A Comparative Study Of The Middle And Lower Reaches Of The Yangtze River In The Middle Neolithic Age

The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River play a pivotal role in our archaeological discoveries and research.Research on the cultural development and social process of this vast region will enrich our understanding of the evolution of civilization in the prehistoric period of our country.The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River have different cultural pedigrees and social forms.The process of social complication in the middle of the Neolithic Age started.The cultural exchanges between the two regions have gradually appeared,and the cultural influence between the two regions has also deepened.This article will conduct a comparative study on the five aspects of the natural environment,cultural sequence,interactive influence,production economy,and settlement patterns of the two regions in the middle of the Neolithic Age.It is hoped that on the basis of case studies,we will summarize the respective characteristics of the times between the regions,and then understanding the different choices made by the two regions on the path of cultural and social development in the early stages of the origin of civilization.The mid-Neolithic period is the period of transition from the last glacial period to the Holocene warm period.At this time,the temperature gradually increased,precipitation increased,and geological activities weakened.Under this background,the scope of human activities expanded,and people in the south gradually migrated from caves to the wilderness.As a result,the earliest wilderness sites in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were formed in the Liyang Plain and the Jinqu Basin.Under the general environment of favorable climatic conditions in the early and middle Holocene,the natural environment of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River also showed some differences.The vegetation types in the two regions are roughly the same.From the early to mid Holocene,the vegetation types experienced a change process from coniferous forest to coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest to deciduous evergreen broad-leaved mixed forest showing that the climate changed from dry and cold to warm and humid.However,environmental studies of some sites have shown that significant drought events occurred in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River around 8000 years ago.The global sea level rise caused by the increase in temperature has caused the lower Yangtze River to face the threat of transgression.Under the influence of this,the water level of the Yangtze River is also rising continuously in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.The Dongting Lake area is one of the areas where the lower culture of Pengtou Mountain and Zaoshi expands outward.Large lakes have appeared in this area between 8000 and 7000 years ago.The middle reaches of the Yangtze River can be distinguished from Pengtoushan culture,Zaoshixiaceng culture,Chengbeixi culture and Gaomiao culture according to different cultural features.The Pengtoushan culture is mainly distributed in the Liyang Plain,and can be divided into three phases and five segments,with an absolute age between 9000 and 7600 years ago.The lower-level culture of Zaoshixiaceng and Chengbeixi culture are mainly distributed in the Liyang Plain and the Yangtze River in western Hubei respectively.Both are developed on the basis of the Pengtoushan culture.The Zaoshixiaceng culture is divided into three phases and five segments,and the absolute age is between 7600 and 7000 years ago.The Chengbeixi culture is divided into three phases and six segments,and data on its absolute age is relatively scarce,roughly between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago.The Gaomiao culture is mainly distributed in the upper reaches of Yuan River and can be roughly divided into two phases,early and late,with an absolute age of 7800-6600 years ago.The Shangshan Culture and Kuahuqiao Culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are successively distributed in the same geographical area.The two can be divided into three phases,four phases and four phases.The absolute ages are respectively 9400-8400 years and 8300-7000 years ago.From the perspective of the composition of the pottery group in the first phase of Zaoshixiaceng culture,its main body inherited from the Pengtoushan culture,but at the same time there are many new cultural factors.These new cultural factors developed rapidly and became the main content in the second phase.The cultural factors of Pengtoushan culture were quickly dissolved.Chengbeixi culture also developed on the basis of Pengtoushan culture.Unlike the Zaoshixiaceng culture,the shadow of Pengtoushan culture can always be found in Chengbeixi culture,showing a kind of slow dissolution situation.The origin of the Gaomiao culture is still controversial,but its emergence must have a great correlation with the Pengtoushan culture and the Zaoshixiaceng culture.The middle reaches of the Yangtze River always show the phenomenon of cultural radiation centered on the Liyang Plain,which is mainly manifested in two aspects:one is that the formation of Chengbeixi culture and Gaomiao culture is directly related to the Pengtoushan culture;the other is that the