Yangtze River History and Culture

Yangtze River History and Culture – Culture

Yangtze River Basin is one of the places where human beings lived longest. There have found Homo erectus fossils and several human beings relics in Anhui Province, and the place around Taihu Lake. Although the political center of Chinese in history almost were located Northern and Yellow River Basin,

Yangtze River Basin was important district for every dynasty for its agriculture potential. The Great Canal in Yangtze River area was built to transport the crops in Yangtze River Basin to the big cities in Northern. The south part of this Great Canal first used in 4th century BC, and many parts were built in 7th century.

Yangtze River History and Culture – Relics

The New Stone Age Relics of downstream of Yangtze River almost distribute on all the Jianghan District, especially the Jianghan Plain. Just in Hubei Province, there have found over 450 relics of New Stone Age, including 60 was unearthed; almost of them distributed in the conjunction place of Hanjiang River downstream and the Yangtze River midstream – Jianghan Plain. The Qujialing Culture, which equipped with early, middle and end period culture features, featured the small colorful potteries which were as thin as eggshell, spinning wheel of colorful potteries and so on. Except these, there also unearthed large amount of rice and animal remains, which proved that the stock breeding industry got development and the kinds of stock increased, and there appeared fishing industry.

The relics of ten thousands years Jiangxi Xianren (Immortal) Cave, suspending bucket ring in the midstream of the Yangtze River have clear stratum accumulation from the end of Old Stone Age to early of New Stone Age. Especially in the Chinese and American cooperation archeology activity in the 1990s, archeologists found the silica of rice in ten thousands years ago in the New Stone Age stratum, which brought forward the rice planting history for thousands years, and Yangtze River Basin has become one of the place where plant rice earliest. At the same time, in this stratum, archeologists also found large amount of ancient pottery shards which was 17000 years ago.

The New Stone Age Culture in downstream of Yangtze River can be represented by Hemudu Culture, Majiahong Culture and Liangzhu Culture. The Hemudu Culture Relic, which was located in Yuyao, near to Hangzhzou Bay, was found in 1973, and unearth for twice. There unearth 7000 pieces precious relics, including rice, rice hull, and bone plowshare which proved the people at that time have use bone plowshare in agriculture.

In the 1950s, there found a series of Shang Dynasty Culture relics in Yangtze River Basin. The Panlong City Relic which was unearthed in Hubei Province is the first Shang Dynasty ancient City in Yangtze River Basin. In 1989, there unearthed large amount of Shang Dynasty bronze wares, jade articles and potteries, which were 3200 years ago, and full of Southern characteristics. All of these relics in Yangtze River Basin are valuable for researching Yangtze River history during Shang Dynasty; and it also make Yangtze Cruise tourist become more wonderful.