That thing about Liangzhu culture

Just introduce the ancient city of Liangzhu, and mention jade articles by the way. (This article relies entirely on the knowledge in the brain, hoping to understand the shortcomings. )

Liangzhu culture is actually an important local civilization in ancient China. Like Cahokia civilization in North America, it is characterized by huge man-made mountain buildings, huge urban centers and vast political territory. However, Liangzhu people are unique in the world, which is their developed wood structure technology, water conservancy technology, farming technology, lacquer technology, black pottery technology and jade-making technology.

Before the discovery of traditional pottery and lacquerware technology in Liangzhu, only a large number of Liangzhu jade articles were unearthed in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, which have been cared for by the world for thousands of years, making people think that Liangzhu people can only make jade articles. Historically, China people have a long-standing love for Liangzhu jade. Archaeology shows that the nobles of Shang and Zhou Dynasties and Sanxingdui once enthusiastically collected Liangzhu jade articles. But since then, they may never know who made these jade articles. Even before the 1980s, people always thought that those tall and exquisite jade cong were "ancient jade of Zhou and Han dynasties".

It seems that the jade articles of Liangzhu people are not inherited from their ancestors Songze people, but from Lingjiatan people. In 3600 BC, Lingjiatan people rose in the Huaihe River Basin, and they established the earliest cities in China, including pottery brick workshops, stone pillars, royal tombs and Lingjiatan ruins around the city canal. Their jade articles are even more shocking, featuring jade shovel, jade figure and jade dragon, forming the earliest tradition of jade picking and burial in southern China. The wealth of Lingjiatan people attracts the attention from all directions. Among them, the ancestors of Liangzhu people are Songze people. In 3400 BC, Songze people attacked the Huaihe River Basin and occupied Lingjiatan. Later, they stormed into the Central Plains and confronted the Yangshao people south of the Yellow River. But soon, Songze people withdrew from the Central Plains, and Songze culture was replaced by Liangzhu culture.

Lingjiatan ancient city was destroyed in 3400 BC, and Liangzhu culture rose in 3300 BC. The distance between the two years is very close. Liangzhu jade technology has also turned generally prosperous, which is suspected to be caused by the capture of a large number of Lingjiatan jade craftsmen in Taihu Lake basin (this can be used as a research direction of your thesis topic, that is, to demonstrate the relationship between the two).

Soon, Dawenkou people in Shandong Province violently expanded westward, destroying Yangshao culture; Liangzhu people expanded northward, defeated Dawenkou people, and took possession of them in northern Jiangsu. In the east of China, Dawenkou and Liangzhu stand in the north and south. After the Liangzhu people defeated Dawenkou people, they extended southward to the middle reaches of Qiantang River and expelled the descendants of Hemudu people to the southeast of Zhejiang. In this way, Liangzhu people solved the north-south threat and gained unprecedented conditions for economic development.

Liangzhu area has inherited the large-scale irrigation technology of Songze people, and has become the most developed agricultural economy in China. The development of agriculture, vast territory and peaceful development conditions have promoted the complicated process of Liangzhu society to leap forward rapidly. In 3000 BC, in the south of Tianmu Mountain, a small settlement rose near Yaoshan, and an altar and the tomb of Yaoshan nobles were established. 100 years later, they filled the swamp area in the south of Tianmu Mountain, and then rammed a rectangular giant building platform-Jiaomo Mountain Site. The site covers an area of 300,000 square meters, with a height of 8- 10 meter, and uses 2 million cubic meters of earthwork. The abutment of this building was the largest building in the world at that time. On it, three two-story platforms were built, namely Damojiao Mountain, Xiao Mo Jiaoshan Mountain and Wugui Mountain. It is not clear what buildings are on these three two-story platforms.

However, in the center of the three abutments, a large building foundation was excavated, covering an area of more than 3,000 square meters and surrounded by column facilities. It may be a huge palace comparable in scale to the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City today. On the edge of the ruins of Jiaomoshan, a huge braised adobe house was found, covering an area of more than 300 square meters, which may not be an ordinary facility. The establishment of Jiaomoshan site marks the formation of Liangzhu ancient city.

However, the Mojiao Mountain site was originally just a platform city. Later, due to the population expansion, three lower platforms were built in the north, east and west of Mojiao Mountain site, which made Mojiao Mountain and its surrounding area form a super-large building base with an area of one million square meters. But it is not clear what kind of buildings are built on it.

Since then, the anti-mountain tomb has been built in the north of Mojiaoshan site, and the building base of Huangfenshan has been built in the south of Mojiaoshan site, forming a very large building complex. In 2800 BC, Liangzhu people built a 6.5-kilometer-long waterproof levee-Tangshan Earth Courtyard on the west side of the building complex. Then, seven kilometers to the west, the second waterproof levees, Qiwushan Levee and Gong Peng Levee, were built, with a total length of 1 1.5 kilometers. It constitutes a flood control project to the west of Jiao Mo. Later, Liangzhu people built a huge long dike along the river in Liangzhu Port on the south side of Jiao Mo. In this way, Liangzhu people built the largest urban flood control project in the world at that time through their strong organizational and mobilization abilities.