former two have accepted more content of the Zaoshixiaceng culture in the development process,and they are the influence of Zaoshixiaceng culture relatively small.The Kuahuqiao culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is inherited from the Shangshan culture.Although the two are mainly characterized by the flat-bottomed device and the round-bottomed device,the quan-bottomed device and the ring-footed device have appeared in the late Shangshan culture.The Kuahuqiao culture is only rich.The shape of these two types of artifacts.The cultural exchanges in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River can be divided into three stages.The first stage is the early period of Pengtoushan and the Shangshan culture period,and there is no obvious dominant party;the second stage is the middle and late period of Pengtoushan culture and the earlier period of Kuahuqiao culture.The middle reaches have more influence on the lower reaches;the third stage is the later period of Zaoshixiaceng culture and Kuahuqiao culture.During this period,the archaeological culture in the lower reaches of the region is stronger.In terms of economics,the archaeological culture in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is dominated by hunting-gathering economy,while at the same time,the use of rice resources has been maintained.Both Pengtoushan culture and Shangshan culture should have started rice planting activities,which may be used as the main plant food source at some sites.Wild plant resources including starchy nuts and berries have always been the key development objects of people in the two regions.Hunting and fishing of wild animals are the main means of obtaining meat resources.Domestic animals appeared during the Kuahuqiao culture period and may exist in the Chengbeixi culture,but they never occupy a dominant position.Although hunting and fishing are the main methods of obtaining meat resources in the two regions,there are differences in the composition of meat resources due to the influence of the natural environment.The types and quantity of production tools show that meat resources occupy an extremely important position in the production economy of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River,and the status of plant resources is more prominent in the production economy of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.The distribution of sites in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is obviously affected by topography and river factors.The Pengtoushan culture and Zaoshixiaceng culture are mainly located in the Liyang Plain,and the sites are distributed in scattered spots;the Gaomiao culture,the Chengbeixi culture and the Shangshan culture and Kuahuqiao culture sites in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are mainly located in the valleys of mountains,In the basin,the ruins are distributed in a belt shape.The late Pengtoushan culture and the late Shangshan culture showed a trend of cultural expansion,and the ruins appeared in a wider range.The internal functional divisions of the archaeological and cultural settlements in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River are not obvious,and the burial areas and residential areas are mixed.However,the Pengtoushan Culture maintains consistency in the phased changes in the shape and layout of houses in the same residential area in the early and middle stages.This consistency is broken in the late stage.The functional zoning within the Shangshan cultural settlement is also not obvious.This situation was changed during the Kuahuqiao Cultural Period,and the tomb area began to be removed from the residential area.In the middle reaches of the Yangtze River,the settlement structure during the Pengtoushanc cultural Period changed from residential unit—residential area—settlement to a single house—residential unit—residential area—settlement.The settlement structure of Gaomiao culture and Zaoshixiaceng culture is a single house site—residential area—settlement.It is uncertain whether there are residential units at this level.The settlement structure of the Shangshan Culture is a single house site—a settlement.The Kuahuqiao culture is limited by insufficient materials,and its settlement structure cannot be determined yet.The social organization structure in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River has undergone two changes:the first time was in the middle period of Pengtoushan culture,when the basic social organization unit evolved from an expanded family to a nuclear family;The unit evolved from a nuclear family to an expanded family.The social organization structure of the Shangshan culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is a family-family association.By the time of the Kuahuqiao culture,there should be changes in the grassroots social organization,which is manifested in the reduction of the area of a single house.Regardless of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River or the lower reaches of the Yangtze River,the difference between the rich and the poor expressed by the tombs and burial objects was not obvious in the middle of the Neolithic.At the end of the article,we puts forward two thoughts.The first is the importance of cultural inheritance and cultural exchanges,and the second is the phenomenon of non-linear development in life and society.