Dreams are the driving force for human progress.
From ancient times to modern times, from the steam engine to the Internet, the development of human society is also the process of pursuing dreams. We have the largest population in the world and the oldest civilization. Today, China is advancing at an unprecedented speed, and we are forging new brilliance. This is an era full of opportunities and dreams. Remember where your dreams come from, never forget the way you came. We will take you back to ancient times and listen to the oldest stories of our ancestors.
The Sanggan River meanders and extends from east to west, crossing the entire territory of Yangyuan County, Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province. It cuts a place called Nihewan into crisscrossing canyons. This seemingly ordinary place is indeed the northernmost activity site of our ancient ancestors discovered so far.
(Yangyuan County Cultural Relics Management Office, Hebei Province: Former Director Cheng Shunquan stated: About two million years ago, this was a large lake with an area of over 9000 square kilometers. At that time, it was the largest ancient lake, a freshwater lake.)
A series of archaeological activities have linked the name of Nihewan to China’s long Stone Age and the origin of humanity. In 1978, archaeologists discovered a large number of stone artifacts and mammal fossils in a place called Xiaochangliang in Nihewan, marking the first discovery of prehistoric relics in Nihewan. In 2001, archaeologists had an unexpected harvest during the excavation of another site in Nihewan. At the site, a fossil of an ancient mammoth skeleton appeared in front of people (oral statement: 16 ribs and front teeth of the grassland mammoth were excavated at that time). Surprisingly, besides the clear traces of chopping and scraping preserved in the stone, a flint scraper near the elephant rib caught the attention of experts (oral statement: there was an elephant rib, on which a scraper was placed, indicating that after humans scraped bones and ate meat, they placed the stone tool on the elephant rib. Now, from… This discovery shows us a vivid scene of humans eating elephants two million years ago, with scratches on all 16 ribs. In the ancient Nihewan, a mammoth slowly walked towards the swamp, where the water source was what its body needed. Suddenly, his forelimbs sank deeper and deeper into the mud, and the killing intent was suddenly approaching. The ancient people lurking in the jungle quickly rushed towards the elephant, using the most primitive stone tools and wooden sticks to give him a fatal blow. The elephant was powerless to fight back and slowly fell down. The predators used sharp cutters to cut off the delicious elephant meat and enjoy their lunch. Unfortunately, despite the numerous stone tools and ancient animal fossils unearthed in the Nihewan area, no ancient human fossil over a million years old was found. Where are our ancestors?
The Classic of Mountains and Seas is an important ancient book in pre Qin China, as well as the oldest and most mythological book. It tells the story of N ü wa accumulating soil to create humans. After Pangu opened up the world, a heavenly god N ü wa was born. She came to the mortal world alone and saw beautiful scenery but few living beings. She used yellow clay to create small figures according to her own appearance. Later, she found it too difficult to manipulate clay figures, so she used her branches to stick to yellow mud and threw them randomly. Suddenly, nobles and commoners emerged, reproducing and thriving. This is what we heard when we were children. The story about the origin of the Chinese people is just an illusory legend. Where did the Chinese people come from? All of this, mixed with legends, myths, archaeological arguments, and even everyone’s imagination, has become a mysterious, distant, and vague topic. With the Big Bang, The universe has formed countless galaxies, and there is a blue planet around the sun, which is our Earth. The atmosphere and liquid water make Earth the only known planet with life. About 4 billion years ago, the first life was born on Earth, and the emergence of humans was millions of years ago.
