The Sanxingdui site has a total of four cultural layers.

The first phase is the early accumulation, which belongs to the late Neolithic Age culture, which is the earliest Neolithic civilization in the Sichuan Basin. It can be roughly the same period as the Dawenkou Culture and Yangshao Culture in the Central Plains.

The second period of culture has entered the early bronze civilization, which is almost the stage when the Xia Dynasty existed.

The third phase of culture is the middle bronze civilization. The use of bronze has entered a mature stage, which corresponds to the period from the late Xia to the early Shang in the Central Plains.

The fourth period of culture is also the middle bronze civilization, corresponding to the period from the late Shang Dynasty to the early Zhou Dynasty!

From the distribution of cultural layers, it can be seen that the Sanxingdui Civilization bred in the Sichuan Basin should be a culture developed locally.

Of course, in the process of development, Sanxingdui culture should have communicated and integrated with external cultures.

In the Sanxingdui site, jade ritual vessels that are typical of the Yellow River Basin culture have been discovered, as well as pottery styles from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

However, because Shu is far away from the Central Plains, it is a basin surrounded by mountains.

Therefore, the culture developed in Shu is more independent than the culture in the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin!

The most distinctive ones are the bronze figures unearthed from the Sanxingdui site.

The "faces" on these bronze figures are basically very different from the human figures in Central Plains culture.

So much so that many modern netizens once believed that the Sanxingdui ruins were left behind by aliens.

That's why their eyes are so big and protruding, they look like aliens...

Of course, this statement is completely nonsense.

Through archaeological discoveries, it is absolutely certain that the Sanxingdui culture is an indigenous culture that originated from the earth.

It is only because they have not had much interaction with the Central Plains culture that the style of the cultural relics in the Yellow River Basin appears to be very different.

The Sanxingdui civilization itself is a very unique civilization with many artifacts being unique.

And this particularity of civilization is mainly reflected in the unprecedented height of art.

Especially the unique and exquisite shapes of some bronzes and the superb casting techniques.

This civilization is full of human elements.

In the artifacts unearthed in the Central Plains during the same period, people are not the main subjects, but decorations.

Sanxingdui is different. It uses human beings as the main body to create art based on models, giving full play to the romantic imagination of the ancient Shu country.

At that time, the Central Plains region was dominated by authoritarian politics and royal power politics.

The political system of the ancient Shu Kingdom was different. The dominant theocracy was relatively strong, and religion was used to maintain the operation of the country. Therefore, the bronze Dali man was probably the image of the highest-level priest or wizard.

Because he is a priest or wizard, his image should show some "extraordinary" characteristics.

Therefore, when making these bronze figures, a lot of the romance of the ancient Shu people was integrated into them. They exaggerated and created these "priest" images with very large and protruding eyes, which is a kind of abstract art.

It’s not that people from the ancient Shu country really looked like this.

This can actually be seen in some figures and murals from the late Neolithic to the early Bronze Culture in Europe.

[A book-chasing app recommended to me by an old book friend I have known for ten years, Yeguo Reading! It is so easy to use. I rely on this app to read and listen to books while driving and before going to bed. You can download it here.]

Some early European cultures and national sculptures and portraits were also very abstract, so abstract that they looked more like toads than people...

This kind of "abstract art" has always existed widely in early civilizations in various regions around the world. Especially the civilizations with richer religious cultures became more abstract.

Perhaps the ancient Shu people were indeed a group of people with relatively big eyes, but they just had a pair of beautiful "big eyes", not to the extent of goldfish eyes.

The reason why the Sanxingdui ruins are definitely considered to be the ruins of Chinese culture is that they are an integral part of Chinese civilization.

This is because although Sanxingdui culture developed independently in Shu, its culture itself has been integrated with many other branches of Chinese culture.

Its main cultural factors are local, and it has continuously absorbed a large number of foreign cultural factors.

Its bronze casting technology originated from the Central Plains region during the Xia and Shang dynasties, from the core civilization areas of Erlitou to Yinxu.

Secondly, it also absorbed production technologies such as rice planting and city wall building from the Shijiahe Culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Some jade congs and cone-shaped vessels are almost the same as those unearthed in Liangzhu, which is enough to judge that Sanxingdui was also influenced by Liangzhu culture.

The Qijia culture in the northwest Gansu and Qinghai regions also exerted a considerable influence on the final formation of the Sanxingdui culture.

It can be said that openness and inclusiveness are the most prominent characteristics of Sanxingdui culture!

Although this is a local culture developed in Shu, it has never been separated from the influence of Chinese civilization from beginning to end!

We might as well understand it this way.

Sanxingdui is not a civilization that follows the rules. It is like a naughty child and has a lot of personality.

Although the Yin and Shang dynasties had a greater influence on the Central Plains, they did not accept all these cultures, but selectively absorbed them. After taking them, they transformed and innovated according to their own wishes, thus forming their own cultural characteristics.

.

It was also the "rebellion" of Sanxingdui culture that left behind such a splendid civilizational relic!

Over the past hundred years, excavation work at the Sanxingdui site has been carried out intermittently.

Although the cultural relics on display in the locally established Sanxingdui Museum are basically from the Shang Dynasty.

But this does not mean that the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago was the origin of the Sanxingdui civilization.

In fact, the late Shang Dynasty was the prosperous period, or the peak period, of the Sanxingdui site and the Sanxingdui civilization.

After this peak, the Sanxingdui culture suddenly and mysteriously disappeared about 2,800 years ago.

As for how the Sanxingdui culture perished, archaeologists currently have various theories and arguments, but they are currently unable to determine the cause.

But the past of Sanxingdui culture has been almost studied.

Sanxingdui culture, especially the Sanxingdui site, not only covers the short few hundred years of the Shang Dynasty, it lasted for a very long time.

The Baodun Culture in the late Neolithic Age around 4,600 years ago is the descendant of the early ancient Shu civilization represented by the Sanxingdui Culture.

From that time to the late Shu culture during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, more than 2,600 years ago, it lasted for more than 2,000 years.

During these more than 2,000 years, the ancient Shu civilization and its predecessors were nurtured, born, developed, prosperous and declined here, which was basically a complete process of human development.

Except for how the Sanxingdui culture suddenly disappeared between 2600 and 2800 years ago, and then transitioned into the late Shu culture, there is no definite conclusion in the academic world.

Other aspects of Sanxingdui culture are basically clear.
Chapter completed!