Description of Chinese name: stone axe explanation: stone tools used for logging and other purposes are trapezoidal or nearly rectangular in shape: ground into ancient legendary artistic activities, ancient stone tools and jade crafts, primitive pottery, ancient legendary artistic activities. From the ancient legends of Three Emperors and Five Emperors, we can see the ancient human life in China. Legends in ancient history were compiled by people in the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, which benefited a lot. Their true value needs to be deeply analyzed by historians, but what they said is not completely contrary to today's scientific viewpoint. For example: burrowing, eating the meat of birds and animals, dressing their fur, knowing their father from Anemarrhena asphodeloides, not raising and lowering their sons, not advancing and retreating, and so on. All these show that the level of civilization at that time was still very low and there was no moral standard of class society. According to ancient legends, some people called "emperors" appeared one after another, all of whom were related to cultural creation and working life: Sui Renshi invented fire; Fu is a gossip and a net; Shennong's notes on making thunder, plowing grain, inventing medicine, making pottery and knotting rope; When the Yellow Emperor built ships, cars, weapons and cast ding, Lei Zu began to raise silkworms, and Kunwu was the "Zheng Tao" who specialized in making pottery. Cangjie creates words, and stone and yellow make pictures. At this time, he also painted a portrait of Chiyou, and painted "Shen Tu" and "Lei Yu" on the mahogany board to ward off evil spirits. In the Yao and Shun era, sacrificial ceremonies and jade articles representing rank status were made into systematic "five sites" and "five vessels", and colorful costumes were designed. Shun himself once made pottery by the river, not as shabby as others, so he was especially praised in ancient history. Zhu Yu's nine cauldrons, carved with the shape of ghosts and gods, make people distinguish between "gods" and "traitors". These creations mentioned in ancient legends and other social life, as well as cultural creations such as music and musical instruments, are all attempts to explain the process from barbarism to civilization experienced by the people of ancient China. In this process, some art-related activities, such as painting and decoration, are said to be not pure art activities, but part of all civilized creations aimed at social progress and serving life. This is what we know from historical legends about the early artistic activities in ancient times. Ancient legends especially need archaeological data to confirm, and have not been systematically recognized at present. The primitive social and cultural archaeological discoveries of ancient stone tools and jade crafts have accumulated some materials in the past 50 years. However, due to its vast territory and diverse geographical and climatic conditions, China is still accumulating materials to cooperate with large-scale economic construction. From the existing discoveries, the artistic knowledge we can learn is relatively simple. Ancient paintings and sculptures have not yet been discovered (paleolithic goddess sculptures were found in the Soviet Union and Germany, and cave murals were found in France and Spain). Ancient artistic creativity can be seen from stone tools and pottery. 1927, the skull fossils of the early Paleolithic "Chinese ape-man" (also known as "Peking ape-man") were found in Zhoukoudian near Beijing. The Chinese ape-man period was about four or five hundred thousand years ago. Chinese ape-man is an intermediate type from ape to man. Before and after this discovery that shocked the whole world, other Chinese ape-man bones were found. In the cave where they lived, they found the animal skeleton fossils and other cultural relics they left behind. We can know that Chinese apes can make rough and simple stone tools, make animal bones into bone tools, use fire and cook food. In Zhoukoudian, more primitive stone tools than those used by Chinese apes were found-stone-core stone tools made of flint and several quartz stones that had been struck by hand. The location of the discovery is called the thirteenth location. In addition, the fifteenth place also found stone tools later than Beijingers. 1954 1 1 month, three teeth fossils and a large number of stone tools of Dingcun people about 200,000 years ago were found in Ding Cun, Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province (according to the recent uranium method, it was 2 15000-175000-the reviser's note). In addition, in the past few decades, Paleolithic sites have been discovered one after another, and the front teeth and stone tools of Hetao people have been discovered in Gasasuk, south of Hetao, Inner Mongolia (recently measured 50,000-35,000 years ago-reviser's note). Fossils of Neanderthals, their stone tools and relatively developed bone implements were found in Zhoukoudian cave. Among the relics of cavemen (about 18000 years ago), besides stone tools, the most striking ones are short antlers with polished surfaces and decorative patterns on them, and finely ground bone needles with holes at one end and sharp at the other. The most advanced technology is some perforated stone beads, animal teeth, gravel and shells. In addition, some hematite fragments and particles used as dyes and some oval gravels dyed red by hematite were also found. To some extent, these things reflect the decorative intention of artistic activities (and may have other purposes). 