Is Taiwanese geography, Taiwan Province and Fujian connected in ancient times?

The geographical connection between Taiwan Province and the mainland in prehistoric times was not as Wang Yang as it is now. There was a "land bridge" between Taiwan Province and the mainland strait, which was called "Dongshan land bridge" in academic circles. Zhangzhou area is the closest point of contact between the mainland and Taiwan Province's prehistoric civilization.

The book Prehistoric Culture of Zhangzhou, edited by Professor You Yuzhu, points out: "Fujian and Taiwan Province provinces, facing each other across the sea, had a very close relationship in prehistoric times. This close relationship is determined by the fact that they have the same geographical conditions, the same geological conditions, the integration of prehistoric times, and the frequent exchanges between ancient humans through land bridges. " "The early human exchanges and cultural exchanges between Fujian and Taiwan were mainly completed through the Dongshan Land Bridge."

Relevant marine geological data show that Taiwan Province is a part of Cathaysian ancient land in Fujian-Taiwan Peninsula, which has been connected into land for many times in prehistoric times from Fujian coast to Taiwan Province Island. Due to the orogeny of Himalayas and the influence of ice age, Taiwan Province and coastal islands were connected with the mainland at the latest in Pliocene of Tertiary. In the early early Pleistocene, due to the rising of the earth's crust and the cooling of the climate, the coastal areas regressed and the coastline advanced to the ocean. At this time, the bottom of the Taiwan Province Strait emerged from the water, forming a vast continental shelf plain, and Taiwan Province Island and Fujian coastal islands became part of the mainland. In the late Early Pleistocene, the climate became warmer and the sea level rose. At this time, seawater entered the Taiwan Province Strait, and Taiwan Province was separated from the mainland. In the early Middle Pleistocene, the earth's crust rose and the temperature dropped again, which led to regression, and Taiwan Province was connected with the mainland again. Since then, the earth's climate is warm and cold, the sea level rises and falls, and the connection and separation between Taiwan Province and the mainland appear alternately. After the last ice age, Taiwan Province and the mainland were connected by a curved strait.

at the peak of the last ice age, about 16, years ago, there was a major regression in the coastal areas of Zhangzhou. According to the research of relevant scholars, the sea level of this regression is about 11 meters lower than today, which is the lowest since 4 thousand years ago. When the sea level dropped, the ancient people entered Taiwan Province along the exposed channel. However, the Taiwan Province Strait is 3 kilometers long from north to south. Which section is the most ideal and convenient migration route from west to east? This can be understood only by finding out the submarine topography of the Taiwan Province Strait. At the northern end of the Strait, the distance from Minjiang Estuary to Danshui is only 2 kilometers. However, because the submarine landform of the Strait gradually inclines from the south mouth to the northeast, the terrain is getting lower and lower, and the water is getting deeper and deeper. "Even if the sea level drops during the ice age, it is difficult to become a dry land, but a vast swamp lowland", so it is difficult to pass. At the southwest end of the Strait, it is 3 kilometers from Nan 'ao Island in Guangdong to Kaohsiung, which is a long way and not an ideal way. From Dongshan to Tainan via Penghu, there is a platform formed by continental sediments in different periods from Pleistocene to Holocene, which becomes the watershed between the South China Sea and the East China Sea basin. This watershed is the "Dongshan Land Bridge", a shoal with a water depth of about 4 meters and a shallowest point of only 1 meters, which runs across the Strait from west to east. According to Professor Lin Guande's Discussion on the Submarine Geomorphology of the Taiwan Province Strait, the Dongshan Land Bridge is now 4 to 5 meters below sea level. Tens of thousands of years ago, the ancient sea level dropped to 13 meters below sea level, and the Dongshan Land Bridge was 9 meters above sea level at that time. This is the bridge of civilization connecting Fujian and Taiwan in ancient times.

The western end of Dongshan Land Bridge, the coastal areas of Zhangpu, Yunxiao, Dongshan and Zhao 'an in Zhangzhou, is probably the starting point for humans to enter Taiwan Province via Dongshan Land Bridge in ancient times. When the land bridge became land, there were many trees and rivers on the land bridge, and many ancient animals, such as bison, ancient deer, saber-toothed elephant and rhinoceros, entered Taiwan Province in droves through the land bridge. Ancient humans also rushed into Taiwan Province along the land bridge, holding stone tools and shouting. When they found spacious caves in Taiwan Province, hunted wonderful game and picked sweet wild fruits, they settled and multiplied there. This is the earliest inhabitants of Taiwan Province.

