Where did the Kuahuqiao people, the surfers of Qiantang River 8,000 years ago, go?

The winning works of the 2023 "China Science Popularization Star Creation Competition"

Author: Pan Haochen, Zhu Yi, Wang Guanqun

On the other side of the mountain and the sea, there is a group of tide-chasing Kuahuqiao people. They drive canoes and cut through the waves. They are brave and smart. Although they did not have a happy ending like the Smurfs defeating Gargamel, they left us precious ancient relics. The "collapse of Kuahuqiao culture" described next is different from the legendary stories of fighting against the natural environment such as "Dayu Controlling Floods" and "Foolish Old Man Moving Mountains". Kuahuqiao culture is a real Neolithic culture that can directly reflect the struggle between man and the natural environment.

Legend story - Dayu's flood control . Image from the Internet

About 8,000 years ago, the Kuahuqiao culture was born in the Kuahuqiao area of ​​Xiaoshan, Zhejiang, located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The two main representative sites of this culture are: Kuahuqiao Site (living center) and Xiasun Site (presumed to be a pottery workshop). In addition, there are other sites with Kuahuqiao elements in the Jinqu Hilly Basin area of ​​central Zhejiang, such as: Shangshan Site, Xiaohuangshan Site/Qingdui Site, Hehuashan Site/Changchengli Site, Huxi Site/Xiatang Site, etc. Today we mainly discuss the Kuahuqiao Site, the living center of the Kuahuqiao people in the Qiantang River Plain. Since the first excavation of the site in 1990, researchers from different fields have done a lot of work. Today, we combine palynology, stratigraphy and archaeology to comprehensively restore the ups and downs of the Kuahuqiao people at that time and the process of prosperity and decline.

The geographical location of Kuahuqiao people is a bummer

Geographical location of Kuahu Bridge

The Xiaoshan area of ​​Zhejiang Province, where the Kuahuqiao people live, is located in the Ningshao Plain, bordering the East China Sea to the east and the Qiantang River to the west. This pit is located in the unique "trumpet-shaped" terrain of the Qiantang River. This special terrain of "wide in front and narrow in the back" amplifies the turbulence of the waves, similar to the annual Qiantang River tide, which is a spectacular sight that everyone rushes to watch.

Qiantang River Tide Photo from the Internet

However, before the storm, this place was a peaceful "paradise" with beautiful lakes and mountains. It is this unique plain and lakeside environment that promoted the development of Kuahuqiao marine culture. Here comes the point. Archaeologists not only found the earliest canoe in East Asia, but also a large number of ancient rice and pottery in the site. The archaeological remains are very rich. Because the age is 1,000 years older than the Hemudu culture, which has always been regarded as the ancestor of the southern Neolithic culture, it shocked the archaeological community and became famous for a while.

The "Present Situation" of the Kuahuqiao People

It is also this "pitfalling" geographical location that made life difficult for the people of Kuahuqiao. According to natural evidence such as palynology and stratigraphy, the climate was warm and humid during the Kuahuqiao people's survival period, and the sea level was fluctuating and rising. Why do we say that? We need evidence to draw conclusions.

First, let's look at the evidence of pollen and algae in the strata. Researchers found that in the Ningshao Plain area, the pollen of warm and humid types such as Cyclobalanopsis and Quercus gradually increased from 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, and typical marine dinoflagellates appeared from time to time, indicating that the sea level has fluctuated rapidly since the ice age, and the sea water began to flood the low-lying plains. Therefore, it can be seen that the Ningshao Plain where the Kuahuqiao site is located experienced a rapid marine invasion in the Holocene, causing the sea level to rise by about 32 meters!

Pollen percentage map of Baima Lake drilling holes. Photo provided by Pan Haochen

Is this not enough? Let's look at the marine foraminifera evidence. We found that marine foraminifera in this area only appear in the Yangtze River Delta in strata less than 7,000 years ago, indicating that the marine invasion may have occurred between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago. Is this not enough? Let's look at the diatom evidence in the area. During the period of 9,300 to 8,100 years ago, there were many freshwater diatom species in the strata at the beginning, and then the number of seawater species gradually increased. This shows that the sea level was fluctuating and rising, and the Kuahuqiao area became a coastal area, which was frequently invaded by tides.

Although presenting evidence is really boring and may be confusing, it is these visible evidences that let us know that the people of Kuahuqiao may have suffered from the harsh environment caused by the rising sea level, such as floods. Therefore, in order to survive better, humans can only use their brains clumsily:

Developing high-end "real estate"

Before we talk about "real estate development", we should first mention the stone tool technology. Compared with the single-purpose chipped stone tools of the Paleolithic period, the people of Kuahuqiao were already able to polish stone tools. More than 100 stone tools were found in the Kuahuqiao site. The improvement of this stone tool technology was for better "real estate development". The discovery of a large number of house pillar holes and "single-log ladders" in the site area indirectly proves the existence of "stilted buildings" stilt buildings at the Kuahuqiao site.

Stilt-style buildings. Image from the Internet

This type of stilt building is very similar to the buildings that our Dai compatriots live in today. It is mainly designed to adapt to the needs of humid and rainy weather, and has the advantages of reducing mosquito infestation, preventing insects and snakes from entering, and resisting earthquakes. The survival logic of building this type of building is simple: the house is built high to avoid being submerged or washed away by floods.

Reverence for nature

"If you can't conquer, then surrender" is another strategy of the Kuahuqiao people. In order to avoid the impact of floods and waterlogging disasters, humans have great respect for nature. The sun pattern on this painted pottery expresses their worship of fire and the sun.