195 1 year when chengdu-chongqing railway was built, the skull fossil of "Ziyang Man" was found in Ziyang County, Sichuan Province, and no cultural relics were unearthed. "Ziyang people" can be seen to have a certain relationship with "Neanderthals" in physique. /kloc-0 At the beginning of 956, paleolithic human fossils were also found in caves in Laibin County, Guangxi. The specific situation is still unknown. Paleolithic stone tools have also been found in Yunnan and Gansu. After the Paleolithic Age, it was the Mesolithic Age. Small stone tools have appeared in the culture of the Middle Stone Age. The use of this small hammer stone tool lasted until the Neolithic Age, and it was often called "microlithic". Cultural relics of the Mesolithic Age were discovered in northeast China and Wuming, Guangxi. The Guxiangtun site near Harbin was once thought to belong to the Mesolithic Age. In Zhalainuoer, near Manzhouli, Heilongjiang Province, fossils of human skulls, stone tools and bones from/kloc-0 to 20,000 years ago were found. Zhalainuoer's microliths can be regarded as the oldest in China. Exquisite stone tools have also been found in Ang Ang Creek in Qiqihar. In addition, near Linxi, Chifeng and the Great Wall in Inner Mongolia, microliths unearthed with pottery in the late Neolithic period have been found, and mixed with the culture characterized by painted pottery in the Central Plains. During this period, the microliths spread all over Inner Mongolia and the Great Wall, along the edge of Gobi and directly to Xinjiang. Recently, the site of the microlithic culture (called "Shayuan culture" for the time being) was discovered in Chaoyi, Shaanxi Province and Shagang, Dali, Sanmenxia area in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, and a microlithic was also discovered in Huixian, Henan Province. These are all phenomena that deserve special attention. Grinding stone tools began to be used in the Middle Stone Age and were very common in the Neolithic Age: pottery was also invented in the Neolithic Age. Neolithic cultural sites-houses and tombs-are widely distributed all over China. Xinjiang in the west, Jilin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Taiwan Province provinces in the east, Inner Mongolia in the north and Guangdong coastal areas in the south. At present, the more important sites are densely distributed in the Yellow River Basin. Neolithic cultural sites are often distinguished according to the characteristics of unearthed pottery, such as painted pottery sites and black pottery sites (see the pottery section for details). We won't elaborate on the cultural characteristics of these sites, but it can be inferred from the cultural sites and relics found in various places that in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age, people lived in groups and worked together, and the means of production and raw products were all public. They established a primitive commune society and settled down in the Neolithic age to engage in agricultural production. They have accumulated labor experience in their lives, created and developed languages, and further developed their brains and thinking abilities. The development of ancient stone tools is also the development of human understanding of modeling style. Most of the stone tools used by Chinese apes were hit by gravel (pebbles) picked up from the river bed. Or tap the edge of the gravel to expose a thick edge, which can be used for tapping. Or from the timely gravel, layer by layer, into a thin-edged scraping tool. It can be seen that the stone tools of Chinese ape-man are made of any available stone materials at random. Whether it is broken or crushed stone, there is no fixed way and it is not shaped into a certain shape. There is no second step of processing, so choose one and use it immediately. Because of the shape of stone tools, they cannot be divided into meaningful types (Figure 1). Among the stone tools found in Xiangfen and Ding Cun, Xihaozhuang Village, Wuji County, Hebei Province, most of them have no definite method of attack. The washed stone chips have no certain shape and can be used without repair. But it can be seen that the way of attack is fundamentally different from that of Chinese ape-man. Some stone chips have traces of the second step of processing, and there are certain stone tools (Figure 2). Hetao people's stone tools are more advanced. There are also slender quartz stone pieces, all of which are proof of exquisite craftsmanship. Stone tools are processed according to different uses and made into scrapers with different shapes. That is, in the long-term labor practice, people began to understand the modeling style from the perspective of labor (Figure 3). The progress in the manufacturing technology of Zhoukoudian caveman's stone tools is not very remarkable. The grinding and drilling technology is an outstanding