Looking back thousands of years at our origins
Print Edition
ARCHEOLOGICAL relics dating back as far as 3,500 years will be shared with the public later this year when the first phase of the Maqiao Relics Park opens in the Minhang District.
The park will display the discoveries of excavation and museum exhibits tracing the history and culture of some of Shanghai’s earliest inhabitants.
Shanghai has three ancient cultures: the Songze, unearthed in the Qingpu District; the Guangfulin, found in Songjiang District; and the Maqiao in Minhang. The latter is the most recent.
In 1959, workers digging a cesspit in what is today Yutang Village in Maqiao Town found an antler fossil and a red-ornamented clay fragment 1.5 meters underground. Three days later, a bulldozer unearthed more fragments.
That was the start of what turned out to be a remarkable archeological find, shedding new insights into the area’s ancient civilizations.
One of the biggest finds was that the history of Shanghai could be pushed back to 3,500 years ago. Moreover, the Maqiao site revealed a trove of relics that told archeologists about the daily lives of people from the Neolithic Age to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The discovery also proved the existence of gang shen, a shoreline that was formed about 4,000 years ago. It was about 45 meters wide and about 1 meter in depth, formed by sand and shells. The shoreline ran through what is today western Shanghai and is believed to be the earliest shoreline of the city.
Park exhibits will show visitors that Maqiao relics were recovered in five layers. The top layer was from more recent centuries. The second layer dated back to the Tang (618-906 AD) and the Song (960-1279) dynasties. The third layer was from the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), and the fourth was traced back 3,500 years. The bottom layer is from the Neolithic Age.
“In the past, many people viewed the history of Shanghai in the shape of a saddle — prosperous when it was an ancient fishing village, prosperous when the city became a major port in 1843, and relatively hollow in the intervening years,” said Gao Menghe, a professor with the Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology at Fudan University. “But the discovery of the Maqiao Culture dispelled that view. The concept that Shanghai was developed from a fishing village was wrong.”
One layer of relics contained many fragments from drinking vessels dating back to the Song Dynasty.
“At that time, the place was called Shanghai Wu, and wu refers to a tax levied on the making of liquor,” said Song Jian, a council member of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an excavation participant. “Relics from Maqiao show that around 1,000 years ago, Shanghai was a prosperous place known for liquor production.”
Maqiao relics also showed that ancient Shanghai, like its modern descendant, was a place of immigration. The ancient sites of Songze and Guangfulin revealed monocultural societies, but in Maqiao relics showed the influences of civilizations from the Yellow River region and today’s Shandong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.
The different cultures mixed to form the Maqiao Culture.
Some people have complained that such a precious ancient site hasn’t really been given the protection and respect it is due. The establishment of the Maqiao Relics Park is a major step in rectifying that. The first phase, covering 120 hectares, will include an archaeology study area and leisure activity areas.
“We want to share the discovery with local residents as well as visitors,” said Chen Zhenhua, an official with Maqiao Town. “The relics will be protected and knowledge about the culture will be spread far and wide.”
The detailed plans of the rest of the park are still under discussion. Those involved are looking to borrow ideas from other countries.
Gao cited the example of Osaka Castle in Japan, where relics are preserved in a building next to the castle.
“When you step into the building, there is a museum and the archaeological site itself is right below in an underground floor,” he said. “It enables visitors to view the whole process of how the relics of the castle were unearthed. Everyone entering the building gets a history lesson. I think we could take a page from that book.”
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