www.chinaview.cn 2005-09-02 15:50:17
Archaeologists discover world earliest millets

BEIJING, Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese archaeologists have recently found the world earliest millets, dated back to about 8,000 years ago, on the grassland in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

A large number of carbonized millets have been discovered by Chinese archaeologists at the Xinglonggou relics site in Chifeng City.

The discovery has changed the traditional opinion that millet, the staple food in ancient north China, originated in the Yellow River valley, Zhao Zhijun, a researcher with the Archaeology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua on Friday.

Carbon-14 dating shows that the millets were from 8,000 to 7,500 years ago. The ancient millets still keep some features of wildness, said Zhao.

Archaeological discoveries show that the main cereals, including wheat, barley, rice and maize all originated 10,000 to 8,000 years ago.

"The new discovery indicates that millet was no exception," said Zhao.

He said that China has two centers of agricultural origin. The southern region had rice as the main crop and the northern region had millet as the main crop.

Academic circles both at home and abroad have conducted in-depth research into the origin of rice in recent years. But the origin of north China's dry-farming has not been paid enough attention by researchers, said Zhao.

However, archaeologists from Britain and Canada have shown great interest in the new discovery.

"The research into millet is becoming a new focus of archaeology," said Zhao.

He explained that many experts believe research into the originand spread of millet may shed new light on exchanges between the ancient civilizations in the east and west.

It is a shared opinion that the exchanges between the east and west should be dated back to a time much earlier than the "Silk Road", a trading route between Asia and Europe about 2,000 years ago.

Some experts have found evidence that an ancient tribe nomadically traversed the vast Eurasian grassland about 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, helping to promote exchanges between the ancient civilizations in the east and west.

Millets were mainly distributed at the southern areas of the Eurasian grassland in ancient times. The new millet discoveries were located at the east end of the Eurasian grassland, said Zhao.

Archaeologists hope to use these new findings to illuminate the origin and transmission pathways of millets, Zhao added.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/02/content_3433186.htm

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People's Daily, September 01, 2005
Huge ancient porcelain pit discovered

About 1 million scraps of broken porcelain, some of which may be up to 800 years old, were unearthed recently from an enormous pit in downtown Beijing, the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau announced yesterday.

However, the discovery has raised some puzzling questions for archaeologists, such as the origins of the pit itself and the long-lost techniques used in making the porcelain, according to the Beijing Academy of Cultural Heritage Studies.

"It is very rare that a single pit contains so many different types of porcelain, and that the pieces seem to have come from at least seven ancient kilns, such as the famous Jingdezhen, Junyao and Dehua Kilns," said Zhu Zhigang, the academy researcher who led the excavation.

Yu Ping, an expert in porcelain studies, said most pieces in the pit were made during the early and middle period of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Some are said to date back as early as the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368).

"Their glaze and painted patterns are very delicate and vary quite a lot, which provides a lot of material for research," said Yu, who is also the deputy director of the cultural heritage bureau.

Standing in front of more than 1,000 boxes piled high containing the excavated scraps, she added: "To reassemble a complete porcelain set from the numerous scraps will be very hard. We need much more investigation and study to solve these puzzles, especially how the pit came into being."

According to Zhu, the "treasure bowl" 7.8 metres long, 5 metres wide and 4.3 metres deep was found in late July during a construction project in Maojiawan, located in the northwest corner of the imperial city of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

"The discovery of the pit also provides us with important clues on the evolution of ancient Beijing," Zhu said. Zhu, who also took part in archaeological excavations at several Olympic construction venues, said more than 1,000 sets of priceless relics including earthenware, goldware, porcelain and jadeware have also been unearthed there.

According to the Law on Cultural Relics Protection, archaeological investigation and excavation must be done before a major construction project is carried out.

"We have undertaken excavation at eight Olympic venues, including the Wukesong Cultural and Sports Centre, the Olympic Village and the National Stadium," Zhu said.

"The total excavation area is more than 1.1 million square metres, and we have unearthed more than 450 ancient graves so far, dating from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) all the way back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24)."

Mei Ninghua, director of the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, said that as massive construction projects are being carried out around the 3,000-year-old city, archaeological workers will have unprecedented opportunities for additional finds, but also face challenges salvaging the relics.

"It is very encouraging that the construction sector can team up with the cultural heritage protection departments to preserve ancient treasures," Mei said. "These are the common wealth of all human beings."
Source: China Daily

http://english1.peopledaily.com.cn/200509/01/eng20050901_205828.html

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China to salvage 800-year-old ship on "Marine SilkRoad"
www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-26 00:21:43
by Yu Fei

BEIJING, Aug. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- A merchant ship loaded with exquisite porcelain left a port in southern China to trade with foreign countries by the ancient "Marine Silk Road". It sank, probably due to stormy waves, and was buried quickly by silt and slept under the water for about 800 years.

