Scenes of ancestors hunting in primitive society
Among the three, the painted pottery road has the longest history. As for pottery, the earliest pottery found in the world so far comes from Xianren Cave in Wannian County, Jiangxi Province. According to the determination of carbon fourteen, the pottery unearthed here was made about 20,000 years ago. Of course, tens of thousands of years of pottery fragments have been unearthed in Europe. However, the fact that the same object appears in two places with such a large geographical span does not necessarily mean that there is a connection between the two places. Moreover, the archaeological data that archaeologists have now can't prove whether this "painted pottery road" really exists. If so, what is its specific route of transmission? That is, whether the oriental painted pottery art spread to the west, or whether the western painted pottery art spread to the east, or whether the painted pottery of the two places merged and influenced each other after developing separately, or whether it was just a coincidence that the historical development of mankind had to go through a certain stage (from the unearthed cultural relics, the coincidence theory was obviously untenable).
Ancestors are making painted pottery.
Judging from the lines and patterns of the discovered painted pottery relics, as early as five or six thousand years ago, there should have been many exchanges of painted pottery technology in Eurasia, and the achievements of this exchange were obviously reflected in the later painted pottery technology, which can be confirmed by the characteristics of Romanian painted pottery and Majiayao culture.
Painted pottery in Qijia culture period
Majiayao culture painted pottery
Romanian painted pottery (picture from the Internet)
Secondly, that is the "road of jade and silk". The "jade silk road" mentioned here actually refers to "jade" and has nothing to do with "silk". The reason why it was named "The Road of Jade and Silk" originated from the idiom "Turn an arm into jade and silk". Its main intention is to imply that on this jade road that stretches for thousands of miles, all war disputes can be turned into peaceful jade transactions.
Jade is an irreplaceable cultural carrier in China culture, and its cultural significance far exceeds other material carriers.
Jade Cong in Qijia Culture Period
First of all, in the view of primitive ancestors, jade is a medium to communicate ghosts and gods, so only wizards and prominent leaders in primitive tribes can own jade, which is proved by Hongshan Culture, Liangzhu culture and Qijia culture.
Secondly, for the feudal dynasty, there are jade cong, jade cong, jade emperor, jade Zhang and so on. They are all objects used by emperors to respect heaven, land and the east, and they are indispensable to feudal dynasties;
Finally, for an individual, jade is more important to a gentleman than jade. A gentleman will never leave his body for no reason. Jade has five virtues and so on. The definition of jade makes jade a necessary symbol of identity.
However, anyone who is interested in archaeology knows that at first, due to the limitation of ancient exploration technology, most jade materials came from the west, so there was the story of "beautiful jade went to the west" and "Zhou Muwang went to the west". Here, "western soil" and "westward journey" refer to the west of Yangguan, just like the "western regions" in later generations. This place is Qinghai, Xinjiang and other places west of Hexi Corridor. Due to the strong demand for jade in the Central Plains (this can be confirmed by Hetian jade materials used in Qijia culture jade and a large number of jade materials unearthed from Muhao tomb), due to the large demand and the shortage of local jade resources, the "Jade Road" naturally formed.
Jade articles in Qijia culture period
Finally, I want to talk about the "Bronze Road" (the academic circles are not clear about the order of the "Silk Road" and the "Bronze Road", so I will sort it according to my own guess for the time being. I think this is related to their different uses and the difficulty of production technology. Bronze can only be produced by prospecting, mining and smelting, while jade can be obtained directly from nature. From the perspective of human history, the difficulty of discovery and production determines the time when objects are used by human beings. The earliest master of bronze smelting technology was the nomadic people in Central Asia, that is, the two rivers civilization (today's Iraq). The earliest place where bronzes appeared in China was Qijia Cultural Site in Linxia, Gansu Province in the northwest. Now, the first mirror of China, the first knife of China and the first axe of China have been unearthed more than 4,000 years ago. Based on these two pieces of information, the history of "painted pottery road" and "jade road" and archaeological data, it is enough to show that "bronze road" is probably a road of spreading from west to east.
Ancestors of Qijia culture exploited copper mines.
Ancestors in Qijia Culture Period smelted copper mines.
So the Silk Road actually existed a long time ago, but it had different lengths and tasks in different periods. Just like the Great Wall, some sections were built during the Warring States Period, some sections were built in the Qin Dynasty, some in the Han Dynasty, some in the Tang Dynasty and some even in the Song Dynasty. After the Ming Dynasty, on the basis of this section of the Great Wall, the Ming Great Wall, one of eight wonders of the world, was finally formed through the selection, repair and supplement in different periods. Of course, compared with the first three, the Silk Road is a very exact one, which is confirmed by detailed archaeological data and documents, and it is an ancient road to witness the trade exchanges between the East and the West.
Ming great wall
For centuries, the Silk Road has been an important land passage for cultural and economic exchanges in different regions along the route, linking East Asia and Southeast Asia with East Africa, West Asia and Southern Europe. The initial appearance of the Silk Road may not only be used for trade in goods, but also closely related to the spread of religious culture. The farthest person in the world is not a scholar or a businessman, but a religious believer who preaches and teaches. Just like Xuanzang, Jian Zhen, even the navigator in the era of geographical discovery, the English Puritans on the may flower and so on. So there may be more Buddhist believers like Xuanzang on the early Silk Road.
The earliest figure on the silk road: the Buddha went west to seek dharma.