Lufeng Ancient Ape Fossil Site – Lufeng County, Yunnan Province
(Liu Jianrong, Director of the Lufeng Ancient Ape Museum in Yunnan Province: This is the slope of the temple in Lufeng County, Yunnan Province, where fossils of the Lufeng ancient ape were unearthed.). Our ancestors came from a rare species of ancient apes, making it difficult to find their remains today. They roamed the forest, relying on collecting plants for survival, picking fruits and tender leaves, which provided these apes with well-developed and agile fingers and upper limbs. Since 1975, archaeologists have excavated a missing skull, several jawbones, and hundreds of teeth in the strata of Lufeng County, Yunnan Province. They are about 8 million years old, and this is the closest animal known to humans in China to date. It has been named the Lufeng species of the Lama ancient ape by the international paleoanthropology community, but they still inhabit trees. What is the reason why ancient apes bid farewell to tree life and came to the ground, heading towards humans who can walk upright? The answer is diverse. Hans, a renowned German plant expert, provided an explanation from a unique perspective. (International renowned paleobotanist Hans: In the past 50 million years, there have been many large-scale climate changes on Earth. About 45 million years ago, the Earth experienced the last warming event, which caused the world to be extremely hot and then began to cool down. However, during this period, there were some short periods of warming. Since the outbreak of the Middle East, we know that cooling events have occurred worldwide. During this period, the Earth experienced the first ice age in Antarctica. Today, we cannot see any signs of rainforest here.)
Millions of years ago, with climate change, food gradually became scarce, and ancient apes began to come to the ground from trees. They had to frequently move stones to search for food, or use sticks to dig for roots of wild plants to satisfy their hunger. In these labor, the limbs of ancient apes gradually differentiated, the forelimbs gradually freed themselves from the role of supporting the body, dividing into hands, and the hind limbs independently took on the role of supporting the body, dividing into feet.
(Wu Xinzhi, academician of the CAS Member: Human beings walk on two legs, which is different from dinosaurs and geese. Their bodies are not straight. Our human bodies are straight. This is called walking on two upright legs. So if we stand up all the time, the skull will be on top, unlike other animals, which are all in front. So, don’t we have a backbone for his spine? This spine is bent into four bends, which gives flexibility to the spine. So when people run and jump, they will not shake the brain.)
Standing upright has opened up the source of human civilization. Our tools, weapons, architecture, music, painting, and later developed writing are all built upon standing upright.
(Gao Xing, Paleoanthropology Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: Walking upright frees people’s hands to make and use tools, and then to carry things. Of course, you can also do some tearing and fighting, and this protection. Therefore, the liberation of opponents should be said to enhance the ability of people to make and use tools. In fact, some other behavioral abilities are related to our hands. In addition, if you stand up, your vision will be wider and you will see farther.)
When these ancestors who stood upright and walked with their heads raised appeared on the earth, miracles also occurred. Standing upright allowed our ancestors to broaden their horizons, discover farther prey targets, and quickly detect distant dangers. With standing upright, their body structure gradually changed, and their legs became more slender. All of these greatly improved the survival ability of our ancestors, and labor promoted the differentiation of the limbs of ancient apes, leading to the emergence of upright walking apes.
(Wu Xinzhi, academician of the CAS Member: There is a historical process of human evolution in stages. For example, at the earliest time, in the middle of the last century, there were three stages: ape man Homo erectus, ancient man Homo sapiens, and new man modern man. Later, after Australopithecus was also included in the scope of human beings, another stage was added here, equal to four stages.)
Yuanmou County, Yunnan Province – Yuanmou Man Site:
This is Danawu Village, Yuanmou County, Chuxiong Prefecture, Yunnan Province. In 1965, while conducting an investigation here, an address worker accidentally discovered two fossilized teeth, one being the upper left inner incisor and the other being the upper right inner incisor. For these two teeth, people are like treasures, and based on their experience, they believe that this may hide a secret, a major discovery about our ancestors.
Fossil teeth of Yuanmou people (replica) Yunnan Yuanmou Museum
(Director Jiang of Yunnan Yuanmou People’s Museum: Later at night, they took a mirror to look at it and were very excited, maybe it was human. The latter is from an ancient ape, so it was specially packaged and not put together with other animal fossils. It was packaged and later brought back to Beijing.)
These two fossils were urgently transported to Beijing. Mr. Hu Chengzhi, a famous ancient human fossil expert, conducted preliminary research on them. Through comparison, it was found that the teeth of the Yuanmou Man were significantly different from those of apes, and were quite close to the tooth specimens of the Beijing Ape Man. Not far from the location where those two teeth were unearthed, more surprises appeared. Seven stone tools were unearthed here, with clear traces of artificial construction. The use of stone tools is an important evidence that distinguishes humans from animals. So, what period did the Yuanmou Man actually live in?
(Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology – Gu Xueping: There was controversy over the age of the Yuanmou people, but the determination of this age and the study of geological background are one of the most detailed works done at the Yuanmou people’s site, and a lot of effort has been invested nationwide.)
Experts have determined that the Yuanmou human lived in the late Early Pleistocene, approximately 1.7 million years ago, based on the study of semi animal fossils unearthed from tooth fossils. This is the oldest human fossil discovered in China to date, and scholars have named it Yuanmou Homo erectus.
(Gao Xing: Homo erectus, as the name suggests, is capable of walking upright. This is because when this fossil was first discovered, it was discovered that it had the characteristic of walking upright. Therefore, it is considered the earliest human being and is called Homo erectus. Compared to earlier Southern apes and Homo erectus, its brain size increased and began to develop more.)
Over the past two million years, the Earth has experienced at least four to five ice ages, alternating between ice ages. During each ice age of tens of thousands of years, endless permanent ice and snow have advanced from the North and South Poles to temperate and even subtropical regions, leaving only narrow living spaces near the equator. The sea recedes, the green fields turn into deserts, the climate is cold and dry, and a large number of species become extinct. Survivors of our ancestors are forced to migrate long distances in the face of hunger and cold, seeking new habitats for survival.
On the the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Yuanmou people are looking for food. They don’t have the speed of cheetahs, the strength of lions, or the powerful jaws of wolves. But they have smart hands, long legs with amazing speed, and spears and stone tools in their hands.
(Chinese Academy of Sciences – Wu Xinzhi: Humans don’t have sharp teeth like some ferocious beasts, so why can they survive? Perhaps it mainly depends on two hands. It can use natural things to help him, so that he can survive. It can use sharp stones to dig roots and eat, and it can use stones to attack animals, etc.)
Hunting has improved their physical condition. In order to succeed in hunting, their legs must be able to run quickly and long distances. When fighting larger animals, they must be able to sensitively control their body balance. These needs stimulate and guide changes and growth in the central nervous system, ultimately making humans the strongest animals on Earth.
So far, fossils or stone tools of Homo erectus dating back two million years have been discovered in the Yangtze, Huai, and North China regions of China, proving that our ancestors had already worked and lived on the land of China today one or two million years ago.
On December 2, 1929, on the Longgu Mountain in Zhoukoudian, western suburbs of Beijing, the cold north wind seemed to blow even harder. Archaeologists who had been working in a twelve meter deep cave for a day were preparing to finish work. At this moment, Pei Wenzhong, the person in charge of the construction site who was digging by candle at the bottom of the cave, suddenly exclaimed excitedly, “Skull.” The first skull of the famous Beijing ape man was discovered in this way.
(Chinese Academy of Sciences – Wu Xinzhi: This is a restored skull. That is to say, when it was really discovered, it was just the upper part. There were small pieces here, and there were small pieces here. All of them were fragmentary. His skull, for example, there was an eyebrow ridge in front of it, which is different from us. His head is lower, like the modern skull is higher, so there is a deep groove at the back. Now we don’t have this groove here. It is relatively contracted in this place, but not so contracted in this place. This is open.)
The skull of Peking Man is very thick, about twice that of modern humans, but the lower part of their skull is wide and the top shrinks, while modern humans are the opposite. The lower part is narrow and the upper part is wide, so the brain of Peking Man is not very large, only half of that of modern humans. However, the limb bones of Peking Man are very similar to modern humans, and they have basically possessed the structure of modern humans. From this point, Peking Man can walk and even run like modern humans. After calculation, archaeologists have determined that the average height of Peking Man is 156 centimeters for males and 144 centimeters for females.
In the cave where the skull was unearthed, a large number of fragments of gravel were scattered, which were tools used and manufactured by primitive humans before their time.
(Happy: Since 2.6 million years ago, it should be an even earlier stage. After the emergence of stone tools, humans have evolved over time and the technology of this tool has become increasingly mature and complex. There are more and more types of tools, and the original tools are generally multi-purpose. For example, a stone may be used for anything, but it is processed into various pointed and tough tools, just like our current tools, in a specialized process of classification.)
