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青铜时代文明使用丝绸的证据
Evidence of the use of silk by Bronze Age civilization
进阶 · 约 25 分钟读完前置知识：考古学基础、中国古代史、纺织/丝绸史
导读
这篇发表于 Nature Scientific Reports 的论文报告在中国青铜时代遗址中检测到丝绸残留物，证明当时已使用丝绸，并推测其作为沟通天地的礼仪载体。评论者指出青铜时代丝绸的使用并非全新发现，论文的新意更多在于残留物检测方法与礼仪功能的解读。
HN 关注点：考古证据的可靠性，以及作者在摘要中直接断言丝绸用于'沟通天地'这一宗教功能是否证据充分。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：支持 1 质疑 2 补充 1
质疑质疑摘要中'沟通天地'的结论缺乏论证支撑
『丝绸残留物被成功检测到，证实了早期丝绸作为沟通天地的物质载体』——最后这句似乎来得毫无铺垫。也许我漏掉了那个椭圆形网格状青铜器的一些含义？非常神秘。
lupusreal查看英文原文
> Silk residues were successfully detected, which confirmed the early use of silk as a material carrier to communicate between Heaven and Earth That last bit seemed to jump out of nowhere. Maybe I'm missing some implications of the grid-like oval bronze thing? Very mysterious.
质疑指出论文结论并非首创
有意思，但青铜时代使用丝绸并不是新发现。
gpvos查看英文原文
Interesting, but silk use in the bronze age is not a new discovery.
补充补充丝绸生产的技术与经济背景，解释其为何昂贵且与礼仪、等级相关
我研究过中国古代史但不是丝绸专家，说两点。关键背景是丝绸制备耗费大量劳动：首先要有合适的昆虫（蛾类幼虫即'蚕'），其次要有合适的树喂它们（通常是桑树），再加上捕捉、收获、缫丝、染色、编织的大量劳动。现代我只在江苏（徐州附近）见过商业化规模的生产。太北昆虫可能耐不住寒冷，太南人工单一种植可能被更适合热带的其他开花植物和捕食性昆虫竞争掉。相对于麻等已有织物，丝绸因强度重量比高、织造致密，在其他语境下有军事价值，比如防箭，尽管不确定这种用途当时是否已出现。任何军事用途都会因接近死亡事件而强化生死之间的文化联系。它柔软且劳动密集（昂贵/稀缺），可能专供较富有或地位较高者使用。
contingencies查看英文原文
Studied ancient Chinese history but not a silk expert, here's my 2c. Critical background is that silk takes a lot of labour to prepare. First you must have the right kind of insects (various species of moth in the larval stage are commonly known as "silkworm"), then you must have the right kind of trees to feed them (commonly mulberries), then you add a lot of labour for capture, harvesting, spinning, dyeing, weaving. In modern times I have only really seen it prepared commercial scale in Jiangsu province (near Xuzhou). If you head too far north the insects probably suffer from the cold, and if you head too far south any artificial farming monoculture is probably readily outcompeted by other flowering plants and predatory insects which are more suited to the tropics (on account of higher moisture, food availability and temperature). Relative to existing fabrics such as hemp, silk has at least in other contexts been of value militarily because of its relative strength to weight ratio and dense weave when applied to important tasks such as resisting arrows, although I'm uncertain if this use had emerged yet. Any military use would tend to reinforce a cultural link between life and death owing to its spatiotemporal proximity to mortality events. The fact that it is soft and labour-intensive (expensive / in short supply) means it was probably reserved for the wealthier or higher ranking figures. Although the paper doesn't state it clearly, it actually deals with the archaeological findings of a non-Han Chinese civilization in the area of Sichuan which was illiterate and was based around what appeared to be a bird and tree cult (the Shu kingdom of the Sichuan basin[1]). It is therefore possible that a kind of soft, reflective-refractive, feather-like, readily dyed textile with a fine weave may have contributed to some sort of ritual purpose in line with these beliefs. Later this civilization was destroyed by the Han Chinese. The wicking properties of silk are fair (I was unable to find a quantitative reference) as was the major early textile of hemp (which is also tough and therefore long-lasting) which is significant as we know that Sichuan in the Shu kingdom period was a vast, tropical inland basin criss-crossed by regularly flooding rivers descending from the Himalayas, thickly forested and with crocodiles, elephants, rhinos, giant cats, colourful birds, etc. Both silk and hemp textiles would help to cool anyone wearing them, relative to other options (animal skins, etc.). Furthermore, in the absence of modern medicine, fine-weave capable wicking fabrics would assist with resisting potentially lethal bacterial and fungal infections in the tropical environment and may therefore have been used as wound dressings or undergarments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_(kingdom)
支持认为摘要中的宗教功能断言体现了研究者的自信
喜欢这一点：他们的工作足够扎实，才敢在摘要里塞进这样一句话。
dr_dshiv查看英文原文
“Silk residues were successfully detected, which confirmed the early use of silk as a material carrier to communicate between Heaven and Earth” Love that the work was strong enough that they could slip a line like this into their abstract.
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