The sunk ship, dated back to the early Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), was the first ancient vessel discovered on the "Marine Silk Road" of the South China Sea and was named "Nanhai No.1", meaning South China Sea No.1.

Chinese archaeologists, using global positioning system (GPS) technology, have accurately located the ship and will make a huge"steel basket" to salvage the ship with the silt around it together.

"It is unprecedented in the field of underwater archaeology both at home and abroad," Zhang Wei, director of the Underwater Archaeology Center at China's National Museum, told Xinhua on Thursday.

Zhang said that traditionally archaeologists would excavate therelics on the sunken boat first and then salvage the boat.

"In order to better protect the precious relics on Nanhai No.1,and gain essential information, we plan to salvage the ship with silt together and move it into specially built museum to do the excavation carefully," Zhang said.

As early as 2,000 years ago, ancient Chinese traders began to ship chinaware, silk and cloth textiles and other commodities to foreign countries along a trading route starting from ports at today's Guangdong and Fujian provinces to countries in southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.

The maritime trading route, known as the "Marine Silk Road", together with the ancient Silk Road running through the hinterlandof Asia and Europe, were the bridges connecting the ancient civilizations in the east and west.

Nanhai No.1, accidentally found in 1987, is located some 20 seamiles west of Hailing Island of Yangjiang City in south China's Guangdong Province, and more than 20 meters deep in the sea. The ship, more than 25 meters long, is the largest cargo ship from theSong Dynasty discovered so far.

Green glazed porcelain plates, tin pots, shadowy blue porcelains and other rare antiques have been found during the initial exploration of the ship. Archaeologists estimate that there are probably 50,000 to 70,000 relics on the ship.

The two meters of silt have helped protect the treasures and the ship during the 800 years, but have also brought difficulties to archaeologists in excavation.

"We could see nothing in the water area, and could only work bytouch in the silt," said Zhang Wanxing, a member of China's national underwater archaeological team.

Measuring, drawing and photographing the relics were almost impossible. Drainage of the silt in the sea would cause damage to the porcelain on the ship, said Zhang.

"At last, we chose the plan to salvage the ship and silt together," said Zhang, adding that Guangdong Province has earmarked 150 million yuan (about 18.5 million US dollars) to build a "Marine Silk Road Museum", to preserve the salvaged ancient ship.

In order to avoid damage to the relics caused by a change of environment and pressure, the ancient ship, wrapped in silt, will be put in a huge glass pool, in which water temperature, pressure and other environmental conditions will be the same as on the sea bed where the ship has slept for 800 years.

Archaeologists will conduct thorough excavations of the ship inthe pool, said Zhang.

Looking through the glass of the pool, visitors may observe thearchaeologists' work. "Some of qualified visitors may even dive into the water to watch the excavation closely after some training," said Zhang.

Li Peisong, director of the archaeological department of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said the creative excavation and protection plan, unprecedented in the world, is still under repeated discussions by cultural relics experts in China.

The experts have offered many suggestions to make the plan perfect and ensure the safety of the relics during the salvage andtransfer of the ancient ship, said Li.

So far, Chinese archaeologists have found more than 10 relic sites of ancient ships along the "Marine Silk Road". The excavation of Nanhai No.1 will be of great importance to the research of the "Marine Silk Road", the history of China's foreigntrade, cultural exchange, porcelain, shipbuilding and navigation, said Zhang Wei.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/26/content_3404539.htm

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Chosun Ilbo, Aug. 25, 2005
Heating System Confirms Ancient Kingdom Was Korean
The largest "ondol" heating system dating from the Barhae kingdom has been unearthed in a nearly intact state in Russia's Maritime Province, confirming the kingdom to have been a Korean settlement.

Ondol, literally "warm stone", is an under-floor heating system where flues carry hot gases below the living space. They were a distinct feature of Korean dwellings and are not found in the remains of Chinese, Khitan or Jurchen homes.
[image]

The discovery proves not only that Balhae was a successor state to the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo, but also defeats the logic of China's recent "Northeast Project", which says Koguryo and Balhae were simply autonomous Chinese frontier districts.

The Koguryo Research Foundation and Russia's Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of the People of the Far East, which are conducting joint excavations at a site in the Russian town of Kraskino, announced Thursday they confirmed remains of ondol pipes 14.8 m in length presumed to be from the 10th century, toward the end of the Balhae period.

