Yangtze River Basin

 

'' It has been determined that this paddy field has a history of 6,500 years, making it the oldest and most well-preserved paddy field in the world.'' 

Chengtoushan Mountain Site

Chengtoushan Site is located in Nanyue Village, Chexi Township, Li County, Hunan Province. It belongs to the Neolithic and Bronze Age and is one of the earliest, most complete and richest ancient city sites discovered in China. 

The Chengtou Mountain site was discovered in 1979. From 1991 to 1998, archaeologists have excavated and cleaned it many times, revealing an area of 4,000 square meters, which basically clarified the scope, era and cultural connotation of the site.

The ruins are slightly circular in plan and surrounded by rammed earth walls  

Outside the city wall, there is an early ring moat and a later moat, with a total area of more than 150,000 square meters. Remains such as the bases of houses and buildings, pottery workshops, and tombs with sacrificial platforms, roads in the city were discovered in the city that have the earliest known examples of fired bricks and relics such as stoneware, pottery, jade, bone horns and carbonized rice grains were unearthed. 

The Chengtoushan site has a heavy accumulation of culture and can be divided into four periods. The bottom layer of the site is the Daxi culture period, which has been more than 6000 years ago. The second phase is the second phase of Daxi Culture a little later, about 5300 years ago. After that, it went through the Qujialing culture and Shijiahe culture (5000-4500 years), and the ancient culture of Chengtou Mountain only declined until the middle stage of the Shijiahe culture 4500 years ago.

The pottery workshops in the ruins are distributed in patches and the pottery tools are all available, indicating that agriculture and handicraft have a clear division of labor at this time. There are a large number of pottery unearthed at the site, rich in types, and the patterns and patterns are quite beautiful. The site reflects that humans in the Qujialing cultural period have mastered the fast-wheel pottery technology and began to produce special wine vessels, such as pottery pots, pottery goblets and warm pots.

A large paddy field was discovered on the north side of the East Gate of Chengtoushan Site, covering an area of 100 square meters. A relatively primitive artificial irrigation facility was also found on the side of the rice field. It has been determined that the paddy field has a history of 6,500 years since the earliest, making it the oldest and most well-preserved paddy field in the world.

The discovery and excavation of the Chengtou Mountain site is of great significance to the exploration of the development of prehistoric settlements, the history and technology of fortification, the formation of civilization in the Yangtze River Basin, and the cultivation and cultivation of rice. 

　　In 1996, the Chengtoushan Site was announced by the State Council as the fourth batch of national key cultural relics protection units. 

The remains of human sacrifices were discovered under the foundation of the wall. The remains of a gravel road, a river bridge and a river-control gate were also discovered at Chengtoushan. It is possibly one of the oldest walled sites in China, with the walls and moat built around 4000 BC, where it existed for two millennia.

The earliest known examples of fired bricks were discovered at Chengtoushan, dating to around 4400 BC. These bricks were made of red clay, which was obtained by digging into the loess strata. They were fired on all sides to above 600°C, and used as flooring for houses. By the Qujialing period (3300 BC), fired bricks were being used to pave roads and as building foundations at Chengtoushan. 

From 1991 to 2011, under the auspices of the Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Li County conducted more than ten archaeological excavations on the Chengtou Mountain site, and ancient city sites were unearthed successively. , Clan tombs, large altars, rice fields with complete irrigation facilities, and many other precious cultural relics.

　　Humans lived and engaged in production and other activities on this post 7000 years ago. People built a constant city as a defense. The existing walls are 25 to 37 meters wide and the city is 2 to 4 meters high. The site of the city is well preserved, and the plan is circular. It consists of a moat, a rammed earth wall and four gates in the east, west, south and north. The ancient city covers an area of nearly 80,000 square meters, plus the moat area has reached 150,000 square meters.

　　According to the book "The Mysterious Gaogang: An Interpretation of the Site of Chengtou Mountain", the southwest city wall of Chengtou Mountain has been found to have four large-scale fortifications, forming the corresponding four phases of the city wall, which has been increased from bottom to top. Each phase of the city wall has accumulated layers of inner and outer slopes. Among them, the first phase of the city wall is the oldest, about 6000 years ago. It was built directly on the original soil surface without any obvious traces of ramming.

　　Japanese archaeologists Takahashi and Kazuo Ryūnori estimated that only the scale and amount of labor required for the construction of the third and fourth phases of Chengtou Mountain’s walls were estimated based on the section left by the south gate, northeastern city wall and the moat: The dimensions shown in the Nancheng ditch show that to build a complete city wall and moat system, about 470,000 labor is required. Based on one cubic meter per person per day, it will take 6 to 7 years if 20 adult laborers are used per day. Take the northeast city wall and the moat. It is estimated that the total labor required is about 200,000 person-times. If 200 adult labor is put in every day, it will take 2 to 3 years to complete. The wall of Chengtou Mountain is more than 1,100 meters long, 13 meters wide, and more than 10 meters high. Even now, it is a big project. In the Neolithic period five or six thousand years ago, productivity was low, and it was definitely a miracle to be able to complete this huge project. An ancient city more than 6000 years ago was planned so well-organized, which made modern people admire the ancestors of Chengtou Mountain with admiration and awe.

　　If the ruins of Chengtou Mountain are considered in the ancient civilizations of the same period of the world, the earliest city wall discovered so far is the "Wall of Jericho" in Israel, built around 7500 BC. Compared with the "Wall of Jericho", the wall of Chengtou Mountain is more than 3000 years later. But in terms of the city's functions, Chengtou Mountain City integrates agriculture, industry, altars, palaces, and markets, and is one of the most complete ancient cities in the world. It appeared about 300 years earlier than the city of Hamoukar in Syria, considered to be the "earliest city in the world" for a long time, and it was earlier than another ancient city, the ancient city of Eridu in Sumer in Iraq More than 200 years ago.

The Chengtou Mountain Ancient City Ruins Museum displays the brilliance of southern China represented by the prehistoric human remains of the entire Liyang Plain that are hundreds of thousands of years old. Ancient civilization. The exhibition hall of the remains of the rice field altar, reproduces the religious consciousness of the earliest rice fields in the world and the ancient people. In the ancient rice fields, the three ridges formed long strips of fields and two ridges, and early irrigation facilities such as water storage pits and irrigation canals. The developed farming civilization is amazing.

Yoshinori Yasuda (2012). Water Civilization: From Yangtze to Khmer Civilizations. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 30-31. ISBN 9784431541103.

Yoshinori Yasuda (2012). Water Civilization: From Yangtze to Khmer Civilizations. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 33-35. ISBN 9784431541103.