Chinese archaeologists have discovered a village which boasts a recorded history of more than 6,000 years in central China's Henan Province.
Yuyang Village, located 22 km northwest of Anyang City, in northern Henan, records the chronological development process of Chinese history, constituted by locals, in a period of over 6,000 years with vivid, colorful relics, said Tang Jigen, head of the Anyang Work Station under the Archaeological Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Tang said most of the relic items spotted in the village were fragments of daily life used by common folks, like cooking utensils, pottery jars, and other kinds of pottery and porcelain ware.
Ruins of irrigation canals and ditches built in the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC) and kilns of the Northern Dynasties (386-581 AD) were also discovered in the village.
Tang said the date of the relics unearthed in the village started from as early as the Yangshao Culture period, dating back to 5,000 BC-3,000 BC, the Longshan Culture period, dating back to 3,000 BC-1,700 BC, and then to the Shang Dynasty (1,600 BC-1,100 BC), the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC-476 BC), the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC), the imperial Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), the Northern Dynasties (386-581), the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and to the Republic of China (1912-1949).
Archaeologists also found objects and clues reflecting the period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-1953) in the early post-liberation period and the Cultural Revolution period (1966-1976) and other big events in modern China.
Diversified village constructions include the present-day stylish red brick-structured houses and blue brick-structured and tile-roofed houses and elegant courtyards of the Qing and Ming dynasties.
Human beings began to move into this ancient village possibly before the Yangshao Culture period, Prof. Wang Yingxi, a noted historian, said in his General History of Anyang, a book with approximately 500,000 characters.
Covering four square kilometers, Yuyang is a village situated on a mound, or a piece of highland, 500 meters away from a local river, the Zhanghe River, which flows from northern Henan into the neighboring Hebei Province.
Historical records show that Zhanghe River flooded many times but Yuyang Village remained intact. The village got its current name "Yuyang" during the Ming Dynasty.
Yuyang Village had been a major ferry and a booming commercial center since ancient times, Prof. Wang made the conclusion on the basis of his discovery of ruins of ferry facilities by the side of Zhanghe River and a stretch of government-built road, leading to the ferries.
Now a village with a population of more than 3,200, local Yuyang village folks have 24 different surnames, which Prof. Wang cited as eloquent evidence that Yuyang's residents come from far and wide and they were probably the descendants of ancient merchants, who came and settled down in the village.
Han Baochen, a 90-year-old villager, recalled that Yuyang used to be a bustling town with a bigger population in the early years of the Republic of China, when it was teemed with hostels, stores and agencies involved in transportation of commodities.
Han said he had personally seen trains of horses and camels coming from areas of present-day Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Zhangjiakou of Hebei Province, north China, to trade goods in Yuyang village.
(Xinhua News Agency April 12, 2004)
