Origins Project: All Points of Origin
Hello, my name is Scott Pruett and I’m an anchor with NewsChina. With our podcast, we aim to provide insight into the current trends of modern China allowing you to clearly see what’s happening today through a historical lens.
Today we’ll have the second installment of our two-part feature where we discuss a nationwide archaeological project that challenges previous notions of Chinese civilization through scientific evidence to better understand all those ancient ruins left behind.
Wang Wei, chairman of the Chinese Archaeological Society, said that because of its strong focus on ancient societies, the Origins Project prioritized the research of cities, city walls, palaces, and other major archaeological sites.
Instead of indulging in research of mysterious relics excavated from the Taosi site, archaeologists focused on something less eye-catching: the foundations of the city wall made from earth, that differs from that found in the immediate area, and lime discovered in the palace’s foundation. Gao Jiangtao, researcher with the Institute of Archeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that experts from the Origins Project came to the site in the 2010s and suggested he focus on the palace, as it represents sovereign power and would more likely reveal the political and social landscape of the site.
Lü Weitao, a researcher with the National Museum of China, told The Context, “According to the latest archaeological findings, these cultural regions ushered in the dawn of civilization around 53- to 55- hundred years ago. There were exchanges between the upper tiers of society from each of them, thus forming the earliest Chinese cultural circle.”
At the Shijiahe Site, which is a walled Neolithic complex in Hubei Province that covers 120 hectares, researchers identified a sacrificial area, a palace, and a handicraft workshop. They unearthed tens of thousands of red clay vessels and many small clay figurines. As the largest and most important site in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, Shijiahe may have been a political and cultural center, according to the researchers.
At the Taosi site, archaeologists unearthed hundreds of large tombs with exquisite burial objects and many smaller tombs without them, showing that class division in the middle reaches of the Yellow River was already established. Lü told our reporter, “All these facts are basically uncontroversial.”
Taosi is one of the four major capital cities the project is investigating. Zhao said, “We have searched for the earliest State in China since the Origins Project launched.”
And Wang said, “Of all the contributing cumulative factors, kingship and the State are the key elements that brought culture across the threshold to civilization.”
Four capitals of prehistoric states stand out, including Liangzhu in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Taosi in Shanxi province, Shimao in Shenmu, Shaanxi province, and Erlitou in Luoyang, Henan Province.
Among the Origins Project’s achievements was the discovery of the 5,300-year-old Liangzhu site. On July 6, 2019, UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site, recognizing its status as an early “regional State with a unified belief system based on rice cultivation in late Neolithic China.” In the 1980s, two Liangzhu cemeteries were uncovered. Thousands of exquisite burial artifacts suggested that a developed society had prospered there. In the 1990s, a 30-hectare palace complex was unearthed. Excavation revealed 300 hectares of inner city in 2007, 630 hectares of the outer city in 2011, and the remains of large hydro projects in 2015. For archaeologists, it was not until the discoveries of city walls, hydro projects, a palace complex, and large granaries that Liangzhu could be considered a civilization.
At Taosi, unearthed artifacts revealed advanced religious beliefs, culture, and technologies. Four plates painted with serpentine animals recovered from tombs called “dragon plates” suggest dragon worship. Researchers found that some vessels were painted with red characters dating back 800 years before the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, which are believed to be the earliest evidence of writing found in China. One character resembles the modern Chinese character of wen (文), which means “writing” and “language.”
The Shimao Site, which dates back more than 4,000 years, is the largest walled prehistoric site discovered in China so far. Many jade objects and altars have been unearthed from the 400-hectare site. Some researchers suggest there is evidence the Shimao people defeated and occupied Taosi.
While Erlitou is newer than Taosi, it still precedes the Shang Dynasty. Some archaeologists believe it was very likely to be the capital of the oldest recorded dynasty, the Xia. The Xia governed a much larger area than other possible political entities in Taosi, Shimao, and Liangzhu. The Erlitou culture is credited with making the Central Plains the center of Chinese civilization.
These sites offer possible evidence to unlocking the mysteries of ancient Chinese civilization. For example, since Liangzhu has a large-scale hydro project, Gao Jiangtao hypothesized that Taosi, which is also located between a mountain and a river, should have a similar project. However, he has not had time to pursue it. Taosi hosts the world’s earliest observatory, demonstrating an astonishing level of astronomical understanding over 4,000 years ago. Inspired by this finding, researchers discovered astronomical sites in other Neolithic sites across China.
Other Neolithic sites from 3500 to 1500 BCE were also included into the Origins Project to provide greater context.
In 2021, researchers at the Gangshang Site in Tengzhou, Shandong Province discovered jade and stone yue, a kind of crescent-shaped weapon in some tombs, suggesting social strata in early states. Soon afterward, the Origins Project included the site, as well as the Jiaojia site in Shandong Province. These two sites may provide new insight into Chinese civilization in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. According to Wang Wei, there are some 20 additional sites in the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Liao River basins that have yet to be included in the Origins Project.