manifestation of the cultural development of cavemen, which is close to the Neolithic level (Figure 4). The important progress of stone tool forms is manifested in the Mesolithic stone tools and later the Microlithic Age in Zhalainuoer and other places. Especially fine stone tools (carving knives, stone whirls, sharp objects, stone leaves, stone drills, etc. ) has a completely symmetrical form and has been finely processed and peeled off. The materials selected, especially the microliths, are timely, agate, jasper, Blackstone and so on. They are all beautiful, shiny and translucent minerals. This fine processing, complete and symmetrical modeling and beautiful colors make the microliths have aesthetic value. The stone tools polished after making them are the main symbols of the Neolithic Age. Grinding and drilling technology (also a process using friction) and extremely neat and symmetrical shapes (square, rectangle, circle, etc.). ) has become an advanced stage in the development of stone tools (Figure 5). The development process of ancient stone tools production and form: from unfixed form to fixed form, from irregular form to neat form, from asymmetric form to symmetrical form, from randomly selected raw materials to specially selected raw materials, all happened through long years and continuous working life. The evolution of stone tools meets the needs of labor and reflects the progress of human hands and the development of thinking ability. After a long period of labor practice, ancient stone tools produced a "beautiful" form, which can be further explained in jade crafts. China has a very developed jade craft in ancient times, which is a unique achievement of ancient art in China. Jade is divided into nephrite and jadeite (or jadeite) in modern mineralogy. In ancient times, nephrite was common, with a hardness of six and a half to seven degrees, which was not easy to wear. It is green, milky white, yellow, red, black and blue. It is glassy, opaque, cold and soft to the touch. There is a clear sound when knocking at the door. But the ore called jade in ancient times is not limited to an ore that meets the requirements of modern mineralogy. Generally, a good ore, the so-called "beautiful stone" (hard, shiny and colorful), can be called jade raw material. It has been found that jade existed in the late Neolithic period (such as Yangshao culture in Gansu and Longshan culture in Shandong), not as a simple labor tool, but as a beautiful object with attractive form. The raw materials of these jade articles may have been exchanged from quite distant areas. Jade found in the ruins of Yin Ruins in the Bronze Age and the Warring States Period has reached a high degree of exquisiteness. There are many forms of ancient jade and stone tools: GUI, Zhen, Shui, Bi, Gui, Ji and so on. According to ancient records, these jades have an important position and aesthetic value in the religious and political life of ancient society. Many forms of jade are inherited from labor tools. In ancient books, Gui and Zhen Gui stipulated that they represented the identity of the son of heaven. Sacrifice to the east, pay tribute to the sun, all with blue reeds. Different levels of governors also use different graphical user interfaces. Gui was a stone axe in the Stone Age, and Zhen Gui was a stone knife. Archaeological findings can be confirmed to be the same as those in ancient books "Da Gui ... wrote Zhong Kui's first poem (The Book of Rites). The "rafter" is the thin blade on the upper part, and the "Zhong Kui head" is the elephant vertebra on the lower part, which describes the style of the stone axe. It is really a flaky stone knife with a slightly square hole, and the cave is a crescent stone knife. The garden, the ring and the ring are all round with holes in the middle, so they are named after the size of the holes. The radius of the hole in the wall is one fifth of the radius of the whole wall. It's a third. The ring is half. Yubi and Yuhuan, according to archaeological research, think that they may come from spinning wheels or round stone axes. Yuhuan, like other small ornaments made of jade, was originally popular in the Stone Age, with the same shape between stones or jade. The form of ancient jade comes from stone tools, and the production process also comes from stone tools. Because of its high hardness, the raw materials for processing jade need special skills, such as cutting, grinding, cutting, grinding and drilling, which are mastered in the long-term labor process of making stone tools. In addition, all kinds of knowledge about jade raw materials are undoubtedly acquired for the manufacture of Neolithic stone tools. In addition to understanding the characteristics of material properties and beautiful texture, the most important thing is the knowledge about the place of origin. It can be seen from the archaeological excavations of microliths that many microliths were found far away from the origin of those raw materials, which proved that they were deliberately searched. The source of nephrite double-hole axe found in Longshan cultural site in Rizhao, Shandong Province and a large number of jade articles found in Yin Ruins in Anyang are unknown today. Judging from the mineral knowledge from the