The earliest Erlitou site in China is Taosi site? What evidence is there?

The earliest China was actually the name of a book. The author of this book is Xu Hong, director of the Archaeological Research Office of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties and captain of Erlitou Task Force, an archaeologist. The so-called earliest China actually refers to the first wide-area kingship country in China's 5,000-year history, and it is also the beginning of China's history entering civilization.

As we all know, there are a lot of historical records in China that the first dynasty in history was the Xia Dynasty, such as Historical Records, which has been recorded from the Biography of Five Emperors, even hundreds of years earlier than the Xia Dynasty. However, due to the lack of documentary records and archaeological evidence, some scholars still doubt the existence of the Xia Dynasty since ancient historians headed by Gu Jiegang doubted it in the early 20th century.

From the 1920s, foreign archaeology was introduced into China, and China began a series of archaeological studies. Due to the large number of cultural relics and historical sites in China, archaeology has developed by leaps and bounds, and countless sites have been excavated by archaeological means. Whether the first dynasty in China was the Xia Dynasty has always been controversial, and Erlitou site, the capital of the first dynasty in China, or Taosi site is actually controversial.

Identifying who is the "earliest China" is carried out from the perspective of archaeology, so comparing Erlitou and Taosi is also studied from the perspective of archaeology. Here, the differences between them are compared from five angles:

First, the comparison of the age of existence Erlitou site is located in Yanshi District, Luoyang City, Henan Province, south of the Yellow River. According to cultural characteristics, Erlitou site can be divided into phase I, phase II, phase III and phase IV. In order to accurately detect the existence time of Erlitou site, four stages of the site were studied during the period of 1984~ 199 1.

The period of the first phase is: BC 1880 ~ BC 1640.

The second period is from 1740 BC to 1590 BC.

The third period is: 65438 BC +0665438 +00 ~ 65438 BC +0555.

The fourth period is from 1560 BC to 1520 BC.

The data source is one of the reports of Xia, Shang and Zhou dating projects, Xinzhai? With the establishment and perfection of the cultural archaeological chronology of Erlitou Erligang, the whole Erlitou site lasted from 1880 BC to 1520 BC. If we compare the carbon dating data of the first three 14 and exclude some samples with large errors, we can conclude that the final existence time of Erlitou is from 2 100 BC to 65438+ BC.

Taosi Site is located in Taosi Village, Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province, north of the Yellow River. Taosi site can be divided into early stage, middle stage and late stage. According to various scientific methods including carbon 14 dating technology, the absolute age of Taosi site is from 2400 BC to 1900 BC.

Judging from the comparison of absolute ages, the rise time of Feng Tao site is obviously about 300 years earlier than Erlitou site. According to the dating engineering data of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the starting and ending time of Xia Dynasty was determined to be from 2070 BC to 1600 BC. Comparing their existence time, it can be concluded that Taosi site began to rise 300 years before the establishment of the Xia Dynasty, while Erlitou site was established almost at the same time as the Xia Dynasty and ran through the whole Xia Dynasty.

From the time point of view, Taosi site should be in the period of Five Emperors, and Erlitou site should be in Xia and Shang Dynasties.

Second, the scale comparison Erlitou culture is between Longshan culture and Erligang culture, mainly distributed in the central and western parts of Henan Province, north to central Shanxi Province, south to northern Hubei Province, Yangtze River Basin and Hanjiang River Basin, east to Kaifeng and Lankao in Henan Province, and west to Shangzhou in Henan Province. Its cultural distribution has a maximum diameter of 200 kilometers, and there are as many as 250 Erlitou cultural sites found in China.

Erlitou Cultural Core Site Erlitou Site covers a total area of about 4.56 square kilometers, with a length of about 2,400 meters from east to west and a width of about 1.900 meters from north to south. Since the excavation began in 1959, the cumulative excavation area has reached 40,000 square meters, and a large area of palace buildings and Miyagi city walls have been discovered, including the palace area of1654 38+0,000 square meters.

Erlitou site also excavated more than 400 criss-crossing road remains, large bronze smelting and casting workshop sites 1, turquoise making workshop sites 1, pottery-making sites, bone-making sites, sacrificial sites and small and medium-sized tombs, and unearthed a large number of small and medium-sized houses, wells, ash pits, pottery, stone tools, jade articles, bronzes and other cultural relics.

Taosi site belongs to Longshan culture type and is the largest site in Longshan culture site, mainly distributed in the south of Shanxi. The site covers a total area of 3 square kilometers, with a length of about 2,000 meters from east to west and a width of about 1.500 meters from north to south, which is smaller than the total area of Erlitou site. The area of Taosi Miyagi is 1.3 million square meters, which is larger than the area of Erlitou site palace.

In addition to the palace area, more than 30,000 large burial areas of 30,000 square meters have been unearthed in Taosi site, as well as city walls, houses, religious buildings, roads, wells, pottery kilns, ash pits and semi-crypt houses, and a large number of cultural relics such as pottery, stone tools, musical instruments and wood products have been unearthed.