Sun pattern on painted pottery Source: Kuahuqiao Museum

In addition, some archaeologists speculate that the people of Kuahuqiao may have started to "count hexagrams" because scientists have found many strange symbols on pottery, and similar symbols have also been found in other sites such as Songze and Liangzhu. Researchers believe that these symbols have special connotations, such as the hexagram "six six one one one one" on the antlers, which represents "injury". If the speculation is correct, then the hexagram system has appeared as early as 8,000-7,000 years ago. Of course, the specific origin, development and connotation of the hexagram still need further research by archaeologists.

The "Poetry and Distance" of Kuahuqiao People

Although God didn't give them food, the people of Kuahuqiao never stopped striving for self-improvement! They made the following efforts:

Force value increased

They had everything, including tools of bone, wood, and bows and arrows.

Cultivation

Primitive rice farming had already begun to develop. According to the statistics of pollen and phytoliths at different points in the region, it was found that when human activities were frequent (i.e. 7,000 to 8,000 years ago), the corresponding Poaceae pollen showed a clear trend of increase, so it is speculated that it may be related to human domestication of wild rice. Scientific evidence shows that the Kuahuqiao people had already started rice cultivation activities. Of course, it was not the main source of food for humans at this time, mainly because Poaceae seeds not only have high starch content, but are also easy to store, which can alleviate the seasonal famine faced by humans in winter and spring.

collection

A large part of the food source of Kuahuqiao people came from fruits such as walnuts, water chestnuts, and acorns. A large number of acorn pits were found in the site. Archaeologists speculated that the purpose was to soak the acorns in water to eliminate the tannic acid in them and make them taste better.

Fishing and hunting

Among the more than 6,000 animal specimens collected at the Kuahuqiao site, there are mainly deer, buffaloes, pigs, and even a certain number of crabs that are delicious but not filling. Many of them retain traces of humans slaughtering, grilling, and sucking their bone marrow, indicating that food was not in short supply at that time.

Livestock

During the domestication process of wild animals, as the dietary structure changes, there will be obvious adaptive changes in the teeth, jaws and other parts. Therefore, based on the domestication characteristics such as the smaller size of dog teeth and the messy pig teeth, it can be confirmed that pigs and dogs were domesticated by humans during this period.

The pig mandible unearthed from Kuahuqiao has crooked teeth. Source: Kuahuqiao Museum

Textile

Getting rid of the simple and crude way of covering the body with leaves in the Paleolithic Age, the people of Kuahuqiao in the Neolithic Period possessed advanced textile technology, mainly using plants such as kudzu and hemp as textile raw materials to better improve their clothing.

drink wine

In addition to meeting the above basic needs of food, clothing, housing and transportation, archaeologists have found through functional research on pottery that the pottery with a bulging mouth and a flaming belly was most likely used to make wine. Imagine, with meat to eat, crabs to chew, and wine to drink, could the Kuahuqiao people be content to be a group of clumsy "primitive eaters"? Of course not, they began to have spiritual pursuits, because they were not satisfied with the immediate situation, they started planning for the next stage.

The bulging-bellied water vessel at Kuahu Bridge. Photo courtesy of Liu Li

Conquer the sea

During this period, they were full of energy and had no worries about food and clothing. Although there were floods, they were still under control. So they continued to use their brains to build the earliest canoe, and the paint to fill the holes in the hull also came along. Although according to the research of Japanese scholars, the canoe can only move in a small range in shallow waters, it is still the first step to conquer the sea.

Unearthed canoe Source: Kuahuqiao Museum

Tired, destroy it...

Building houses, paving roads, settling down, raising animals, building boats, everything was going on as planned, and the people of Kuahuqiao were gradually getting back on track. However, the weather continued to be bad, and nature, like the screenwriter of a soap opera, gave them a "bloody" reversal - the flood came even more violently! The continuously deteriorating environment buried the ambitions of the people of Kuahuqiao, and it was difficult to find their traces 7,000 years later.

We hope that they migrated to higher altitudes, that they traveled far away in canoes, that they survived, and that our work was not sufficient and that we had not yet found more evidence. Later, new archaeological evidence showed that there were remains of the Kuahuqiao culture in Shandong and northern Jiangsu, which may be related to the Kuahuqiao ancestors landing in these places in canoes. Although we are somewhat unwilling, we can only temporarily admit that the Kuahuqiao culture may not have been able to withstand the harsh environment and declined or was forced to drift away in canoes.

Landscape diagram of Baima Lake and Xiang Lake in the Kuahuqiao site area around 7700-7400. Drawn by Pan Haochen

The Kuahuqiao culture has far-reaching research significance for the archaeological community: its discovery broke the original dual cultural situation of Hemudu (7000-5800 years ago) and Majiabang (7000-6000 years ago) in the Ningshao Plain, and its discovery pushed the origin of rice cultivation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River forward by 1,000 years.

Although culture has disappeared, human civilization will not stop developing. After the Neolithic Age, there are the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Humans gradually stepped out from the shadow of nature, took the initiative to master resources, sow seeds, domesticate creatures, and create writing. In this era of struggle, human civilization is becoming more and more splendid. I hope that when future generations excavate the sites of our 21st century culture, they can also give a thumbs up to these early pioneers who bravely stood at the forefront!

References

Jiang Leping's Study on Kuahuqiao Culture

Jiang Leping's Archaeological Report on the Puyang River Basin (Part 1)

Liu Li Early pottery, porridge cooking, wine making and the development of social complexity