In recent years, archaeological discoveries in the Taiwan Province Strait and its coastal areas have repeatedly confirmed the existence of "Dongshan Land Bridge". Scholars on both sides of the strait have found ancient shoreline signs, ancient river courses flowing from the continental shelf, fresh water and terrestrial freshwater paleontology seed specimens, which provide cultural relics for studying that the strait was once land. In particular, the "Dongshan Man" fossils from Dongshan land bridge, the middle and late Pleistocene animal fossils in geological period, and the archaeological discoveries of Zhangzhou stone tools have played an extraordinary role in further affirming the academic viewpoint of Dongshan land bridge. Professor You Yuzhu said in his academic writings about "Dongshan Land Bridge": "As long as the climate in the Pleistocene period gets a little cold, the uplift of" Dongshan Land Bridge "will be exposed as land. Therefore, the' Dongshan Land Bridge' became the only place for human beings to travel between Fujian and Taiwan in prehistoric times. The discovery of stone products and human bone fossils in Zhangzhou further confirmed the important role of the' Dongshan Land Bridge' in the relationship between Fujian and Taiwan, and also confirmed the bridgehead role of Zhangzhou in the process of human migration to Taiwan Province. "

The archaeological discovery of Taiwan Province Island also strongly confirms the existence of "Dongshan Land Bridge". In the Quaternary strata of Taiwan Province, many mammalian fossils have been discovered, such as the oriental saber-toothed elephant, saber-toothed tiger, China rhinoceros, ancient deer, bison and wild boar. These are all common ancient animals in Zhangzhou and even South China at the same time. Most of the 64 species of mammals, freshwater fishes and plants in Taiwan Province are of the same pedigree as those in the mainland. All these indicate that Taiwan Province and the mainland belong to the same ancient land, which is connected with the land, and animals and plants live in the same circle. "Dongshan land bridge" is the only way for ancient animals and plants to cross the strait. Professor Zang Zhenhua of Taiwan Province said in his archaeological report on prehistoric civilizations in Taiwan Province and Penghu that during the four to five thousand years, there was a regression period in the Taiwan Province Strait, and a land bridge was exposed. The land bridge "had shoals, swamps and rivers on it ... At this time, crowd activities on the Taiwan Province Strait were quite frequent. There are often transactions between residents of Penghu, Taiwan Province and the coastal areas of Fujian and Guangdong in the mainland. " Rice marks were found on the pottery pieces excavated from the Kenting cultural site in Tainan, indicating that the rice farming civilization in mainland China had been introduced to Taiwan Province with immigrants during this period.

For the existence of "Dongshan Land Bridge", Dongshan fishermen, who depend on and eat the sea for generations, are also convinced. There is an old folk proverb in southern Fujian that says, "sink in Tokyo and float in Fujian". Dongshan, Zhao 'an and Guangdong Nan 'ao are popular with the old saying: "Sink in Tokyo, float in South Australia." It refers to the natural phenomenon that the sea level rises and falls, and the land bridge in the Taiwan Province Strait rises to land and does not enter the sea alternately. Dongshan fishermen fish at sea all the year round and know the depth of the seabed from Dongshan to Penghu. Occasionally, they get all kinds of animal bone fossils from the shallows in this area, including human bone fossils and ceramics with shells of marine mollusks attached to their surfaces. They are convinced that Tokyo City sank here in ancient times, but they certainly don't think that this is a long and narrow platform on the seabed landform of the Taiwan Province Strait. According to the tradition of fishermen's "burying bones when they meet" and pantheism, the bones caught cannot be thrown into the sea, but must be taken back to land for burial. In the northeast of Tongling, Dongshan, there is a "Wanfu Palace" dedicated to collecting bones without owners and offering sacrifices to ghosts and ghosts. According to the investigation by Chen Liqun of Dongshan County Museum, there are several skeleton warehouses in Wanfu Palace. The warehouse is almost buried underground, leaving a small door on the ground, and it will be closed with soil when it is full. There are many animal bones in the warehouse, including elephants, water deer, goats and bears. It is not difficult to see that the "Dongshan Land Bridge" does exist; It can also be speculated that when the ancient "Dongshan Land Bridge" emerged from the sea, people and animals came and went on it. The following two sketches of "Dongshan Land Bridge" and early human migration routes drawn by Professor You Yuzhu may be more intuitive for us to understand the human activities of "Dongshan Land Bridge" in ancient times.

