The first grain of rice was born in Wannian Fairy Cave.
1, a township cadre first discovered this ancient cave with a cultural eye.
Wannian Xianren Cave is located at the foot of Xiaohe Mountain in Dayuan Basin, about 2 kilometers away from the county seat/kloc-0. It is long and narrow, with a quiet and quaint beauty. "Annals of Wannian County" has a cloud: Eight Wonders of Fairy Cave. There are many stones here, exquisite and graceful, and varied; The mountains are beautiful and the walls are horizontal; When it rains, the mountains are full of valleys and waterfalls fly; Rocky mountain is full of cypresses and pines, green and upright; Deep in the cave, there is a small pond with a diameter of feet. The water in the pond is very clear, and sometimes there are small fish that you can't catch. On the left side of the cave, there is a small river dancing and flowing gently, rising in spring and summer, shaking with white waves, similar to a water town. "This is a rare typical cave site in the transitional period from the end of Paleolithic to the early Neolithic in China." Wang Bing Wanxiang, director of Wannian County Cultural Relics Bureau and director of the museum, introduced the reporter. This is an ancient cave with an arc-shaped entrance. The cave is cool and the ground is wet. The cave covers an area of nearly 1000 square meters and is nearly 10 meters high. There are three small holes in the cave. Electric lights were installed on the wall of the cave, but the light was still dim.
From the perspective of culture, culture is everywhere. In the late 1950s, a cadre of Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee who went to the countryside became the first person to discover Xianren Cave from a cultural perspective. At that time, intellectuals found many stone tools and animal bones at the mouth of the cave and realized that this was not a simple cave. He immediately reported to the province. No one can remember the name of this cultural person so far.
1February, 962, the Dayuan basin was chilly in spring. At that time, the archaeological team of Jiangxi Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee quietly entered Xianren Cave for preliminary investigation. Archaeologists found many animal bones and a large number of snail shells at the mouth of the cave, and collected a perforated stone tool and a sharp stone. In addition, it is found that there is a large amount of cemented accumulation near the hole wall on the right side of the hole, about 1.3 meters high. In addition to many animal bones and snail shells, there are a few pieces of red sand pottery in the pile. These signs indicate that this is an ancient cave site.
In March of that year, the provincial archaeological excavation team came to Xianren Cave, and the 50-day trial excavation was fruitful. Within the scope of 28 square meters, * * has obtained more than 300 relics (pieces) such as stone tools, bone horns, mussels and pottery fragments, and more than 600 animal bone fragments. Meanwhile, burning fire remains were found at 12. 1In April, 964, the archaeological team of Jiangxi Provincial Museum conducted a second trial excavation of Xianren Cave, and the types of cultural relics obtained were the same as the previous one. Because of the relatively backward technical means, archaeologists believe that Xianren Cave is a simple late Neolithic period, which is only 6000 ~ 7000 years ago. Coupled with the later "Cultural Revolution", the excavation of Xianren Cave was interrupted, and the newly awakened Xianren Cave was silent again.
In any case, the production tools and other cultural relics unearthed from the site are enough for us to imagine the life of the primitive ancestors: the ancestors tied clothes sewn with animal skins around their waists, hung ornaments connected by drilling holes in mussels on their chests, held labor tools, went out fishing and hunting, and collected wild plant fruits, snails and other aquatic animals to satisfy their hunger. At the same time, make a fire in the cave to cook and keep warm, and defend against the invasion of wild animals at night. From the analysis of the living environment of wild animals, Dayuan Town today was still a forest and lake area in that year. However, the primitive ancestors overcame nature and survived tenaciously with their clumsy stone tools and the strength and wisdom of the group.
2. The earliest rice remains in the world were found in Xianren Cave and Douhuan Site.
To fully understand Wannian Fairy Cave, we have to talk about Douhuan Site. Douhuan Site is located at the top of Douhuan Mountain in the southwest of Dayuan Basin. This mountain is named because there is a stone cave at the top, which looks like a bucket, and it is close to the fairy cave 1000 meters. It was discovered by Wang Bingwan during the cultural relics survey in Wannian County, and was later called "Wang Cave".