Han Dynasty to today, these jade raw materials all come from distant Xinjiang. From the relationship between stone tools and jade handicrafts, it can be seen that stone tools first attracted people's love as labor tools, and at the same time were regarded as objects of beauty, entered class society, and were plundered and monopolized by the ruling class. Such as GUI and stone axe, are regarded as symbols of the authority of rulers. Some ornaments have the meaning of personal identity. A whole system (such as the theory of "five ruins", etc. Among them, different jade articles are associated with social class, political ceremony and religious ceremony; And interpret it as a sign of moral life. Jade represents all kinds of life ideals and virtues in the early feudal system. The jade theory in Confucian philosophy has become a part of the ancient aesthetic thought of the integration of beauty and goodness. Primitive pottery pottery is the main plastic arts left over from the Neolithic Age. There are four kinds of Neolithic pottery: argillaceous gray pottery, painted pottery, black pottery and geometric printed pottery. Mud gray pottery is the most common pottery in ancient times, and its surface is decorated with woven patterns such as rope pattern, basket pattern and mat pattern. The representative shape of gray pottery is Wei (a three-legged boiler). This kind of pottery probably first appeared in the border areas of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan, and then spread to various Neolithic cultures, and was found in northwest, central plains, northeast and eastern coastal areas. The times have continued to this day. However, the form of Tao Ge disappeared completely in the Han Dynasty, and the rope mat decoration on the surface of pottery disappeared after the Han Dynasty. The form and decoration method of rope mat show the close relationship between pottery and braided fabric (or leather products). According to archaeologists' speculation, the origin of ancient pottery was produced by coating clay on woven or wooden containers in order to make them fire-resistant. It is gradually found that the molded clay separated from its molded vessels can also be suitable for this purpose. In this way, the form produced by weaving or sewing technology has become the first form obtained by pottery in production. Because of its long-term application, it has become the basis for the further development of process modeling. The rope pattern decoration on pottery has been preserved for a long time, and it is no longer the inevitable result of production, but an intentional decoration (Figure 15, 16). Painted pottery is an outstanding craft creation of primitive society in China. Painted pottery is found in Hougang, Anyang, Henan, western Henan (Yangshao Village, Qinwangzhai and Guangwu County, Mianchi County), the upper reaches of Huaihe River, Jinnan (Yin Xi Village, Xiaxian County, Jingcun Village, Wanquan County and Fenshui River Basin), Weihe River Basin, Taohe River Basin, Hebei, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia and the Great Wall of Xinjiang. Recently, it has also been found in Jingshan and Tianmen, Hubei. Among them, the earliest and most representative site was Yangshao Village. The Neolithic culture of Yangshao Village and other sites with the same nature is called "Yangshao culture". Painted pottery is an important relic of Yangshao culture, but it also appears in other cultural sites. The completeness and richness of all the village sites discovered in Xi 'an banpo village in recent years are unprecedented, providing a complete picture of people's life in this cultural era. Yangshao culture can be traced back to 5000 BC to 3000 BC. It is one of the important cultures created by China ancestors. According to the discovery of these sites, we can know that people have settled down for a long time and engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry. Besides pottery, handicrafts, weaving and sewing have become very common. Bows and arrows have developed in weapons and may have been exchanged. Painted pottery of Yangshao culture in Neolithic Age was found in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and other places in the Central Plains, but it can also be divided into different periods in the morning and evening, and few painted pottery with complete shape was found. Complete and rich discoveries are mainly made in Gansu and Qinghai. Yangshao culture in Gansu can be divided into three types: Majiayao type represented by Majiayao site in Lintao County, Gansu Province (Figure 9), Banshan type represented by Banshan site in Guangtong County, Gansu Province (Figure 10), and Machang type represented by Machangyan site in Ledu County, Qinghai Province (Figure1kloc-0/). Inheriting Yangshao culture, there are painted pottery in the cultural relics of Xindian, Gansu, but it has degenerated. The raw material of painted pottery is ordinary loess (without calcium and potassium), plus fine sand and magnesium-containing stone powder, but the production process is very excellent. The clay may have been carefully washed. Hand-made, partially trimmed with slow wheels, and polished pottery surface. The kiln fire temperature is above 1000 degrees