Professor You Yuzhu pointed out that there is a dense zone of human fossils and stone tools between the Tropic of Cancer and 25 degrees north latitude. "This dense belt starts from Yuanmou in Yunnan in the west, passes through Guizhou, Guangxi and Guangdong to Fujian, and then crosses the Taiwan Province Strait to Taiwan Province Island." "Early humans took Dongshan in Zhangzhou as a starting point, along the shoal of Dongshan Land Bridge, and arrived in Tainan, Taiwan Province Island via Penghu Islands."

2. "Zhangzhou people" and "Dongshan people"

At present, the earliest human beings in Taiwan Province Island are known as "Zuozhen people" 2, to 3, years ago. Since the "Zuozhenren" fossil was first discovered in 197, seven skull fragments and two teeth have been collected so far. After archaeological identification, the specimen collected for the first time is a fossil of the right parietal bone of a young man of about twenty years old. Its living age belongs to the late Paleolithic period.

Because there are no fossils of ancient humans earlier than "Zuozhenren" in Taiwan Province Island, and no fossils of apes have been found, it is certain that "Zuozhenren" is foreign. Where did "Zuozhen people" come from?

On the east side of Taiwan Province, the slope of the seabed drops sharply by one to ten, and the depth of the sea 2 kilometers offshore reaches 4 kilometers. Taiwan Province is far from the sea of other continents in the world, far exceeding the distance to Chinese mainland. Even though the sea level dropped by more than 1 meters during the Great Ice Age, the unfathomable Pacific Ocean remained to the east of Taiwan Province. Humans from 2, to 3, years ago could never have crossed it. Therefore, the only way for "Zuozhen people" is the mainland. Experts believe that Fujian should be the only place for Zuozhen people to migrate from the mainland to Taiwan Province, and Zhangzhou should be the starting point for prehistoric people to lead to Taiwan Province. In 1987 and 199, the late Paleolithic human fossils "Dongshan Man" and "Zhangzhou Man" were discovered in Zhangzhou, which provided a scientific basis for the inference that ancient humans entered Taiwan Province via Fujian.

"Zhangzhou Man" is a left tibia fossil, which was collected by Mr. Zeng Wuyue of Zhangzhou Cultural Bureau in the northern suburb of Zhangzhou City. It is 131 mm long and light brown. From the characteristics of thicker tibia, it may be a male adult, and its absolute age is about 1, years ago. "Dongshan Man" is a right humerus fossil, which was collected by Mr. Sun Yinglong of Dongshan County Museum. It is 57.9 mm long and light gray. The absolute age is about ten thousand years ago. Observing the bone wall behind the humerus from the cross section, a layer of black substance can be seen, indicating that manganese in the stratum invaded the bone when the fossil was buried at the bottom of the sea. At the junction of the anterior lateral surface and the anterior medial surface of the humerus, there are traces of attachment of marine mollusks, indicating that the fossils came from the seabed. After a long period of seabed burial, the fossils were salvaged by Dongshan fishermen, buried in Tongling Town, Dongshan, and excavated during the construction of Hua Fu Hotel in 1987. In addition, the human fossils found in Fujian are the human tooth fossils from Fox Cave in Qingliu County, 1, years ago. Experts from the Institute of vertebrate paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences believe that the discovery of human fossils in Zhangzhou is of great significance to the paleolithic archaeological research in Fujian, which is self-evident.

Although the absolute age of "Zhangzhou people" and "Dongshan people" is less than that of "Zuozhen people" by more than 1, years, the research of archaeology, geology, anthropology and morphology proves that. The ancestral home of "Zuozhen people" is in Fujian, and they are relatives of the same ancestor as "Zhangzhou people" and "Dongshan people". Archaeological research shows that South China is one of the important areas of prehistoric human activities. The coastline of more than 6 kilometers in Zhangzhou, from Longhai and Zhangpu to Dongshan, Yunxiao and Zhaoan, is just the eastward extension of this area, which was connected with Taiwan Province by land during the ice age. In the northern suburb of Zhangzhou, where the "Zhangzhou Man" fossil was unearthed, stone tools dating from 4, to 8, years ago have been found, belonging to the middle of the late Pleistocene in the geological age. The owner of the stone tools has yet to be discovered. The absolute ages of "Zuozhen people" and Changbin culture in Taiwan Province were 1, to 3, years ago when the Taiwan Province Strait was in the ice age. Mr. Song Wenxun, a professor of archaeological anthropology in Taiwan Province, once concluded that Taiwan Province Paleolithic culture "must have been introduced through South China". A series of important discoveries such as Zhangzhou stone tools, "Zhangzhou people" and "Dongshan people" provide physical evidence for this inference. The convex-edged scraper unearthed in the northern suburb of Zhangzhou has a semi-oval shape, and the curved edge has machining marks from the ventral surface to the back surface and from the back surface to the ventral surface. The other side of the whole shape opposite to the edge is thick, and gradually becomes thinner towards the edge, which looks like a wedge. This kind of wedge-shaped stone tool is also found in the "Changbin Culture" in Taiwan Province, and the processing technology is the same. In particular, some stone tools processed with thick pebbles are similar to the boat-shaped stone tools in Zhangzhou culture.