The difference lies in the simple use of ready-made tools by animals. Our ancestors began to independently invent and create, and they, who had already freed up their hands, changed the rules of the game by creating weapons. There is no species on this planet that is more fond of using weapons and tools than humans. The ability of humans to use tools is the key to our control of the world.
In Zhoukoudian, archaeologists also discovered a large number of deer bones left by Peking Man in the cave, all of which have been broken and clearly burned.
Beijing Ape Man Site – Zhoukoudian, Beijing
In the cave of Longgu Mountain in Zhoukoudian, archaeologists have made a significant discovery. There is a large amount of burnt ash layer in the cave accumulation, with the thickest part reaching 6 meters. These all indicate that our ancestor, Peking Man, began using fire 500000 years ago.
(Chinese Academy of Sciences – Wu Xinzhi: It was in the late 1920s when the ash layer was discovered. At that time, I thought what it was? I used it for testing. After burning it on an alcohol lamp, I found that there was carbon. The black thing was carbon, not anything else. So I thought at that time that it showed that he could use fire, and there were some bones in the ash layer. These bones had changed color, became blue or blue, so it seemed that they were also burned. There were also some stones, which were also burned and cracked, so it was obvious that they were burned. So scientists wrote a report at that time. In 1931, this Ash layer means fire is used)
Fire has created our civilization today. It helps us digest fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, and then chew food to make it easier for us to digest and absorb. At the same time, the increasingly abundant nutrients have enabled the human brain to evolve rapidly, and our brain has become more developed. Over two million years, the capacity of the human brain has more than doubled.
(Gao Xing: We believe that he should take the natural fire, and then preserve the fire. Why is there so much ash, concentrated and thick ash distributed in that place? It is because he wants to maintain his combustion and cannot extinguish it. He cannot take the fire. Therefore, for these people who live in this dark and humid cave and have some wild beasts, beasts, and birds constantly waiting to invade them, extinguishing the fire should be a catastrophic event, so they will try their best to keep the fire burning endlessly.)
An American archaeologist once described the fire scene of the Peking Man as follows: fire is a daily routine of his life. He uses branches of Bauhinia as fuel and barbecues meat on an open fire pit, bringing warmth into the surviving caves, making the fierce beasts at night unable to resist. For them, fire is a precious asset and boundless power.
The discovery and use of fire was a huge leap in the history of human evolution, allowing humans to dominate nature for the first time and ultimately bid farewell to the era of animals indulging in animal husbandry and drinking blood.
However, the living environment of Beijing Monkey Man is not peaceful, with dangers and killing opportunities constantly present. Various tests of nature temper them, and they not only starve for not being able to obtain food, but are even chased and eaten by fierce dogs.
(Gao Xing: Training dogs themselves is a fierce animal, and we humans rarely prey on them. They are more of a competitor to humans, and they also attack and seize some herbivores. Therefore, they will also attack humans because training dogs have similar habits to humans. They live in groups and use collective force to surround them.)
About one-third of the more than forty individuals discovered in Zhoukoudian died before the age of fourteen. They lived in an environment of high mountains, dense forests, and wild animals, and were almost powerless to resist them alone. In order to survive, they had to work together and live in groups. Thanks to group organization, simple stone tools, and fire, Beijing Monkey Man gradually gained the ability to control their own destiny and even explore new lives.
After experiencing a long period of several hundred thousand years, the ape man gradually developed into the ancient stage. The ancients, also known as early Homo sapiens, were equivalent to the middle period of the Paleolithic Age in archaeology. This period lasted until 40000 to 50000 years ago, during which the primitive features left over from human physique gradually disappeared, and stone tool making techniques also made significant improvements.
Fossils and relics of ancient people are widely distributed in China, with the most important being the Dali people in Shaanxi, the Dingcun people in Shanxi, and the Xujiayao people. However, there are still huge differences between those ancient people and today’s humans. Over the long years, how have our faces evolved?