The earliest silica specimen of cultivated rice was found in Xianren Cave, which was attributed to an American old man full of cultural responsibility. The American old man is a world-famous archaeologist Dr. Manis. 199 1 autumn, Manis was invited to attend the "First International Symposium on Agricultural Archaeology" in Jiangxi. The old man doesn't know Jiangxi, but he knows Xianren Cave. He thinks that the origin of rice should be in China, south of the Yangtze River. The old man also said that human beings were originally in caves, but later they came to the plains. The earliest rice cultivation should have been found in caves. The following year, the old man made an on-the-spot investigation of the immortal cave in Wannian and proposed to dig the immortal cave again. After returning to the United States, Manis, on the one hand, raised funds, on the other hand, kept applying to National Cultural Heritage Administration, China, asking for cooperation with China in joint archaeology, archaeological excavation and multidisciplinary research on the origin of rice in northern Jiangxi. 1993 August 18, National Cultural Heritage Administration approved Manis's application, and appointed Peking University and Jiangxi Archaeological Research Institutes to carry out excavation together with the foundation represented by Manis. 1993 In the golden autumn, a large group of people went to the scene of Wannian Xianren Cave to try to uncover the mystery of the origin of rice. This is the first time that Jiangxi has engaged in Sino-foreign cooperative archaeology, and the archaeological lineup is very strong. After the archaeologists arrived at Wannian Fairy Cave, they began to clean up the early fill. Dig inch by inch, advance section by section, and carefully sample layer by layer. Archaeologists also excavated 18 sites at the site of the barrel ring, with an excavation area of18m2 and an average excavation depth of1.10m. In addition to some stone tools, bones, mussels and pottery fragments, mountains of animal bones have been found. The following summer, good news came from Peking University. Through sporopollen analysis, cultivated rice specimens were found. According to the news from the United States, rice samples were also found through the inspection of plant silica. On September 1995 and 18, Chinese and American archaeologists once again set foot on the immortal cave and the Douhuan site. Three years of hard exploration finally yielded unexpected results. Among them, the most striking is the rice phytolith found in Xianrendong and Diaotonghuan sites1strata from 2000 to 7000 years ago.
Xianrendong site has two different periods of cultural accumulation, the lower layer is the end of Paleolithic and the upper layer is the early Neolithic. The site of the bucket ring is divided into three layers: upper, middle and lower. The lower layer is late Paleolithic, the middle layer is late Paleolithic, and the upper layer is early Neolithic. In the late Paleolithic strata of the two places, wild rice phytoliths were unearthed, and in the early Neolithic strata, abundant wild rice phytoliths and cultivated rice phytoliths were unearthed. This shows that 6.5438 million years ago, people began to cultivate rice artificially and collect wild rice at the same time; The rice phytolith found in the stratum around 7500 years ago is cultivated rice, which shows that rice farming has been formed. This is an amazing discovery! Silica planted in cultivated rice 65,438+0,000 years ago is the earliest remains of cultivated rice found in the world, which advances the rice cultivation history in China discovered in Hemudu, Zhejiang by nearly 5,000 years.
3. Jiangxi Province is the origin center of rice cultivation in the world.
The origin of rice cultivation has been a hot topic in international archaeology and agriculture for many years. When and where did rice cultivation originate? It has been argued for more than half a century. Vavilov, a famous geneticist in the former Soviet Union, affirmed that China was one of the earliest and largest centers of crop origin in the world, but thought that rice originated in India. Since the 1950s, China's archaeological cause has developed vigorously, and the age of rice specimens unearthed in various places is getting earlier and earlier, far exceeding that of India and other countries in Southeast Asia. Especially in Hemudu, Zhejiang, Caoxie Mountain, Jiangsu, Pengtou Mountain, Hunan and many other places, 7000 years ago, the theory that the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were the origin centers of rice gradually attracted worldwide attention. Thus, China is the origin of rice cultivation in the world, and it has become the knowledge of archaeological experts and scholars all over the world.
