"A total of 17 tombs have been cleared in Jiangjiashan Cemetery and have been basically fully exposed. However, the existing depth of all the tombs is relatively shallow, so the possibility that a small number of tombs were completely disturbed and destroyed cannot be ruled out."

The staff of the Zhejiang Institute took Kong Jianwen and his party to the construction site of Jiangjiashan Cemetery.

At this time, there were already 17 exploratory sites of various sizes on the construction site.

Each exploration square represents a Liangzhu noble cemetery.

"The tombs are all rectangular earth pit tombs with vertical pits. Only a small amount of human bones remain in some tombs, and the preservation is extremely poor."

This staff member, along with Kong Jianwen, Chen Han and others, came to the exploration area marked M7 and pointed to the inside of the exploration area.

Everyone craned their necks to look inside.

This tomb is located in the middle row of the cemetery to the west. It is stacked under the second layer and breaks the raw soil. It is a rectangular vertical pit tomb.

The filling soil in the tomb pit is gray-brown spotted soil, mixed with reddish-brown soil, and contains a small amount of burnt soil particles.

Judging by the naked eye, the length of this tomb should be more than three meters and the width a little more than one meter.

The burial tools have completely decayed, and the traces are not obvious. The soil inside the coffin is gray-red soil.

"Are there any funeral utensils?" Chen Han murmured.

From the traces in the soil layer, we can clearly see the traces of a "coffin" that is more than two meters long and 80 to 90 centimeters wide.

Because the color of the soil inside the coffin is different from that outside the coffin, the filling soil is light gray soil with a small amount of red soil.

It can be seen that there should have been a wooden coffin in the pit originally, but as time passed, the wooden coffin completely decayed, and the soil above collapsed, covering the original position inside the coffin.

This will cause the color of the soil inside the coffin to be a little different from that outside the coffin, just like backfill soil.

Because the raw soil structure is broken.

"The coffin is 2.33 meters long and 0.72 meters wide. There is one human skeleton in the tomb, which is extremely poorly preserved. Only some ribs, upper and lower limb bones can be distinguished. The orientation is unknown, and the head is facing north at 6 degrees."

The staff member of the Zhejiang Institute who led everyone carefully introduced: "Based on the unearthed jade Huang, jade spinning wheel, and filter, it is speculated that the tomb owner is a woman, and her age is unknown."

Kong Jianwen was a little confused and asked: "How do you distinguish the male and female of the tomb owner?"

"It's hard to tell the gender of these skeletons, isn't it?"

The staff member smiled and pointed to the faintly visible funerary objects in the tomb: "Based on past excavations in Yaoshan and other cemeteries, it can be seen that stone axes, tridental tools, and groups of conical tools are basically from male tombs."

"The jade huang, spinning wheels, steamers, and filters are basically from women's tombs. From this, the gender of the tomb owner can be roughly inferred from the relics."

Kong Jianwen nodded suddenly.

really.

Although mankind was originally a matriarchal society.

But basically after entering the Neolithic Age, late Homo sapiens around the world began to transition from a matrilineal society to a patrilineal society.

Because the emergence of the Neolithic Age increased male productivity and agricultural culture began to emerge, at this time, powerful men gradually replaced women and became the backbone of society.

In mature ancient societies like Liangzhu, the division of labor between men and women is already very mature.

For male tomb owners, the burial objects are generally related to conquests and military force, and most of them are buried with weapons.

As for the female tomb owner, because in the family structure, she is responsible for the family's textiles, clothing and food, so most of the burial objects are spinning wheels, steamers and other things related to food and clothing.

The emergence of the spinning wheel was a very important discovery.

Although the Liangzhu culture has been basically confirmed to have a textile industry and silk fabrics, the appearance of the spinning wheel can definitely prove that the Liangzhu people at that time had a textile industry and it was very mature!

The appearance of coffins is also very important.

This shows that the Liangzhu people were already proficient in using burial tools, instead of just digging a hole and burying some burial objects like some ancient tribal cultures in the Neolithic period.

They pay more attention to "posthumous affairs" and can use wood to make coffins and burial utensils.

The staff member continued: "Some tombs have traces of coffins and coffins, some tombs only have coffin traces, and a few small tombs have no traces of coffins or coffins."

"The funerary objects in the tomb are mainly jade articles, including congs, bis, crown wares, trident wares, huangs, conical wares, cylindrical wares, bracelets, end ornaments, tubes, beads, etc."

"Pottery is followed by stoneware. Pottery includes tripods, beans, ring-footed jars, basins, filters, retorts, etc. Stoneware includes only one kind of ax and a small amount of shark teeth."

One thing needs to be explained.

In Jiangjiashan Cemetery, the tombs of high-ranking nobles are buried, not the tombs of civilians.

These funerary objects of high-ranking nobles can only represent the living conditions of the high-ranking nobles of Liangzhu Kingdom, but cannot represent the majority of Liangzhu civilians.

At least in that era, Liangzhu people were not so luxurious that everyone could have a coffin to bury in after death.

After all, making a coffin requires cutting down huge trees, and then using the huge trees to make the coffin is a waste of productivity.

From the burial objects of these nobles, it can also be seen that Liangzhu has basically entered the age of jade and pottery.

At least among the nobles, low-end stone tools are no longer used. Jade is more widely used to represent power and force, as well as ornaments.

In terms of daily utensils, pottery is widely used.

If Chen Han were to classify it.

The Liangzhu Kingdom can be regarded as a civilization that is more advanced than the Neolithic Age, but slightly behind the Bronze Age.

They are no longer in the Neolithic Age, but they are not yet in the Bronze Age.

If we insist on classifying it, it should belong exclusively to the "Jade Era"!

The jade culture of the ancient Liangzhu country was extremely developed. Basically, the original styles of mature jade types from later generations can be found in Liangzhu.

It is no wonder that academic circles at home and abroad agree that the Liangzhu Civilization was the beginning of Chinese jade culture.

Although other late Neolithic Chinese cultures such as the Longshan Culture and Dawenkou Culture have all unearthed jade artifacts.

However, compared with those whose culture is sporadic and unsystematic, the jade culture of Liangzhu Civilization not only has a complete system, but also is very mature.

It is even possible that the jade culture of the Longshan Culture, Dawenkou Culture, and many later cultures in the Central Plains may have originated from Liangzhu.

It was the developed jade culture in Liangzhu that radiated influence to the outside world, which made many other cultures in the Central Plains begin to use jade.

"Dear friends from the Institute of Archeology, Academy of Social Sciences."

"The M1 tomb next to the M7 tomb will be left to you to excavate and clean up."

"This is a noble tomb with very rich grave goods."

The staff of the Zhejiang Archaeological Institute pointed to the M1 pit next to M7 with a smile, and informed Kong Jianwen and others about the upcoming work tasks.

There are a total of 17 noble tombs in Jiangjiashan. Due to lack of manpower in the Zhejiang Institute, at least 4 tombs have been allocated to the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences for help.

The first one, let’s start with Tomb No. M1!
Chapter completed!