According to Mr. Zhang Zhenbiao from the Institute of vertebrate paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the natural ecological environment in Zhangzhou in the late Pleistocene was studied. Zhangzhou is close to the Tropic of Cancer. For about 4, years, the ecological environment in southern China has been relatively consistent, so there are the same mammal communities. The combination of mammalian fossils shows that in the late Pleistocene, the natural ecological environment of Fujian, Taiwan Province, Guangdong, Guangxi and Zhejiang is basically similar, that is, the ecological environment affecting the development of human physique in this area is basically similar. Therefore, it is reasonable to speculate that the late Homo sapiens in the south of the Yangtze River, such as Qingliu people and Zhangzhou people in Fujian, Liujiang people in Guangxi, Jiande people in Zhejiang and Zuozhen people in Taiwan Province, are basically similar in physical characteristics and belong to the same sign type.

"Zhangzhou people", "Dongshan people" and "Zuozhen people" belong to the same race-Mongolian race, and their ethnic characteristics belong to the southern region. According to the analysis of relevant data, ancient humans entered Fujian at the early stage of Homo sapiens, that is, about 2, years ago. The earliest Homo sapiens who entered Zhangzhou may have migrated eastward from the eastern coastal hilly areas of Guangdong, and have developed a local culture in Zhangzhou for a long time, maintaining the signs of various ethnic groups in southern China. The following is Mr. Zhang Zhenbiao's description of the ethnic characteristics of "Zhangzhou people" and "Dongshan people" based on the analysis of the signs of Homo sapiens in the late Paleolithic period in China: < P > Their heads are long and medium wide, and the whole head shape is oval; Viewed from the side, the brow ridge is obvious, the brow ridge is thick, the zygomatic arch is thin and weak, the cheekbone is thick and protruding, the frontal bone is inclined, and the maxillary alveolar part is protruding (including jaw type); Viewed from the front, the face is short and wide, the eyes are low, the nose is slightly wide and short, and the bridge of the nose is slightly sunken, which is basically similar to the appearance of Liujiang people and Zuozhen people.

Taiwan Province's prehistoric culture originated in Fujian. Theoretically speaking, there should be human fossils earlier than "Zuozhen people" in Zhangzhou. We have reason to believe that there will be more human fossils and more abundant paleolithic cultural remains in Zhangzhou area, which will show people more archaeological materials of prehistoric personnel exchanges and cultural origins between Fujian and Taiwan.

Third, Neolithic cultural sites

About seven or eight thousand years ago, China's matriarchal clan commune entered a prosperous period. This period is the Neolithic Age in archaeology. The Neolithic relics discovered in Zhangzhou and Taiwan Province show that the culture of Jiulong River Basin and its coastal areas and Taiwan Province Island has been very developed in this period (about three to seven thousand years ago), and there are many similar features.

There are five Neolithic sites found in Zhangzhou, namely Fuchuan Mountain in the suburb of Zhangzhou, Wanbao Mountain in Longhai, Xiangshan Mountain in Zhangpu, Damao Mountain in Dongshan and Lazhou Mountain in Zhao 'an. There are five known places in Taiwan Province: Yuanshan in Taipei City, Daikeng in Taipei County, Beinan Jushi in Taitung County, Fengbitou in Kaohsiung County and Liangwen Port in Penghu.

according to research, at least six transgressions occurred in the Taiwan Province Strait from 8,5 to 1,2 years ago due to global warming after the last ice age. Every transgression leads to the rise of ancient sea level and the change of coastline. This will inevitably have an impact on the economic life of human beings in the coastal areas of Zhangtai. The Neolithic sites found in Zhangzhou belong to shell mound, and they are all in the coastal areas, the lower reaches of rivers or the small areas of Zhangzhou Plain.