The trace of the U-shaped ondol pipe which points toward the southwest, is 3.7 m. wide to the west, 6.4 meters to the north and 4.7 meters to the east, and is 1-1.3 m wide. Prof. Evgenia Gelman of Far-Eastern State Technical University, who unearthed the remains, said the discovery clearly showed Balhae to have been a successor state to Koguryo.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200508/200508250008.html

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China Daily August 24, 2005
Ancient Site Reveals Stories of Sacrificed Horses

A trip to Zibo might leave you with the similar impression as to a trip to Xi'an, especially when you visit the relics of horses buried for sacrifice.

Zibo, in east China's Shandong Province, is the location of the state of Qi's capital in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). During this period, five feudal lords were able to gain control over the other states, with Duke Huan of Qi the head of the five.

The difference between the horse buried for sacrifice in Zibo and the terracotta warriors and horses in Xi'an of Shaanxi Province is that the horses in Zibo were live horses, killed especially for sacrifice.

The site of sacrificed horses was found in the village of Yatou in the 1960s, where many tombs of the Qi's emperors and aristocracies are still visibly seen on the plain.

In the No 5 tomb, 145 sacrificed horses on the northern side of the tomb were unearthed. And in 1972, on the western side of the tomb, 83 more buried horses were found.

According to the investigation by archaeologists, the sacrificed horses were buried on the eastern, western and northern sides of the tomb, and there might be upwards of 600 horses in total, although most of them have not been unearthed now due to consideration of difficult conservation.

The buried horses were young and middle-aged horses aged from 5 to 7.

According to archaeologists' speculation, these horses were fed with a lot of alcohol and fell into unconsciousness. Then they were beaten to death on the head with some heavy tools. It can be seen from the horses' broken skulls now.

The horses were arranged into two lines and laid on one side in the posture of running with their chins up. It seems that they are ready to rush into a war at any time once the battle drums are beaten.

Standing in front of the graves and seeing the line-up of horse skeletons, it is possible to get a sense of the tumultuous atmosphere of the time, with the sounds of battle drums and the screams of soldiers.

The horse, in China's history, was both a tool of agricultural production and a military object.

The number of war chariots was a major index to measure a country's competitiveness.

If a war chariot driven by four horses was considered as one unit, a country with more than 1,000 such units would be regarded as a powerful state at that time.

In the vault, there were buried about 600 strong horses, which could equip 150 battle vehicles, equivalent to the total armament of a small country at that time.

So it can be concluded just from the large number of sacrificed horses that Qi, in the Spring and Autumn Period, was a leading state with strong economic and military power.

As archaeologists discovered, Duke Jing of Qi, the owner of the No 5 tomb, was the 25th emperor of Qi. He held the post for 58 years, the longest term of rule in Qi's history.

Historical records show that Duke Jing had an infatuation with horses. He employed many people to feed and train his beloved horses in his palace.

When a favourite horse died, the horses' raisers would also be killed and buried together with the horses for sacrifice. It was brutal, but it proves the important role of horses at that time.
(China Daily August 24, 2005)

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Archaeology/139518.htm

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China Daily, August 24, 2005
Romans in China Stir up Controversy

Xie Xiaodong, a life sciences researcher, has finally started the laboratory test he wanted to do 10 years ago.

He hopes a comparative DNA analysis may get him closer to unraveling a mystery that has haunted him for a decade.

The findings may help establish a genetic link between some villagers in Yongchang County, Northwest China's Gansu Province, and the ancient Romans in the Mediterranean.

When Xie was attending his post-graduate courses in Lanzhou University in 1995, he heard about stories of some ancient Roman soldiers who later ended up in Yongchang County, about 500 kilometers to the northwest of Lanzhou, the provincial capital.

Xie was intrigued, hoping to explore it with his studies in genetic research.

Research forerunners

Xie, however, is a newcomer in the search for the ancestry of the small group of farmers in Zhelai Village of Yongchang County. In June, he went to the village to collect samples from the villagers who have blue eyes, blond hair, big noses and prominent cheekbones. They look more Caucasian than Asian.

According to Song Guorong, a local villager with a good knowledge of Liqian (ancient name of Zhelai Village), Chinese researchers suggested that Liqian might have some links with ancient Rome in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1955, Homer Hasenflug Dubs, professor of Chinese history at Oxford University, surmised that some of the 10,000 Roman prisoners taken by the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae in southeastern Turkey in 53 BC made their way east to today's Uzbekistan and later enlisted with the Hun chieftain Jzh Jzh against the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220).

