Historians divide the Paleolithic Age into Paleolithic Age (about 2 million years ago-about 1000 years ago) and Neolithic Age (about 1000 years ago-about 4,000 years ago). From the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age, there were several remarkable changes, such as grinding stone tools, agricultural animal husbandry and pottery. The most important thing is the appearance of pottery, because the appearance of pottery marks the transition of human economic activities from simple grabbing from nature (gathering and hunting) to self-production, which is an essential leap. In archaeological excavations, pottery is one of the most iconic relics. A prehistoric site, without unearthed pottery, can not be said to be a Neolithic site, even if there is only a small piece of pottery, it can be regarded as a Neolithic site. The original view is generally believed that pottery was invented to cooperate with agriculture. It first appeared in the ruins of Termurebet in northern Syria 10 thousand years ago. But later, archaeologists discovered many fragments of ancient pottery in China, the age of which was shocking. On June 28th, 20 12, the article "Twenty Thousand Years' Pottery at Xianrendong Site in China" in American Science magazine pointed out that the pottery at Xianrendong Site in Wannian County, Jiangxi Province, China appeared 20,000 years ago, which is the oldest unearthed pottery in the world. This discovery was rated as one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in the world in 20 12, which also confirmed that China was the earliest place of origin of pottery in the world.
Ancient pottery over 10,000 years old in China is mainly unearthed in Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangxi provinces, among which Guangxi is the region with the richest ancient pottery sites. In Guilin alone, there are 2 1 Neolithic sites where pottery pieces have been unearthed, and 3 of them are over 1 10,000 years old. There are three ancient pottery sites over ten thousand years in the same city, which is unique in the world. Professor Pei Wenzhong, a famous paleoanthropologist and the father of Stone Age archaeology in China, wrote an inscription for the Bailiandong Cave Science Museum in Liuzhou, Guangxi on May 198 1 Sunday: "China can become the center of paleoanthropology in the world, and Guangxi is the center of the center."
Among thousands of ancient pottery sites in Guilin, the Miao Yan site in Yanshan area is the oldest. At present, the pottery pieces discovered by archaeology have a history of15,000 years, which is one of the important origins of ancient pottery in the world. Miao Yan is located in a cave on a hillside, and the entrance of the cave is about 13 meters high from the foot of the mountain, which shows that humans could not move to the plain at that time, and they were still living in caves on the hillside, which is enough to prove that pottery was developed without attachment to agriculture, and its history was longer than that of agriculture.
Dayan Site in Lingui County is the second oldest pottery site in Guilin. The site has six periods of cultural accumulation. From the second phase, it was found that the fired clay blocks were very precious, dating back to 12000. The largest prehistoric site in Guilin is the bamboo skin rock site located in the southern suburbs of the city. It is the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units and the National Archaeological Park. Zhangpiyan's earliest pottery has a history of more than ten thousand years. The British BBC did an experiment when filming a documentary about ancient humans at Zhangpiyan site. It is found that this kind of pottery is cold-made by hand and must be mixed with about one-third of the time to maintain its stability. When finished, it is dried in the shade, and then baked on the fire, when the screws are cooked.
Pottery fired in the open air began to appear in the second phase of Zhang Piyan. The firing temperature was about 680-930 degrees, and the temperature was low. In the fifth stage, clay pottery made by slow wheel technology began to appear, and the production process was more sophisticated, and various shapes such as cans, pots, bowls and pots appeared. It is worth noting that there are many traces of artistic processing on the pottery fragments in this period, including a large number of carved lines and some pressed lines. Decorative patterns mainly include water waves, twists and turns, grids and so on. There are also some dry lines, that is, ancient people carved their houses on pottery. The earliest purpose of pottery carving may be to increase friction so as not to slip when holding it, and then it gradually developed into an art. In addition, kiln change will occur on some pottery at this time, that is, multiple colors will appear on a pottery at the same time, which should be an unexpected result. Guitao has experienced a long and independent development process of tens of thousands of years since pottery pieces first appeared in Miao Yan site. In addition to the above sites, there are many Neolithic pottery sites in Guangxi, including Liuyuzui site, Xijin site in Hengxian county, and Ganzaoren site in Fusui county. By the pre-Qin period more than 2,000 years ago, the technology of GUI had developed to a higher level.
Guangxi in the pre-Qin period was called "Luo Ou", also known as "xi Luo Ou Yue", which was a part of Baiyue civilization in southern China. At that time, compared with the early Neolithic period, Guangxi's GUI pottery technology made great progress, which was embodied in four aspects. The first is the wide application of wheel-making technology, which can produce exquisite pottery with uniform tire wall and diverse appearance. Secondly, I have more experience in the choice of clay. The clay chosen by craftsmen is very delicate, and the pottery made is durable. The third is that the pottery produced by firing technology is mostly white and hard. Fourthly, the artistry of pottery has been greatly improved, the craft of pottery carving has become more mature, and simple pottery sculptures have appeared. You can not only make ears on pottery, but also make some small animals to decorate it.