The discovery of silica samples of cultivated rice plants in Wannian Xianren Cave 1000 years ago undoubtedly provided extremely powerful evidence for the origin theory of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and provided extremely powerful scientific evidence for proving the origin of rice in China. At the same time, it also shows that Ganpo area is the origin center of rice in China and even in the world.
Chen Wenhua, vice chairman and senior researcher of China Agricultural History Society, who is known as the first person in agricultural archaeology in China, said that this inference is also supported by evidence: there is still a wild rice in dongxiang county near Wannian, which is the most widely distributed common wild rice in the world. Chen Wenhua told reporters that more than half of the world's population now eats rice. In other words, the ancestors of Xianrendong planted the world's first rice, feeding more than half of the world's population, which is greater than the contribution of the four great inventions!
4. Douhuan is a big slaughterhouse for the residents of Xianren Cave.
1August 1999 to 65438+October 20001October, Peking University Archaeological Department and Jiangxi Archaeological Research Institute re-excavated the Xianren Cave and the Barrel Ring Site. The cultural relics unearthed from the two sites are extremely rich. In the 1990s alone, 650 stone tools, 235 bone horns, 54 perforated mussels, 786 pottery fragments and more than 20 human bones were unearthed, and more than 35,000 animal bone fragments were also unearthed.
From the cultural connotation reflected by the inclusions unearthed on each floor of the two cave sites, it shows that they are inextricably linked. The stratigraphic accumulation of the two sites is complete and clear, which is rare among many cave sites found in the south of the Yangtze River. It provides valuable information for discussing how mankind transited from Paleolithic to Neolithic, and under what circumstances and conditions the Neolithic revolution took place. In addition, the pottery pieces unearthed in the lower layer of Xianren Cave are all red pottery coarse sand, with low temperature, impure pottery color, uneven thickness and uneven inner wall, and the pottery making technology is quite primitive. Because the pottery was too broken, only one former was repaired. This is the earliest molded pottery seen in China so far, and it was fired 10,000 years ago.
The Diaotonghuan site has one more stratum than Xianren Cave-the late Paleolithic period. From the unearthed cultural relics, the cultural characteristics of Xianren Cave and Diaotongyuan site are basically the same in the late Paleolithic and early Neolithic. In addition, experts believe that from the location of the two sites, the topography of the sites themselves and some signs revealed by excavation, it is equivalent to the late Paleolithic period, when primitive pre-democracy lived in a bucket ring with high terrain. At the end of the late Paleolithic period, especially with the arrival of the Neolithic Revolution 10,000 years ago, due to the changes and gradual transformation of the environment in Dayuan Basin, the original residents who mainly lived in the bucket ring began to walk down the mountain. Taking Xianren Cave and other caves as the main living places, from the thousands of animal bone fragments unearthed, the bucket ring in this period should be a temporary camp and slaughterhouse for the residents of Xianren Cave to hunt. After hunting wild animals, the residents of Xianren Cave slaughter and share them in the bucket ring. When they are full, they take the rest back to the cave.
Archaeologists found that the life information of the primitive ancestors of Xianren Cave was suddenly interrupted 6000 ~ 7000 years ago, and it lasted for two or three thousand years. Why did the primitive ancestors of Xianren Cave suddenly disappear from Xianren Cave? It is still a mystery. Some people speculate that primitive ancestors may have made such a great migration six or seven thousand years ago. The reason for the migration is the attack of wild animals, or the threat of floods, or long-term drought, or earthquake collapse, or another new house ... Among them, the argument of earthquake collapse has a very difficult basis, that is, when archaeologists in our province tried to dig the immortal cave for the first time, they found a boulder at the entrance, and there were four separate human skulls under the boulder. It was identified that there was an adult man and a woman and two children at the scene. An eight-year-old and a one-year-old child seemed to be lying in a woman's arms. It could be an earthquake or something. A big stone collapsed above the cave, killing four fleeing ancestors.