Dubs derived his speculation from ancient Chinese Han Dynasty history annals, which described a battle between the Han empire and Jzh Jzh in western China.

The annals noted that about 150 men from Jzh Jzh's army took up a "fish-scale formation," which Dubs surmised to have been the Roman testudo formation.

Dubs then asserted that these men, captured by the Chinese, then settled and built their own town called Liqian (Li-chien) the Chinese transliteration of "Alexandria."

In 1957, Dubs published his book entitled A Roman City in Ancient China.

Thirty years later, David Harris, an Australian writer and adventurer, read Dubs' book and came to Gansu to search for Liqian, which he called "a city built by Romans in China 1,300 years before Marco Polo entered Cathay."

During his trip, he met Guan Yiquan, a scholar in the history of Central Asia at Northwest University of Nationalities in Lanzhou, who had already probed into Liqian for about 10 years.

Guan, who was a young interpreter for the American Air Force in Chongqing during World War II, discussed in detail the questions Harris raised during his journey to Yongchang.

In 1991, Harris published his book, Black Horse Odyssey, mainly sharing his experiences of the journey.

Meanwhile, Guan was still writing his own work on his research into this possible "Roman city." However, Guan died in 1998, leaving behind a draft of 450,000-Chinese characters.

Guan Heng, Guan Yiquan's son, said he is trying to continue his father's studies and hoping to publish the work one day.

In his letter to Guan Heng, Harris wrote: "Without (Old) Guan's work, we in the West would know so little about the story of the Roman troops in China."

Indeed, today, in an e-mail to China Daily, Harris admitted that there was no new development in the study of "Roman city in China" in the West.

Over the years, a few more scholars have joined in the search.

Chen Zhengyi, a historian at Lanzhou University who had introduced Guan Yiquan to Harris, said he could cite proof from Han Dynasty annals to support these scholars' speculations.

Challenges

So far, their research has remained inconclusive.

Dubs' theory was considered "interesting and provocative" but was criticized as jumping to too many conclusions in his assertions, according to an article on the Pennsylvania State University website.

Yang Gongle, professor with Beijing Normal University, said there has not been sufficient proof to link the villagers with the ancient Romans.

According to Yang's research, Liqian County was established in 104 BC, half a century earlier than the proposed arrival of the Roman soldiers.

Meanwhile, he noted that the fish-scale formation had nothing to do with Roman legion's testudo strategy.

The double wooden palisade, which might have looked like fish scales, was widely used in constructions in Central Asia and India at that time, Yang said.

There is no link between the name Liqian and the Roman legions, Yang argued.

The debate took a new turn after a group of ancient tombs dating back more than 2,000 years were uncovered in Yongchang in 2003 during the laying of the country's giant west-to-east natural-gas pipeline project.

From one tomb, archaeologists found the owner of one tomb to be 1.8 meters tall in life. Some researchers believe this offered more proof that soldiers from ancient Roman legion once lived here.

However, Zhang Defang, director of Gansu Provincial Archaeology Team, pointed out that the tombs were dated to the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220). The tomb owners should have no relations with the ancient Romans.

The development and wide application of DNA technologies have opened a new approach for researchers like Xie, who are bent on unraveling the mystery.

DNA lends a hand

However, Xie and his colleagues are encountering tremendous complexities.

The area where Yongchang is located was a trade hub along the ancient Silk Road, where people of various ethnicities from as far as the Mediterranean came and went, Xie said.

Moreover, soldiers in the Roman legions were supposed to consist of peoples of different ethnic and national backgrounds.

Because the Roman Empire was at that time at the height of its power and splendor, it had conquered many countries and regions across Europe, Africa and West Asia, he added.

According to Zhou Ruixia, Xie's assistant, they will build up the genetic data from the local villagers with Caucasian features and compare the data with those of European as well as Western, Central and East Asians.

They will report their research results in academic journals in the United States or Britain.

Two years ago, Ma Runlin, a bio-chemist based in Beijing, also collected blood samples from Yongchang people for DNA analysis.

However, he has not finished his research yet.

In an e-mail to China Daily, Ma said he is collaborating with British researchers in the genetic study of the villagers' ancestry.

He does not know when he will finish the research.

"I have backache. I needed to input 1,000 lines of data with 16 numbers in each line yesterday ... We're doing the experiments at the fastest speed we can," the 26-year-old said. "Please don't push me any more."
(China Daily August 24, 2005)

http://service.china.org.cn/link/wcm/Show_Text?info_id=139547&p_qry=archaeology

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Archaeologists Find Evidence of Large-scale Salt Production in Ancient China

Large-scale salt production occurred during the first millennium before Christ in the earliest "workshops" yet uncovered in China, archaeologists reported on Monday.