Scientific Evidence
As Gao walked the Taosi site that August afternoon, he spotted a stone fragment the size of a schoolbag under some soil. He unearthed the stone and noticed a well-polished and smooth groove on one side. Gao immediately recognized it as a stone mill used to grind paint pigments. He loaded the stone in his SUV to bring it to the laboratory, where they could extract organic residues from its surface to identify the plants ancient people ground on it.
The method, called phytolith analysis, is a micro-botanical technique that archaeologists use to study ancient plant remains. Found in some plants, phytolith is silica based, making it highly resistant to decomposition. It can remain in nature for millions of years.
Lü Houyuan, a researcher with the Institute of Geology and Geophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, specializes in agricultural archeology and is a key member of the Origins Project. He told The Context the research team used phytolith analysis to identify rice fossils at many sites, including the Shangshan Ruins in Zhejiang Province that date back 10,000 years, the 7,000-year-old Peiligang Ruins and the 6,000-year-old Yangshao Ruins, both in Henan Province. These discoveries upended previous theories on the development of rice farming in China.
Initially, grain farming and rice farming developed separately in ancient China. Over the past decade, Lü Houyuan’s team has focused on when and where these crops appeared for evidence of exchanges between cultures. They analyzed the phytolith of thousands of modern plants to form a sample library to compare with phytolith from the remains of ancient grain and rice farming to map out patterns of exchange.
As the Origins Project continued, more scientists from the natural sciences joined. According to Gao, each year natural science experts would come to Taosi for over 10 days or even a few months. They worked with Gao to extract samples for research and observe the archaeologists on site. DNA experts tested animal bones unearthed from the Taosi site to find they were from cattle, sheep, and other animals from West Asia. This revealed a chain of transmission: about 5,000 years ago, cattle and sheep, wheat and metallurgy originated in West Asia, arrived first in northwest China about 4,500 to 4,300 years ago and then spread to the Central Plains.
Wang Wei said, “Almost at the same time, China introduced key cultural elements, such as the cultivation of millet, to Central Asia, West Asia, and finally to Europe. This results from a combination of multiple disciplines. You can’t just study wheat or animals.”
DNA testing of the sheep bones from Taosi revealed another phenomenon: the sheep were all very old when they died. This may suggest that sheep were not used to provide meat, but raised for their wool and milk.
Yuan Jing, a researcher with the Institute of Archeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an expert on archaeological technology, told our reporter that among all the ongoing excavations, researchers at Erlitou are using the most up-to-date tech, particularly in the analysis of human remains.
Yuan said this tech provided experts with concrete evidence to understand the city in more detail. For example, strontium isotopic analysis of 18 human bone specimens excavated from Erlitou revealed that seven of them were not native to the area. This suggested Erlitou, as a capital city, had attracted people from different places. Yuan added, “It was a metropolitan city 3,800 years ago like today’s Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.”
Wang Wei said, “About 80 to 90 percent of the Origins Project’s funding goes to technology.” For example, the project purchased carbon-14 dating equipment from overseas with a margin of error of 50 years as opposed to the 200-300 years of older equipment, a significant improvement in accuracy.
Environmental studies provide a macro perspective. Mo Dowen, a professor with the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University, adopts environmental archeology to explore the decline of Liangzhu. Large amounts of marine life remains, such as single-cell algae, were discovered in the local sediment dating to before and after Liangzhu’s demise, an indication of devastating floods. Mo found that sea levels of the East China Sea rose at the time, causing the Qiantang River to flood in the Hangzhou Bay area. As a result, the Liangzhu had to abandon their home, and southeastern China lost its dominant position.
Internationally, doubts linger over the scientific merit of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project as well as the Origins Project.
In a 2016 article titled “The Problem of Typology in Chinese Archeology” in journal Early China, author Anke Hein, an associate professor of archeology at the University of Oxford, cautioned that the national-level project may induce scholars to (and I’m quoting now) “restrict themselves to typological and classificatory issues instead of conducting open-ended research into various parts of prehistory.”
Professor Zhao told our reporter, “When addressing archaeological results, people may still hold different views. Maybe they always will. At best, there is more consensus on certain issues. But even previous consensus could collapse someday. For example, even today, many scholars still have reserved opinions on whether Liangzhu is a State.”
Back at Taosi, Gao and the reporter escaped the scorching sun in the shade of a tall earthen mound near the palace area. He stacked four bricks and sat to take a rest. Conditions at Taosi remain primitive. There is not even a temporary shelter for workers on site.
However, the local government has plans to develop Taosi for tourism. Gao said, “Apart from expanding a narrow single lane road to four lanes to connect the site with a nearby highway, a Taosi Museum is also the works. They already poured the foundation.”
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Ni Wei, translator Wang Yan, and copy editor JT. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.