An important turning point in the development history of osmanthus appeared in the Qin Dynasty. After Qin Shihuang destroyed the six countries, he continued to send troops to the south for hundreds of times. Qin Jun encountered great difficulties in recruiting Arroyo, and neither food nor soldiers could satisfy him. Therefore, in 2 19 BC, Qin Shihuang ordered Yu Shilu to build a Lingqu in Xing 'an, Guangxi, connecting the Xiangjiang River and the Lijiang River system, and put down Baiyue in one fell swoop. The Qin Dynasty established Guilin County in Guangxi, and the specific location of the county governance has not yet been finalized, but archaeologists have discovered several large-scale ancient cities of the Qin Dynasty in Xing 'an, Guilin (now the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units). A large number of pottery has been unearthed in Qin Cheng, and its decoration continues the traditional Yue style. Most of them depict printed rice grains and grid patterns, but the influence of Han Dynasty can be clearly seen in the modeling of some pottery. For example, hundreds of pottery beans commonly used in the Central Plains have been unearthed, and their cultural influence can be seen. From this era, the Central Plains civilization and Baiyue civilization gradually merged in Guangxi, and the Yue people gradually accepted Confucianism in the Central Plains, adopted the Han surname and changed to speak Chinese. Accordingly, since then, Guangxi Guitao has absorbed the technology and culture of the Central Plains on the basis of inheriting the ancient Baiyue customs. six
The Han Dynasty was the period when Guitao developed and grew. In the early years of the Han Dynasty, Zhao Tuo, commander-in-chief of the South China Sea, established himself as the king of South Vietnam, ruling Guangdong and Guangxi, and was later destroyed by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty attached importance to trade. After the territory expanded to the southeast coast, the trade with Southeast Asian and West Asian countries continued to increase, and the Maritime Silk Road came into being. Hepu, Qinzhou, Guangxi, has a superior geographical position and is one of the important ports on the Maritime Silk Road. Due to the improvement of production technology, the demand of trade and the abundance of clay raw materials, Qinzhou gradually replaced Guilin as the main producing area of Guangxi Guitao from the Han Dynasty.
After the Northern and Southern Dynasties, with the passage of time and the development of technology, porcelain gradually replaced pottery and became the main daily necessities. Objectively speaking, porcelain has many advantages over pottery. It is hard, non-absorbent and easy to clean. Therefore, when the technical cost of porcelain is reduced, it is also a historical necessity to become popular. However, in Qinzhou, the most developed area of Guitao, the pottery manufacturing industry is still very prosperous. "Qin County Records" records that "Qinzhou pottery was invented before the Tang Dynasty and refined in the Tang Dynasty". In recent years, archaeologists in Qinzhou have discovered many pottery kiln sites in Sui and Tang Dynasties, such as the ancient kiln site of Henkeng, which shows that the sales of Qinzhou Guitao at that time were still very large.
The most important discovery was 1920. In Xinping Village, Qinzhou, farmer Li Shihua found a carefree Dazu with a ceramic epitaph. The inscription says that it is the tomb of Ning Daowu, a famous person in Qinzhou. Ningjia is a big family in Qinzhou. Kaizu Ningkui was appointed as the secretariat of Anzhou during the reign of Emperor Xuandi of Chen Dynasty. His descendants inherited him, and he was the actual ruler of Qinzhou. Ning Daowu is the first scholar in Qinzhou history. He has been an official for more than 30 years and has great power. Ning Daowu is not only a local strongman, but also a learned man. Its epitaph naturally reflects the highest artistic achievements of that era and region. He used pieces of pottery instead of stone tablets, indicating that Qin Zhou pottery was really of high quality at that time. There are 65,438+0,500 inscriptions on the pottery tablets, all of which are hand-carved, and the font is Wei Bei in official script, which is of high artistic level. This shows that the traditional description and decoration of Guitao has developed to a new height, from the initial description of decorative patterns to the description of calligraphy, which is an important progress and lays the foundation for the future development of Guitao in Qinzhou. In addition, the ability to carve long characters on pottery pieces requires a very high degree of fineness of pottery clay, which shows that the material selection process of Guitao at that time was very close to that of later generations. six
From the Song Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, this period was the heyday of China porcelain, and Guangxi Guitao was also influenced by Central Plains porcelain, forming a period of porcelain development. Typical ones are: tengxian Song Zhonghe Kiln, Guiping Song Porcelain Kiln, Xing 'an Yan Guan Kiln, Liuzhou Dabu Kiln, Yongfu Kiln Tian Ling Kiln, Beiliu Lingdong Kiln, Hepu Shangyao Village Kiln and so on. At this stage of the rapid development of porcelain, Guangxi pottery is in a slow development period, mainly making pottery for daily use. At this time, Qinzhou pottery was in a state of self-production and self-sale for a long time, and traditional art pottery was suppressed by emerging art porcelain, but fortunately, the pottery-making process was well preserved and passed down. The biggest pottery-making project in this period was the firing project of Qinzhou city wall bricks. Each of these bricks is "one foot long, six inches big and four inches thick", and there are more than ten million bricks. Qin County Records said that these city bricks are "the dilemma between manpower, firepower and firing". "But Qin actually has this feature, which has been passed down to this day. . . It shows that I admire the professional knowledge of the ceramics industry, which has existed since the past. " . four