Mulan Mountain Zhiren Cave, Chongzuo City, Guangxi Province
An unexpected discovery in Chongzuo, Guangxi caught the attention of the ancient human archaeological community. In 1996, Professor Pan Wenshi from Peking University began to conduct in-depth research on the biodiversity of the karst area in Guangxi. In a seemingly ordinary cave on Mulan Mountain in Chongzuo, Pan Wenshi had a large harvest, where a large number of mammal fossils were found. One of the most important discoveries was a missing ancient human mandible.
Homo sapiens cave jawbone fossil (replica) Guangxi Chongzuo Zhuang Museum
(Wu Xinzhi, Chinese Academy of Sciences: This is a fragment of Mulan Mountain’s mandible. This is a model. Why is it so important? It is because there is something protruding in this place. You see, modern people also protrude in this place, but the protruding is very severe. This protruding is not so severe, but a little bit. You see that modern people here are curved, so curved, and it, so down, so over.)
(Gao Xing: Some scholars believe that the evidence from this fossil is evidence of the early appearance of Homo sapiens, and through analysis of the samples using some enamel methods, it is believed that the age of the appearance of this mandible should be around 11000 years ago, which is a significant discovery.)
One theory suggests that the direct ancestors of modern humans in East Asia migrated from Africa about 60000 years ago. According to this theory, Chinese hominids such as Peking Man were extinct 200000 years ago, while modern Chinese and late Chinese Homo sapiens are descendants of humans from Africa. The discovery of ancient human fossils in the Chongzuo Zhiren Cave proves that the evolution of ancient humans in China was continuous. Early modern humans appeared in China 100000 years ago, and our ancestors are gradually moving towards more mature modern humans.
Since about 40000 to 50000 years ago, our ancestors have evolved from ancient people to new people, that is, modern people. At this time, the original nature of human physique has completely disappeared, and modern human physique has gradually taken shape. New people’s footprints are all over the Chinese Mainland, mainly including Hetao people in Inner Mongolia, Shanxizhiyu people, Ziyang people in Sichuan, Tai’an people in Shandong, Yushu people in Jilin, Lijiang people in Yunnan, etc. The most representative among them is the mountaintop cave people.
Shandingdong Man Site Zhoukoudian, Beijing
Jia Lanpo, a well-known name in the Chinese archaeological community and a self-taught archaeologist, took over the excavation work of Zhoukoudian from Pei Wenzhong in 1935. In November 1936, Jia Lanpo discovered three more complete skull fossils in the mountaintop cave of Longgu Mountain. This discovery shook the international academic community, and the mountaintop cave man appeared.
(Chinese Academy of Sciences – Wu Xinzhi: The mountaintop cave is divided into four parts. One part is called the upper room, where people live; the other part is called the lower room, where people are buried; the other part is called the lower cellar, where there are many complete animal skeletons, which is estimated to be a natural trap, where animals fall; the other part is a hall, which is an aisle)
Fossil skull of the mountaintop cave human (replica) Zhoukoudian Site Museum
The human bone fossils unearthed from the mountaintop cave can be restored to eight individuals. Based on the degree of healing of the skull seam and the growth of teeth, five of them are adults. The widest skull of the mountaintop cave people is located near the top nodule, with smaller teeth and higher dental crowns. The anterior internal curvature of the lower jaw is very obvious, the chin protrudes, and their brain volume has reached 1300-1500 milliliters. This means that their neural centers have evolved to the same level as modern humans.
(Gao Xing, Center for Paleoanthropology Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: It should be said that there is little difference in morphology. At that time, Academician Xinzhi made a vivid analogy in a book. He said what the Zhoukoudian Man, Peking Man and Shandingdong Man looked like. If Peking Man came to Wangfujing Street, he put on his hat and mask, and walked on Wangfujing Street, as long as he did not speak, others might not think he was an ape man; if the Shandingdong Man came down to Wangfujing Street, he did not need to wear a hat and mask, as long as he did not speak, others did not know that it came from an ancient era, and his shape was very close to today’s)
The mountaintop cave people lived during the Asian Ice Age, about 30000 years ago. At that time, there were dense forests on the mountain and vast grasslands below. Tigers, cave bears, wolves, cheetahs, and others lived during this period. The mountaintop cave people made a living by fishing, hunting, and gathering. They discovered a large number of wild rabbits and the bones of hundreds of individual Beijing spotted deer in the ruins, which should be their main hunting targets.