Where did the primitive ancestors of Xianren Cave go after they got out of the cave? Did you take the cultivated rice to other places during the migration? So far there is no answer. Wang Bingwan, director of Wannian County Cultural Relics Bureau and director of the museum, said that it would be a great initiative for them to find traces of their ancestors in Wannian Fairy Cave.
Thousands of years of folk culture has precipitated into a ten thousand-year-old rice culture with local characteristics.
When the first rice plant was transplanted by the primitive ancestors of the Wannian Xianren Cave, China's primitive farming culture-rice farming culture began. Since more than 10 thousand years ago, primitive ancestors have lived an agricultural life of "rice soup fish" Since then, rice has been the main cultivated crop in the county except for its sudden disappearance in two or three thousand years. In the long-term practice of rice cultivation, primitive folk culture has gradually formed a rice cultivation culture with local characteristics in folk songs, festivals, customs and farming techniques for thousands of years.
For example, in agricultural proverbs, farmers for ten thousand years often use phenology to predict their farming. There are some popular sayings, such as "ignorance, soaking seeds in society", "planting beans around Qingming Festival", "planting cotton before Grain Rain", "small cutting in summer, big cutting in summer" and so on. In the long-term and arduous practice of planting rice, many ballads have been formed for recreation, such as "A thread": "A thread, when you cross the river, you will plant food by the river; If you plant a tree, you can hope it will lead to a wife. "There are many folk songs that have been circulating in urban and rural areas for thousands of years, such as" Longbow Song "and other flat-cavity folk songs, which are mostly sung when working in farmland, with regular rhythm, like saying and singing, and are longer than narrative; In addition, there is a folk song sung in collective labor, called Zuoge, such as "Song of Rice" and other agricultural songs. The tune is clear, cheerful, beautiful and full of life, which fully embodies a rice culture with strong local characteristics.
Take the custom of festivals as an example. beginning of spring is a society in spring during the Fifth Five-Year Plan. After this day, the weather became warmer and farmers began to plow their fields in spring. For thousands of years, farmers thought that cows raised in front of the cooperative should not get wet, and when they get wet, they will grow lice. In the old days, the Spring Festival Society was a day to worship the public, and it was said that the public was the land god who presided over the safety of people and animals. People perform social dramas and pray for good weather, national prosperity and people's peace. In a sense, the custom of "Spring Society" conveys to us the original information of rice farming management technology. Now scientific farming, most farmers don't believe in God for tens of thousands of years, praying for heaven, and social temples have also been destroyed.
In terms of diet, for example, every household should make rice candy every Spring Festival. For thousands of years, farmers have always been "chickens crow and ghosts crow", and it is hard to say how hard it is to farm. Therefore, farmers cherish the hard-won harvest and celebrate it sincerely. During the harvest season in the second half of each year, almost every household begins to cook rice. This kind of rice is very big and will be soaked in water until the next spring. In addition, when grain is put into storage and new rice is put on the market, farmers are used to brewing rice wine with new glutinous rice to share the joy of bumper harvest.
Customs related to rice cultivation are also common in weddings and funerals of thousands of people. For example, there are three steps: funeral service (informing relatives and friends), big funeral (putting the body in the coffin after washing and changing clothes), and funeral service (carrying the coffin to the ground). Regardless of the size, a mourning hall should be set up, and the body should be presented in the living room, and a coffin should be set up for relatives and friends to pay homage to. A bowl of white rice must be placed next to the body's head, and an oil lamp must be lit at the feet. According to legend, it is absurd to let the dead eat in the underworld, but it also shows the importance attached to rice. Another example is Shangliang. Farmers have the custom of "throwing beams" when building houses. When the pillars of the wall are completed, there will be a ceremony to erect beams, and the carpenters will take the polished wooden beams and head for the new house step by step. When the wooden beams are put on the gables in turn to form a beam-type roof truss, a red cloth bag filled with white rice is hung on the main beam immediately, which is called "beam pressing rice". Then throw rice cakes or steamed buns from the main beam.
The numerous living customs of farmers in the past ten thousand years have fully demonstrated the historical process of the emergence, evolution and inheritance of rice culture in this ancient land from different fields of life. Many rice cultural customs are still continuing today.