Chapter 22 Section 2 High City Walls

At the end of the Neolithic Age in China, primary cities appeared in many places, which created the foundation for the emergence of metropolises.In fact, there are a few cities that have reached a considerable scale, and are not far behind the cities of the civilized age. After the increase in social productivity, the population proliferated rapidly and was relatively concentrated, and large settlements different from ordinary villages appeared; handicraft technology developed to a high level and was in the hands of a few people, and became more specialized (including pottery, jade carving, textiles, etc. ), the handicraft industry has begun to be separated from agriculture, and the residences of handicraft workers have also been separated from agricultural villages; social division of labor has become more and more detailed, trading activities have become more frequent, centralized trading places have formed, and markets have appeared; knowledge and wealth have been concentrated in a few In the hands of people, the isolated and scattered rural living conditions can no longer meet the needs of some privileged people, all of which are the economic basis for the emergence of cities.

The development of society from clan communes to tribes and tribal alliances inevitably gave birth to level-by-level management agencies. The residence of high-level power agencies is generally built in the economic center. This is the political basis for the emergence of cities. Cities are the power of rulers. center. There are also military reasons for the emergence of cities, mainly for defense.In addition, there is a very important point, there are religious reasons for the emergence of cities.The rulers managed to a large extent through the "government of the gods", and they had to hold activities of respecting heaven and earth, or "ruling by ritual".To worship the heavens and worship the gods, there must be special religious places, which are often the location of the city.The capitals of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties had ancestral temple buildings, and the later feudal dynasties also made ceremonial buildings an indispensable part of the capital. The emergence of this tradition can be traced back to the era when the city originated.

A large amount of data obtained from prehistoric archaeology shows that some important castles and cities have appeared in the Longshan era. We may wish to briefly describe these discoveries. As far as the current findings are concerned, the ancient cities of the Longshan period can be seen more in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, such as Hougang in Anyang, Henan, Pingliangtai in Huaiyang, Wangchenggang in Dengfeng, Wangcun on the edge of Shouguang in Shandong, Chengziya in Zhangqiu, and Huixian County. Mengzhuang, Haojiatai in Yancheng, Dinggongcheng and Tianwangcheng in Linzi, etc.

What was discovered in Hougang, Anyang was a section of rammed earth wall with a width of 3-4 meters and a length of more than 70 meters. The size of the city circle is not clear, and many house foundations were found in the city. The city site of Pingliangtai in Huaiyang is square, covering an area of ​​more than 50,000 square meters.The top of the rammed city wall is 8-10.2 meters wide, the bottom is 13.5 meters wide, and the current height is 3.6 meters.There is a city gate in the north and south of the city wall, and there are two guard houses built with adobe at the south gate. Drainage pipes were found under the nearby roads.A rammed earth platform was found in the city, and on the platform there were the foundations of rectangular row houses.

What was discovered at Wangchenggang in Dengfeng were two juxtaposed city sites. The west city was trapezoidal in plane, and most of the east city was washed away by torrents.The total area of ​​the two cities is about 10,000 square meters, which is a small castle.There is nothing left of the city wall, only the foundation trenches excavated during the construction of the city remain.In the city, foundation pits for martyrdom of humans and beasts were found. The city site of Wangcun on the borderline of Shouguang is trapezoidal in shape with rounded corners, with a total area of ​​nearly 50,000 square meters. Pigs, dogs and human skeletons, etc., were also seen in the city for foundation laying.

Zhangqiu Chengziya city site was discovered as early as the 1930s, and some surveys have been done in recent years.The plane of the city site is rectangular, covering an area of ​​200,000 square meters, 3-4 times larger than the Wangcun city site on the sideline, 20 times that of the Wangchenggang city site, and the largest city site seen today in the Longshan era.The remaining wall is buried 2.5-5 meters below the surface and 8-13 meters wide, with a considerable scale.The city was used until the Xia Dynasty, and was rebuilt later. It is a very important archaeological relic. Early city ruins have also been found in the northern region, located at Tiger Mountain in Liangcheng, Inner Mongolia.The city site covers an area of ​​130,000 square meters, surrounded by stone walls.This may be the earliest stone city in history.Ashan, also near Baotou City in Inner Mongolia, also saw a stone-walled city site with an area of ​​50,000 square meters and a relatively early age.

Similar stone city ruins have been found in the north, and there are dozens of them near Chifeng in Inner Mongolia, but they are slightly later than the Longshan culture.These city sites vary in size, generally 10,000 to 20,000 square meters, and some as large as 100,000 square meters, with walls and moats.There are a large number of house foundations built with stones in the city, generally 40-100, and some as many as 600. The scale is not too small, surpassing many Longshan cultural city sites in the Central Plains.Of course, the nature of this type of city site remains to be further studied and carefully excavated. These city sites are of great significance to the study of the origin of the city.

As one of the important sources of Chinese civilization, the Yangtze River Basin also had large-scale castle buildings at this time, such as Tianmen Shijiahe, Shishou Zoumaling, Lixian Chengtou Mountain, etc.Although there are no clear city sites found in the Liangzhu Culture, there are also large-scale rammed earth platforms and red-burned earth architectural remains. There are not too few city sites discovered in the Longshan period, and it is unknown how many have not been discovered.These discoveries prove that large and small cities and castles did appear in the Longshan period, which is incomparable to any settlement.Of course, it is a pity that although so many city sites have been discovered, due to various reasons, none of them have been fully excavated. The layout of the buildings in the city is very unclear, and there are still many difficulties in carrying out research.

The emergence of cities indicates the formation of political and economic centers, perhaps city-states based on tribal alliances.The beginning of the formation of early cities in China was about 4,500 years ago, or even earlier. Another point to point out is that cities with high walls are already relatively developed cities.The city walls built for defensive purposes are mainly the product of inter-tribal conquests, and earlier cities may not necessarily be surrounded by walls.A political and economic center without a city wall is also a city, and the city wall is not the decisive symbol of the city. For example, the Yin Ruins of Anyang and the capital of the Zhou Dynasty did not find city walls.According to this, it is not impossible to find early cities without city walls in the future.