Celsius, and it may have been equipped with a blast furnace. The iron content in clay is very high, above 10%, so the pottery turns yellow or red after firing. Natural ochre, red soil or manganese soil are mostly used as raw materials for painting and decoration. Some vessels are also painted with red or white pottery clothes. The complete specimen of painted pottery of Yangshao culture belongs to intermediate type. The representative forms of intermediate painted pottery are large-opening cans and closed cans (with or without necks). Pots and cans are wider than height and smaller at the bottom. The outline of the whole organ is a soft curve without a flat bottom, so it gives the impression that the abdomen is extremely bulging, thick and short. Mid-levels painted pottery pot is an outstanding work in ancient crafts. Each part of the painted pottery jar has a certain proportion in modeling, such as the ratio of height to width and the ratio of belly diameter to bottom diameter, which is helpful to form a soft and beautiful outer contour. It is one of the most successful and unique shapes in the history of arts and crafts in China. Decoration varies from place to place. The composition of geometric decorative patterns, regardless of density, combines the change of shape. This is the beginning of an important traditional arts and crafts technology in China. Geometric decorative patterns have the most vivid wave arc effect. The patterns are virtual and real, and black and white set each other off as "pun patterns". This is the traditional effective organization method of China model. The shape and decoration of painted pottery can also be considered as retaining some characteristics of weaving technology. The geometric patterns on painted pottery have tried to be explained by religion, which is difficult to prove so far. Painted pottery unearthed from Anbanpo tomb in Xi 'an has a face and fish-shaped pattern, which is simple and powerful, but its meaning is still unclear. In Yangshao culture, a half-humanoid ceramic lid was found, and there was a serpentine braid on the back of the head. From the fantasy and mythical style of the modeling, we can know that it has religious significance, but the specific content is unknown (Figure 12). The images of clay yellow pottery, red pottery lamb, dog, duck, goose, turtle, fish and other birds found together with painted pottery in Shijiahe, Tianmen, Hubei Province are all made by kneading, which are simple and unique. The painted pottery in the racecourse is rough, with symbolic animal shapes (dogs? )。 This symbolic animal shape, even human form, also appears on the coarser painted pottery in Xindian. These symbolic images represent the simple ability to understand reality. Black pottery is another brilliant achievement of ancient crafts in China. Black pottery is mainly found in the eastern coastal areas, north to Liaodong Peninsula and south to Zhejiang. But it is also found in central and western Henan. The most important one is the Longshan cultural site in Chengziya, Longshan Town, near Jinan, Shandong Province. Longshan culture is outside Yangshao culture, and its period may be a little later. It is another important culture developed in the eastern coastal areas of China, which shows that it is the pioneer of Shang culture. In addition to agriculture and animal husbandry, the textile industry of Longshan culture is also more advanced than Yangshao culture, which was discovered by Oracle bones. The most important relic of Longshan culture is a kind of black pottery with more advanced firing technology than painted pottery. Its characteristics are: "black, light, thin, edge and nose". -Black (also gray and pinkish yellow); The surface is smooth and shiny; Very thin, generally 3 mm thick, the thinnest is less than 1 mm, as thin as an eggshell; Wheel system, angular and neat appearance; The device is usually connected with a belt or a hand-held nose. Black pottery has a variety of shapes, mostly flat-bottomed round feet and tripods. Pottery is a unique shape of black pottery. Many black pottery styles are close to those of bronze wares, such as Dou, Ding and Wei. The shape of black pottery has its own simple and refreshing style, which wins by the balance of shape rather than decoration (Figure 13, 14). It is as artistic as ancient jade. In the south of Huaihe River basin, a geometric printed pottery has been unearthed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It has attracted special attention because of a large number of discoveries in large-scale economic capital construction projects since liberation, but the specific situation is still unclear. There are beautiful shapes and various simple embossed decorative geometric patterns. In addition, there is also a kind of coarse sand pottery with grate decoration unearthed in Inner Mongolia along with the microliths, which remains to be verified. Ancient painted pottery and black pottery represented the first peak of China's ancient artistic creation. In terms of technology and modeling, preparations were made for bronze technology. The long-term development and evolution of ancient pottery proves that labor not only creates artistic forms, but also cultivates people's aesthetic taste.