесных базы здоровья города Лишуй включены в список.
The results of the first phase of archaeological excavations at the site of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
“Since the end of last year, the key technical preparation before the second phase of excavation of the Jingtou Mountain site – the construction of a 1,000-square-meter foundation pit with a reinforced concrete frame structure has been in full swing. After intensive construction by the project builders, it was successfully completed by June. Sun Guoping, leader of the archaeological team at the Jingtou Mountain site, told reporters that in late May this year, he officially received the 2022 Jingtou Mountain site excavation license of 800 square meters issued by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Since July, archaeologists have braved the scorching heat to gradually advance the second phase of the excavation.
“In the second phase of the foundation pit, we have now dug more than 8 meters deep into the ground, and the previous typhoon caused water to accumulate in the foundation pit, and after pumping the water away, the shallowest cultural layer of the site 7,800 years ago was revealed, and the dense white objects scattered on the mud ground were the shells that the ancestors of Jingtou Mountain ate and discarded.”
The results of the first phase of archaeological excavations at the site of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
The results of the first phase of archaeological excavations at the site of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
Today, at the second phase of the foundation pit construction site of the Jingtou Mountain site in Yuyao, when the reporter met Sun Guoping, an experienced archaeology expert who has insisted on the Hemudu Cultural Area for 20 years, his dark face was covered with fine sweat, his hands were still stained with mud, and he was wearing rubber shoes while walking up from the mud of the foundation pit while telling reporters. “The site is busy excavating in the field. Due to the need to store and sort out a large number of cultural relics unearthed in the first phase, the original workshop at the construction site has been very full and needs to be expanded. A long row of new simple houses next to the foundation pit is nearing completion. After the construction of these houses, most of them will be used as warehouses to preserve the cultural relics excavated in the second phase of Jingtou Mountain. “
As a native of Ningbo who grew up in Hemudu Cultural District, he grew up eating all kinds of small seafood by Hangzhou Bay, graduated from the Department of Archaeology of Peking University and traveled to many islands and coastal cities at home and abroad, Sun Guoping has a more personal and profound understanding of the special importance of the sea to human beings. Since he engaged in the research of Hemudu culture, he has been wondering: When and where did Chinese start to live by the mountains and the sea?
The site of the first phase of archaeological excavations at the site of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
The site of the first phase of archaeological excavations at the site of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
The site of the first phase of archaeological excavations at the site of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
The opportunity to solve the mystery can be said to have been blown by a typhoon “Fett” ten years ago. In October 2013, exactly 40 years after the discovery of the Hemudu site, heavy rainfall brought by a typhoon after National Day “surfaced” shellfish relics buried more than 8,000 years deep underground at the Jingtou Mountain site. With clues, in 2014, Sun Guoping led technicians to preliminarily confirm the age, scope and basic value of the site through drilling.
Good things take a long time. The Jingtou Mountain site is located on a land with a total area of 20,000 square meters, which was the factory area of the Shunlong Hose Factory, a private enterprise in Yuyao, ten years ago. From land leasing to replacement to buyback, round of negotiations, under the coordination of governments at all levels, in October 2016, the land was finally implemented through the government buyback office, by Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute, Yuyao Hemudu Site Museum tripartite joint efforts to form the Jingtou Mountain Site Archaeological Team, led by Sun Guoping, officially stationed at the site for excavation.
“Jingtou Mountain archaeology is a special case of the archaeological operation process of ancient Chinese sites.” Sun Guoping sighed with emotion.
The site of the first phase of archaeological excavations at the site of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
Later, through the arduous and complicated first phase of archaeological excavations at the Jingtou Mountain site in recent years, the “ceiling” of history and culture in Ningbo was finally broken!
“The ancestral origin of the Hemudu culture is found here, and the Chinese marine culture also originated here, and even enriched the integrity of Chinese civilization to a certain extent – from here, we can see that coastal and inland cultures developed in parallel from the early Neolithic period nearly 10,000 years ago.” Sun Guoping said proudly.
During the interview, Mr. Sun Guoping’s persistence, enthusiasm for treating people and enjoyment of archaeological discoveries were often moving. Because he enjoys the joy brought by archaeological discoveries, he can still stick to the field in recent years.
Sun Guoping said that the deepest impression was when he opened the most important stratum below, the cultural layer, in the first half of 2020, he was both highly excited and walking on thin ice, because above his head were beams and steel plate walls made of more than 600 tons of steel supporting the foundation of the pit, and he was in danger of mud and mud collapsing.
Bird’s eye view of the ruins of Jingtou Mountain. Photo by Chen Binrong
“But when I peeled open the thick mud covered by the site of Jingtou Mountain, and saw the shellfish life relics left by our ancestors on the seashore at that time 8,000 years ago, these distant life relics were actually discarded as if they were yesterday, from which I felt the wisdom and emotions of the ancestors across time and space, all the hardships and adventures were worth it, and at this moment I also had a personal feeling for the idiom ‘vicissitudes of the sea’, and China, as a maritime power with a coastline of 18,000 kilometers, had enough confidence.” Sun Guoping said this was the biggest gain in his archaeological career for more than three decades.
Aerial photograph of the second phase of archaeological excavation site at the Jingtou Mountain site. Photo by Chen Jiesheng