readx;? Shiyu people: Black Camel Mountain in Shuozhou, southwest corner of Datong Basin. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoTime: years.

The site is 100 meters long from north to south and 15 meters wide from east to west. The site is characterized by fine stone artefacts. The cultural relics of the Shiyu site include stone products, bone tools and ornaments.

The Shiyu culture is an important link in the development of the microlithic culture system in North China after the Xindong culture and the Xujiayao culture in Beijing. It is smaller, finely machined, and has some progressive features. Such as: formed wedge-shaped stone cores, axe-shaped small stone knives and stone arrowheads. These stone tools mark the birth of typical fine stone tools and composite tools.

There is a throwing weapon unearthed in the Shiyu site - a stone core (stone ball). As the atmosphere becomes dry and cold, and the surrounding forests and grasslands shrink, the hunting economy becomes particularly important. In order to survive, people had to risk their lives in groups to capture the large, ferocious herbivorous and carnivorous mammals. Stone cores used as a trap for large animals have long been widely used by Paleolithic humans, not limited to the Shiyu people.

The axe-shaped small stone knife is small and exquisite, resembling an axe, made of translucent crystal, with a curved blade about 3 cm wide, and a short handle protruding between the two flat shoulders. This kind of tool has the characteristics of sharp edge, easy to grasp, light and flexible, which fully shows the progress of Shiyu culture.

Stone axes are made of thin, long flint flakes with sharp tips and shaped collars that can be tied to wooden poles to make practical bows and arrows. Judging from the fineness of the processing of stone arrowheads, the time when human beings first used bows and arrows was a little earlier, at least a year ago.

The original bow and arrow were made of bamboo and wood, which is very perishable and difficult to preserve intact to this day, so in archaeological excavations, only the bow can be seen, but not the bow. The invention of the bow and arrow, an advanced and exquisite fine weapon, is a sign of the unprecedented improvement of the hunting level of the Shiyu people. The invention of the bow and arrow greatly strengthened man's ability to conquer nature, not only providing humans with a relatively sufficient source of meat, but also laying the foundation for the emergence of livestock breeding or animal husbandry.

Bows and arrows have the advantages of long range, fast speed, high hit rate, and low danger. As far as the basic structure of the bow and arrow is concerned, although there are only three parts: bow, string and arrow, it contains quite rich technical knowledge, which not only involves the selection of a variety of materials, the processing of multiple methods and the technology of multiple connections, but also has a certain knowledge of elastic formation and arrow body flight. Therefore, the manufacturing technology of bows and arrows is the crystallization of human experience and skills in primitive societies and is the highest achievement of primitive military technology. The appearance of the bow and arrow is of epoch-making significance. This may be the secret weapon of late Homo sapiens to finally wipe out early Homo sapiens.

According to the ancient legend of our country, Yi is a descendant of Zhen Xuan and is known for his good shooting. There is also the myth of "Yi shooting for nine days", praising Yi's great achievements. So later generations also attributed the invention of the bow and arrow to Yi. In fact, the real invention of the bow and arrow is older than the age of the legendary Yi.

In the ruins of Shiyu, the earliest relics of our country can be called saws. This kind of "stone saw" is developed from the scraper, which is to repair the edge of one side of the thin stone chip into a serrated edge, and the edge of the blade is relatively uniform, and the edge is thin and sharp, which is likely to be used as a saw. This kind of "stone saw" can be sawed and scraped at the same time, so archaeologists call it a "single-edge scraper" in the excavation report of the Shiyu site.

Historical documents and folklore have always recognized that the inventor of the saw was the famous craftsman Lu Ban in the Spring and Autumn Period, and the process of his invention of the saw is vividly recounted. In fact, this is because the saw was produced too long ago, and there was no written record in the prehistoric period, so people in later generations attributed the invention of the saw to the earliest skilled craftsmen who could be traced, just as the cars, ships, and houses that could not find the inventor were all attributed to the Yellow Emperor, the ancestor of humanity.

Among the cultural relics unearthed is a drilled ornament made of graphite.

Shiyu people have dexterous hands, active thinking, adapt to the needs of production and life, and make tens of thousands of small and exquisite stone tools. Such as: pointers, scrapers and carvers, etc. The scraper is mainly used for scraping animal skins and cutting animal meat, and there are round, disc-shaped, concave blades, convex blades, bilateral blades, unilateral edges and other types. Pointed tools are used to cut skins and collect rhizomes. These stone tools have a symmetrical and uniform shape, sharp edges, and a more diverse range of types.

With the increase of productivity, the living standards of the Shiyu people have also improved. A lot of fine stone tools related to leather processing have been unearthed from the Shiyu site, indicating that the Shiyu people have mastered the skills of trimming animal skins and sewing animal skins to keep out the cold.

Before the invention of writing, people carved straight marks on animal bone fragments to count. And unearthed a bone fragment with a more complex image, the bone scratch marks are very clear, easy to identify, obviously the Zhiyu people consciously bone carving, indicating that the Shiyu people have not only mastered the simple concept of quantity, but also began to create primitive carving artworks.

The most valuable thing is that two of the earliest rock paintings found in Shanxi Province have been found at the persimmon beach site, both of which are painted with ochre-red hematite powder, one is a nude woman, and the other is a hunting or dancing picture. This discovery shows that human beings at that time had the requirements to reflect life in the form of pictures and had a rich spiritual life.

The largest number of mammal fossils are wild horses, representing at least 120 individuals, and wild asses with 88 individuals, and it is clear that these two steppe animals were the main objects of hunting at that time.

When the Shiyu people live here, the mountains are densely forested, the hills and shrubs are closed, the grass in Pingchuan is fertile, and the fish in the river swim in the water. At that time, the animals living in the Shiyu area included antelopes, wild horses, wild boars, deer, ostriches and so on. The most predatory food of the Shiyu people is wild horses, so the Shiyu people are also called "horse hunters". The Shiyu people used bows, arrows and sticks to capture these grassland animals, engaged in hunting-based production activities, and created the most outstanding horse hunter culture in China's Paleolithic Age.

The Shiyu people are the descendants of the Xujiayao people, who are similar to modern people in terms of physique and form, and have entered the early stage of matrilineal clan communes in terms of social organization.