By 2500 BC, the ancient city of Liangzhu reached its peak. Between Tangshan Tuyuan and Yaoshan, all kinds of man-made mountains have sprung up, forming a belt-shaped building complex dotted with galaxies. The central part of this building complex extends to the south and connects with Jiaomo Mountain. The Central Ring Road is a mound building in Jindi and Huangnikou. To their east is the Yaojiadun site, the sub-center building complex of this generation. This is a settlement group formed by several side-by-side mounds, in which the tombs of nobles were found. In order to facilitate transportation, Liangzhu people also dug two parallel canals on both sides of Yaojiadun site. At both ends of this banded site group are Yaoshan and Guanhuishan sites, both of which are comprehensive mound buildings integrating altars and tombs. Each has a specially built central square area, and the diagonal lines point to the incident angles of the sun in different solar terms-the diagonal lines of the square areas of the two altars point in the same direction. They embody the knowledge of astronomical calendar in Liangzhu period.

At the same time, the famous Liangzhu ancient city wall has also been built, which surrounds the center of Jiaomo Mountain and Huangfen Mountain, forming a closed, rounded rectangular central area with an area of 2.9 million square meters. On the periphery of the central area, there are also densely distributed peripheral communities, such as Meirendi and Bianjiashan. The main function of these external communities is to produce jade and black leather pottery crafts and export industrial products. They are probably also engaged in the production of lacquerware and silk.

These peripheral communities are equipped with huge canals and regular artificial water streets. Take Ren Mei Land as an example. On the surface of the Tutai site, a huge wooden revetment was built with thick and finely processed boards embedded in it. Below the board are rows of huge cross bars, and there are sleepers under the cross bars. These wooden components weigh about one ton, and the whole building stretches for hundreds of meters. On the bank protection, there are also facilities for berthing ships. Another site excavated completely at Bianjiashan found a large number of well-preserved lacquerware, black pottery and small jade articles. A wooden pier more than ten meters long was also found. On pottery tablets, a large number of characters with note-taking function were also found. Explain the commercial nature of these websites.

By 2400 BC, Liangzhu ancient city had developed into a huge city stretching over 30 square kilometers, bigger than any other city in the world-for example, uruk in Mesopotamia was only 4-6 square kilometers, and Moheng Zodaro in the Indus Valley was only 2.5-5 square kilometers.

The area under the jurisdiction or influence of Liangzhu Ancient City is also very vast, extending from northern Jiangsu to central Zhejiang in the south, and no Liangzhu City can compare with it (for example, Sidun and Fuquan Mountain, the former covers an area of only 0.9 square kilometers, while the latter covers an area of 1 square kilometers, which are only small and medium-sized cities). According to textual research, almost all the high-grade jade articles in Liangzhu area come from the distribution of Liangzhu ancient city, which inevitably reflects a political affiliation. In fact, the traditional pottery handicrafts discovered in Liangzhu are probably provided by Liangzhu Ancient City. The ancient city of Liangzhu must be the commercial center of the whole Liangzhu area, if not the absolute political center. In fact, the influence of Liangzhu people has gradually spread from the north to Shandong, which may be caused by commercial exchanges.

However, the prosperity of Liangzhu ancient city has always been coveted by Central Plains people. In 2400 BC, legislators in southeastern Henan expanded to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, first seizing the ancient city of Hua Teng from Dongyi and then invading Liangzhu in the south. In 2300 BC, Liangzhu culture was influenced by the culture of Fazaotai and transformed into the pre-Shanyang culture. But the ancient city of Liangzhu is still in use at this time, and the fin tripod unearthed in the southwest of the ancient city confirms this fact.

However, with the intensification of the invasion of Legalism, the political situation in Liangzhu area has undergone tremendous changes, and Qian Shan Yang culture has been transformed into Guangfulin culture. At this time, the ancient city of Liangzhu has been abandoned. Liangzhu ancient country also declared its demise. Perhaps the legend of "Yu Zhu windproof" has something to do with it. However, Liangzhu ancient country is much more advanced than the hinterland of Central Plains in Yao and Shun times (except Taosi ancient city in the north of Central Plains). In the anti-mountain tombs, a large number of "imperial tombs" with jade and lacquerware were found, indicating that Liangzhu ancient country is already a developed class society with strict hierarchy. But it was not until the early Shang Dynasty that such a sharp class division appeared in the hinterland of the Central Plains.

After the fall of Liangzhu ancient city, Taihu Lake basin was repeatedly flooded and invaded. The conquerors in the Central Plains could not successfully resist the threat of floods like Liangzhu people, which led to the collapse of urban culture in this area. Immediately after 100 years, Tanshishan people, descendants of Hemudu people in southern Zhejiang, attacked Taihu Lake basin on a large scale, captured the areas under the jurisdiction of Liangzhu people, and formed Maqiao culture. Since then, the population of Taihu Lake basin has plummeted, cities have ceased to exist, precious jade articles and lacquerware have ceased to be made, and Liangzhu civilization has declined.

However, the farming techniques of Liangzhu people have been handed down, and the pottery-making techniques of Liangzhu people have also been carried forward by the later Maqiao culture. At the end of Shang Dynasty and the beginning of Zhou Dynasty, the ancestors of Taihu Lake combined bronze technology with farming technology, invented bronze plow, and spread it to the Central Plains, becoming the national foundation of Chinese civilization for thousands of years. The black pottery technology in Liangzhu period was also transformed into the original porcelain-making technology by Maqiao people, and the appearance of "Yue Kiln" in Han Dynasty also marked the maturity of ceramic technology later. With the export trade of primitive porcelain and the gradual recovery of agriculture, Taihu Lake area is prosperous again. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the ancient city of Mudu rose in the northern part of Taihu Lake basin and became the largest city in the Yangtze River basin at that time. The rise of the ancient city also marks the rise of Wu; Since then, Gou Jian, King of Yue, modeled himself on Wudu, and built Huiji City, which started wuyue's hegemony. At this point, the ancient Taihu civilization ushered in its new era.