As soon as I saw the pile of white bones, I seemed to understand something, and even the eyes of Xiao Ye and Qianyu flashed with a hint of surprise, but I only looked at the pile of white bones, but I didn't notice the weight and size of this pile of white bones. ”

"What, kid? How can there be children's bones in this place! The old lady also looked very surprised. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

The second uncle looked at the pile of white bones and said, "Look at the fragments next to these white bones! ”

We didn't say much, but we looked over to the white bones, and saw that there were some fragments of clay pots in the dustpan-sized pit, and the clay pot seemed to have just been broken, and the gap was actually white, which reminded me of the white things we saw through the coniferous pile just now, maybe not white bones, but the color of these clay pots.

"What is this?" Wang Dashan's gaze never moved away from the pile of white bones, and he asked again after seeing the casualness of the clay pot.

In fact, after hearing the second uncle say that this thing is a fragment of a clay pot, I already understand something, this kind of thing I have seen in elementary school, at that time I and I went to a pine forest to dig small saplings to plant, and I met a dustpan, we didn't understand what it was at that time, so I opened the dustpan and took a look, only to see that below was a child's corpse, and it was not completely decomposed, at that time I didn't know to tell adults, this matter has been in my heart until now, became a lingering shadow of childhood.

Later, I also asked my grandfather, and my grandfather said that it was a way for someone to bury a child who died young, which seemed to have some meaning, representing that the child could live a healthy life in the next life, but the child's bones in front of us were filled with an extra clay pot, which happened to be smashed by the Abuna Luoyang shovel.

"This is an urn burial!" The second uncle looked at the pair of white bones and the fragments of the clay pot around him fixedly and said, and this urn burial was still in the open air.

When it came to the urn burial, we were all amazed, but since they were all upside down, of course we knew what the urn burial was, but we all reacted to the reminder of the second uncle, of course, the master and Qianyu probably had already seen what this was, but the second uncle was explaining, so he didn't interrupt.

Speaking of urn burial, at this time there is a funeral custom about the loss of children, the funeral custom is the end of life customs, modern funeral customs can seek the source from the vast distance, such as the "urn burial" custom that prevails in the southeast coastal area, also known as "opening the coffin to pick up bones", etc., of course, Zhaotong itself is in Yunnan, not very far from Southeast Asia, but it is not very clear why this urn burial will appear in this pine forest.

The history of urn burial can be traced back to the Neolithic Age about 7,000 years ago, in the Yangshao culture tombs that have been excavated, the pottery urn coffin is the earliest burial tool material used in large quantities by the early people, which is often called "urn coffin burial", that is, the prototype of "urn burial" in later generations.

The most remarkable thing about urn burial is that the vast majority of urn coffins at that time were burial tools for children who died young, and the adult and juvenile dead were directly buried in the pit tombs, taking the Banpo site as an example, among the 250 tombs that have been excavated, there are 174 adult urn tombs, 73 children's urn coffin tombs, and only 3 infant urn tombs.

In addition, whether it is the urn, bowl and other pottery used for children's burial utensils at the Banpo site or the Beishouling site, most of them have a small hole at the bottom or on the basin used as the coffin lid, some are drilled into a very regular circle, and some are knocked into an irregular shape, and a small pottery piece is often covered with a small pottery piece on the small hole, and its inner surface is also coated with red pigment. The significance of all this has given rise to all kinds of speculation.

There is also an opinion that children who died in infancy were placed in urn coffins rather than buried directly in the loess in the hope of giving them a certain amount of space, and that the small holes in the lid or bottom of the urn coffin were intended to allow the child to breathe and be brought back to life.

When Guo Moruo visited the Banpo site, there was a poem: "Banpo children's mound, urn coffin contains corpses; The lid of the urn has a round hole, and the gas can pass through the inside and outside. "Four Songs of Visiting the Banpo Ruins" seems to be an artistic expression of the same opinion.

Since man is dead, why should he be expected to "ventilate"? Some people speculate that this may be related to the backward diagnosis technology at that time, and the phenomenon of "fake death" often occurs in young children, so adults have this fluke thought, hoping that the child can survive, of course, if it is really a premature death, there is no such situation, but if the child suddenly returns to the soul, then the small hole left can let the child who has not died come out by himself, but this is just a kind of psychological comfort, otherwise why only use a dustpan to cover it, instead of directly covering it with soil.

Another opinion is that this is related to people's belief in the soul at that time, and the small hole at the bottom of the basin and bowl should be a passage for the soul to enter and exit, so the burial custom is consistent with Song Zhaolin's "History of Primitive Chinese Society" and so on that children are not buried after death in some areas in modern times, but are buried on tree branches, thinking that the child's soul is weak and cannot come out if buried in the ground.

In this burial method, the urn coffin symbolizes the female womb, the pottery shard covering the coffin hole is painted red to symbolize menstrual blood, and the lower limbs of the child's corpse in the urn coffin or curled up are to restore the state when the human dwelling mother and fetus live, so the purpose of burying the child in the urn coffin is actually to pray for the resurrection and regeneration of the child.

It is said that in some ancient stone tombs in Western Europe, South Asia and the Far East, it has also been found that there are similar Chinese urn coffins of chiseling phenomenon, anyway, this urn burial is focused on children, as for the body of the child in front of us, we are not very clear where it came from, and we don't know how long this age is.

At this time, the master actually squatted down and picked up a clay pot fragment, and there were still some patterns on the clay pot fragments, and the pattern on it turned out to be a pattern like a ghost baby, completely like a skeleton, and this clay pot was burned, and it looked a little irregularly burned.

The second uncle also reached over, looked at the pattern on it, and said, "This is the 'debt collector'?" ”

"What, debt collector?" I was puzzled and asked.

The second uncle explained: "The child unfortunately died, there are customs in many places, the underage child can not enter the ancestral grave after death, can not enter the house, should be simply buried, if under the age of one, can not enter the family tree, because in the feudal superstition, believe that the child who died before the age is a "debt collector", this life is to collect debts, let you raise him in vain, but he can not repay the favor of the elderly, for the "debt collector" from the previous life, of course, can not be introduced into the family, it seems that this urn burial is just to let the child no longer continue to collect debts, After all, it is a sad thing to have a child die in the family. After speaking, the second uncle sighed silently and continued: "Feudal society is not something you and I can understand!" ”

But at this moment, Xiao Ye inserted his fingers under the pile of white bones, and then saw that his fingers had been inserted into the soil below, and then Xiao Ye took out his finger and sniffed it in front of his nose, and exclaimed: "There is something strange about this soil!" ”