What's in Chifeng and Hongshan Culture?

Hongshan Culture is an important Neolithic culture in northern China, which was discovered in 1935. This Neolithic culture, mainly composed of painted pottery and microliths, was named "Hongshan Culture" in 1954. The distribution of Hongshan Culture is roughly as follows: from the Urjimulun River Basin in Chifeng City in the north, to Chaoyang, Lingyuan and northern Hebei in the south, and to Tongliao and Jinzhou in the east.

Hongshan Culture is characterized by painted pottery, serrated pottery, microliths and unique digging tools, such as stone pots and laurel leaf-shaped double-hole stone knives. There are two kinds of pottery in Hongshan Culture: clay pottery and sand pottery, both of which are made by hand, and clay pottery is slightly more than sand pottery.

Clay pottery is mostly red, and the common shapes are bowls, pots, jars and so on. Most of them are small containers with flat bottom. Among them, the bowls are all "red top bowls", and the abdomen is deep and shallow. There are small mouth and ears cans, long neck and deep belly cans, and closed cans. The main pattern of clay pottery is black and purple color pattern, among which parallel lines, triangle patterns and scale patterns are the most distinctive, and there are also a few zigzag embossing.

The sand is brown at the end of pottery, with few shapes, rough pottery and low temperature. The main shape of the cylinder is a big mouth and deep belly cylinder (big mouth and deep belly and small flat bottom). The watch is decorated with horizontal zigzags and straight lines.

The stone tools in Hongshan Culture are mainly polished, and the distinctive artifacts in large stone tools are shovel-shaped and laurel-leaf-shaped double-hole stone knives, and the tool shapes are mainly tobacco leaves and straw sandals. After polishing, the blade and back of the laurel leaf-shaped stone knife are arc-symmetrical, indicating that the farming economy in Hongshan Culture is relatively developed.

Few animal bones are found in Hongshan Culture. Its species are cattle, sheep, pigs, deer, roe and so on. Cattle, sheep and pigs should be domestic animals, from which we can generally know that the ancestors of Hongshan Culture lived a life mainly based on settlement, as well as animal husbandry, fishing and hunting.

The total number of Gouyun-shaped jades unearthed in Hongshan Culture has reached more than 20, and Gouyun-shaped jades contain two basic themes-Goujiao and Xiaoconvex. Various forms of Hongshan Culture Gouyun-shaped jade articles are made up of different hook angles and small protrusions, especially the large dark green jade dragon unearthed in Sanxingtala Township of 197 1 Ongniud Banner. About 26 cm high, snakehead, crooked body. Later, similar jade dragons were found in Bahrain Right Banner and Liaoning Cultural Relics Store. Analyzing the shapes of these Gouyun-shaped jades, we can roughly divide them into four categories: "One category is ornamentation (such as rings, beads, pins, etc.). ); "Second, tools (such as axes, sticks, melons, etc. ); Third, animals (such as pigs and birds); Fourth, special types (such as walls and hoops). ). Among them, hoop-shaped vessels are one of the typical vessels in Hongshan culture jade group. Combining the shapes of the above jade articles and the culture at that time, we can see that the special and instrumental jade articles in Hongshan Culture should be made to meet the needs of religious ceremonies. This hook-shaped jade is not an ordinary ornament. Most of them were placed on the heads and chests of the dead in tombs, indicating that Hongshan Culture had used jade as a ritual vessel, which had an impact on the later Shang and Zhou cultures.

There is an obvious inheritance relationship between Hongshan Culture Gouyun Yulong and Zhaobaogou Pig Dragon Statue. The discovery of Yulong shows that Inner Mongolia is an important place to explore the worship of loong.

Since 1980s, the "Goddess Temple" and Jishi Tomb, a religious site in Hongshan Culture, have been discovered in Niuheliang at the junction of Dongshanzui, Lingyuan and Jianping counties in Kazuo County, Liaoning Province. Dongshanzui ruins center is the base of a large square stone building. The overall layout of the base site is distributed along the north-south axis, with emphasis on symmetry. This architectural complex site with traditional characteristics of China was first discovered in the Neolithic Age in China. There are groups of pottery figurines unearthed in many foundation sites, which shows that this is the place where people engaged in sacrificial activities at that time.

Judging from the relationship between Hongshan Culture and other cultures, it is not only a Neolithic culture with its own characteristics in the north, but also has its own development process and is influenced by other cultures.

First of all, archaeological research shows that Hongshan Culture developed on the basis of Xinglongwa Culture and Zhaobaogou culture, and the three cultures have obvious inheritance and development relations in religious tradition. No special places of worship have been found in Xinglongwa Culture and Zhaobaogou cultures. The discovery of Niulianghe site after 1970s shows that a large-scale sacrificial center has appeared in Hongshan Culture in the late period, which is not only a breakthrough in the study of Hongshan Culture, but also of great significance in exploring the origin of Chinese civilization.

Secondly, Hongshan Culture has made remarkable achievements in architecture, pottery making, jade carving and pottery sculpture. Its technical level is higher than that of Xinglongwa Culture and Zhaobaogou culture. Two square pottery models were unearthed at Hongshan Culture House site in Xitai, Aohan Banner, which is the earliest metal casting model in China so far, indicating that the ancestors of Hongshan Culture have mastered the technology of copper casting.

Thirdly, hunting plays a major role in the culture of Xinglongwa Culture and Zhaobaogou. In Hongshan Culture, agricultural production has become the dominant economy.

Judging from Hongshan Culture's position in the archaeological culture of the Neolithic Age in ancient China, Hongshan Culture was one of the most advanced ancient cultures in the sequence of ancient cultures in China at that time. At that time, there was a phenomenon of copper smelting in society, and there was also an early Fangcheng protected by ditches, and the differentiation between urban and rural areas had taken place. Religious etiquette activities characterized by worshipping dragons and respecting jade and ancestors are extremely popular. The conflict between social groups and the resulting dispute over unified religious theocracy have become a basic social problem, which shows that the ancestors of Hongshan Culture have taken the lead in entering ancient times from clan society.

Therefore, Hongshan Culture laid the foundation for the 5,000-year development of Chinese civilization, and at the same time stipulated and influenced the basic pattern of the emergence and development of Chinese etiquette culture, which has an extremely important historical position in the development of Chinese civilization.