In terms of scale, Erlitou is both a culture and a site, and Taosi belongs to the type of Taosi under Longshan culture. There are many types of Longshan culture, and Taosi is just one of them. According to the cultural similarity between unearthed cultural relics and buildings, culture classifies the sites in different regions as the same culture, and the sites belong to the same culture. Erlitou culture is 200 kilometers in Fiona Fang, while Taosi site is only 3 square kilometers. From this point of view, Erlitou and Taosi are not.

Compared with Erlitou site under Erlitou culture, Taosi site is similar in scale. Erlitou site is larger than Taosi site, but Taosi palace area is larger than Erlitou palace area, which is the scale contrast between them.

Third, compare the characteristics of the two websites.

Erlitou site has the following characteristics:

1, with the earliest urban trunk road network.

2. The palace building area with the earliest central axis layout.

3. The earliest bronze ritual vessels were unearthed.

4. The earliest bronze workshop was unearthed.

5. The earliest turquoise workshop was unearthed.

6. There is evidence that two-wheeled vehicles were first used.

Taosi site has the following characteristics:

1, find the oldest text.

2. The oldest musical instruments in China, such as Tan Drum and Teqing, were discovered, among which the bronze bell was the earliest metal musical instrument in China.

3. Found the earliest dragon totem.

4. Found the largest tomb group in the Yellow River Basin.

5. Discovered the oldest observatory.

6. Discovered the earliest building material slab tile in the world.

Comparing the characteristics of the two sites, you will find that Erlitou site has entered the Bronze Age, and not only bronze artifacts have been found, but also workshops for making bronzes have been found, which shows that Erlitou people have the conditions and technology to make bronzes. The bronzes unearthed from Erlitou site include weapons, ritual vessels, musical instruments, decorations and tools. , such as bronze knight for drinking, and ge and Lu as weapons.

The only regret is that no characters were found in Erlitou, and although small musical instruments similar to two bells were found in Taosi site, no professional bronze workshops were found, and the unearthed bronzes were relatively small and very rough, indicating that Taosi has just entered the embryonic stage of bronzes. Although there are words found in Taosi, there are only two simple words. Some people think that one of the words is Yao, but it is not certain and still controversial.

What they have in common is that they all have the function of cities. The city has palace area, city wall, sacrificial area and residential area, and the division of labor is obvious. From the point of civilization, Erlitou site is more civilized than Taosi site, which is mainly reflected in the manufacturing technology of unearthed cultural relics. After all, Erlitou site is hundreds of years later than Taosi site.

Fourth, the comparison of cultural influence.

The cultural influence of Erlitou site far exceeds that of Taosi site, which is reflected in the spread of culture. Cultural relics with Erlitou characteristics can be spread everywhere by virtue of Erlitou's influence, but Taosi ruins can't. This kind of spread is not only the spread of culture, but also the spread of Erlitou rule by virtue of its own political, economic, military and cultural advantages, which is easy to understand. For example, the Han Dynasty defeated the Huns and opened the Silk Road, which was a kind of external communication.

For example, two different styles of pottery were unearthed in Xiajiadian cultural cemetery of Dadianzi site in Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia. One is the pottery with local indigenous culture style represented by tubular belly and painted pottery, and the other is the pottery with the style of Taojue, Yi and Yi, which is closely related to Erlitou culture. It is separated from Erlitou site by the whole Shanxi province, hundreds of kilometers. Why is it Erlitou style?

We should know that the culture of a region has distinct local characteristics, and different regions have different characteristics. Unless it is the same cultural area, if different cultural areas have the same style of cultural relics, it is the spread of culture. Erlitou site has a powerful ruler who can use his military, economic and political advantages to expand Erlitou culture in all directions. In Maqiao culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Erlitou-style pottery, such as Jue and Yi, has also appeared.

Taosi site also has the ability to expand its style to the outside world. For example, a small amount of Taosi-style pottery can be found in Dawenkou site, Shandong province, and also in post-Hongshan Culture in eastern Inner Mongolia and northeast China. The number is not much, the area is not as far as Erlitou, and the expansion ability is obviously not as good as Erlitou, which shows that the ruler of Taosi is not as strong as Erlitou.

In addition, Taosi and Erlitou sites have existed for more than 200 years. After that, the Taosi Temple began to weaken, while Erlitou just began to grow, which also shows that the rise of Erlitou is related to the weakness of Taosi Temple, which is from the rise and fall of rebel sites in archaeological culture.

There is a sentence in Xu Hong's The Earliest China: Erlitou Site is the capital of the earliest wide-area kingship country in China so far. There is such a description:

China, the earliest civilized entity represented by Erlitou site and Erlitou culture, presents two unprecedented features in the history of human development in East Asia. These two characteristics can be summarized one by one. On the one hand, it refers to the enlargement and complexity of its capital city center, which can be called "the first king capital of China"; On the other hand, it refers to its extensive cultural radiation, forming the earliest strong "core culture" in China and even East Asia. Therefore, from the archaeological point of view, Erlitou culture and site is the earliest China, and Taosi site is one of the Longshan cultures earlier than Erlitou site, or Taosi is in the embryonic stage of "the earliest China".