(Gao Xing: What does this mean? One is that there may be an increase in population, and some things we didn’t need to eat before are now being tried by humans. We also need to know that we can eat them. On the other hand, your technology has developed, your tools have improved, and your behavioral abilities have improved. This allows you to capture and eat some animals, especially small and fast running animals. Therefore, at this time, humans should say that their hunting and picking abilities have greatly improved compared to before.).
Our ancestors once stubbornly fought against nature, maintaining their worship of life and unwavering dignity.
The bone needle is the most astonishing discovery of the mountaintop cave people. The needle body is well preserved, only the needle hole is incomplete, with a residual length of 82 millimeters. The mountaintop cave people have mastered the grinding technology, and they have drilled exquisite fine holes on the bone needle with a diameter of only 3.3 millimeters.
(Gao Xing: As for this bone needle, we can see that its production is very exquisite. It is polished smoothly and has this needle eye, which is slightly larger than the needles it comes into contact with now. Some needles break at the needle eye because it is easy to break during the production or use process due to digging an eye on the bone in that area.)
This is the earliest sewing tool in China, which indicates that the mountaintop cave people have already put on clothing. More importantly, these small bone needles solved the problem of keeping our ancestors warm, allowing them to leave the cave, travel further to the plains, and head towards the cold world.
At the mountaintop cave, people also discovered 141 decorations, such as perforated animal teeth, sea clam shells, small stone beads, and carved bone tubes. Seven exquisite white small stone beads are dyed red on the surface, scattered around the bones, and used as necklaces or headwear. The people of the mountaintop cave know how to use hematite powder to dye decorations, making them more vibrant and beautiful. Their desire and pursuit for a better life have been sealed in their hearts. In the lower chamber of the mountaintop cave, people found skulls of elderly men, middle-aged women, and young women each. Perforated shells and fox canines were found on the left side of the elderly skull, and hematite powder and hematite were found around the pelvis and femur. This indicates that the lower chamber is a public cemetery, which is also the earliest known tomb in China to this day.
(Gao Xing: Firstly, it indicates that interpersonal relationships are closer, and the bonds of society, whether it is the blood ties of families, are strengthened. Why? When the deceased pass away, they are not abandoned in the mountains and fields, but someone buries them. This is the strengthening of interpersonal relationships, the importance of life, and the only way to deal with it is to cherish it.)
This is a significant transformation, as the emergence of family cemeteries marked the beginning of humanity’s transition from loose primitive communities to fixed and enduring large families, ultimately leading to the emergence of our earliest social organization – clan communes.
From Inner Mongolia grassland to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, from the Yellow River basin to the Yangtze River basin, this is a beautiful China, full of footprints of ancestors. When our ancient ancestors left the animal kingdom, they had almost nothing, but they were fearless, holding stone tools and bravely leaving footprints on the earth, searching for the direction of light and the future.
When the people of Nihewan, Yuanmou, Beijing Ape, Chongzuo, and Shandingdong hurriedly walked on the land of China, China was about to enter a great era. With collective wisdom and hard work, they overcame one difficulty after another, and finally welcomed the arrival of the Neolithic Revolution and the dawn of Chinese civilization.
90 Seconds of History: The Origin of Agriculture
Xiangdai Village, Sanqi Town: Only 7 kilometers away from the Hemudu Site, a heat treatment plant discovered a large number of tiles and pottery jars while drilling a well. Upon hearing the news, the archaeological department rushed to reveal a hidden space that dates back 6500 years. In the summer of 2004, archaeologists conducted the first archaeological excavation of the 300 square meter cultural accumulation layer at the Tianluoshan Site. After more than 100 days of archaeological excavation, a large number of relatively complete pottery, stone tools, bone tools, jade artifacts, and other cultural relics were unearthed. During the excavation process, people found that in the black brown soil layer, some small golden particles occasionally flashed, but very… Quickly, they turned into the color of soil, which is exactly the ancient rice that plant archaeologists have been searching for. They have been quietly sleeping underground for over 6500 years.