In a latest joint study, researchers from China and US found multiple lines of evidence of salt production at Zhongba, an archeological site lying along the Yangzi River in Zhong Xian County, Chongqing, China.

Their paper is published on the on-line issue of the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. The authors from the Harvard University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Science and Technology of China, are all internationally acknowledged archaeologists.

Salt production and trade is thought to be critical to the development of all states and emergent empires. Until now, however, scientific evidence of early salt production has rarely been presented, and no studies of early Chinese salt production have provided unequivocal proof.

But the four lines of evidence at Zhongba demonstrate that the main product of the site was salt, said the researchers.

Several lines of historical and cross-cultural analogy point to salt production. Pottery and ceramic vessels and debris excavated from Zhongba are "structurally similar to ethnographically and historically identified salt production facilities from Mexico, Africa, and elsewhere," said the researchers.

The second indicator is the similarity between the chemical composition of local brine and soil samples from archaeological features that are also thought to be salt production facilities.

Analyzing local soil from production features with X-ray fluorescence, the researchers found higher levels of calcium and magnesium as the results of salt production.

The third data set comes from x-ray diffraction analysis of residues found on the pottery at Zhongba. The mineral compositions of these residues are consistent with those residues found on ancient salt-boiling pan, said the researchers.

The fourth line of evidence, according to the paper, is traces of sodium chloride on the interior surface of ceramic vessels. Using a scanning electron microscope with an energy dispersive spectrometer, the researchers said the ancient Chinese used these vessels to boil salt from brine.

Therefore, the researchers concluded that salt production was the most significant activity at Zhongba during the first millennium B.C.

"Furthermore, the homogeneity of the ceramic assemblage during Phases I and II suggests that salt production may already have been significant in this area throughout the second millennium B.C." they suggested in the paper.

The work, representing the oldest confirmed example of pottery-based salt production yet found in China, also provides an early example of salt production discovered in China and presents a methodology for evaluating salt production sites in other regions, noted the researchers.
(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2005)

http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/139414.htm

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China Began Salt Production 3000 Years ago: Archaeologists

Chinese and American archaeologists have found out that the earliest salt production activity took place in China at least 3,000 years ago.

Their findings were reported in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

Experts from the two countries detected credible evidence of a large-scale salt production base at an archeological site dating back to more than 3,000 years ago in southwest China's Chongqing municipality.

Field research proved that the pottery vessels unearthed from the Zhongba archeological site in Zhongxian County share characteristics with those found in other salt-production areas in the world.

Chemical analysis of soil at the site and excavated potteries found residue substances, including calcium, magnesium, and calcium carbonate created in salt-making.

Sodium and chlorine, the two chemical elements in salt, were also found inside the pottery.

The research team included distinguished archaeologists Rowan Flad from Harvard University and Wang Changsui from the University of Science and Technology of China.
(Xinhua News Agency September 3, 2005)

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Archaeology/140746.htm

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600-year-old Ancient Warship Found in Shandong

Archaeologists have recently found a well-preserved ancient warship dated back to some 600 years ago, at a relics site in the ancient Dengzhou Harbor in Penglai, east China's Shandong Province.

This is the first discovery of a large ancient ship in China in over two decades.

The wooden ancient vessel, more than 20 meters long, is believed to be a warship from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), said You Shaoping, director of the Shandong Cultural Heritage Bureau, on Thursday.

The value of the ancient warship is yet to be determined by experts, said You, adding that it is similar to another ancient ship excavated not far away from the site about 20 years ago, but better preserved than that one.

In 1984, a warship of Yuan Dynasty was found in Penglai, and the ancient ship was the largest and best preserved ancient ship in China at that time.

The ancient ship, unearthed in 1984, is 28 meters long, 5.6 meters wide, and 1.2 meters high. The streamline warship was designed for fast navigation, said experts.

During the excavation of the ship some 20 years ago, a second ancient ship was found. But archaeologists buried it up again because half of the ship was covered by a local home.

Local government conducted a desilting project at the ancient harbor site this year. As residents of the site were relocated, archaeologists began to excavate the buried ship. To their surprise, the third, better preserved ship was discovered.

Experts said Chinese navigation in the Yuan and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties was relatively developed. The ancient Dengzhou harbor had been an important military harbor in north China 1,000 years ago.

The discovery of the ancient ships is of great importance to the research of China's history of warships and harbors, said experts.
(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2005)

http://www1.china.org.cn/english/features/Archaeology/138191.htm

 

 

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