Pyongyang, Cradle of Korean Nation (1)
In the past some historians including the Japanese infected with imperialism denied the theory that the Koreans came from the present-day Korea. Distorting history they argued that the Korean nation was formed by immigrants from different quarters. Such a distortion is still going on.
As the historians of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea stipulated in a written protest to the US government and historians on June 15, 1989, the US researchers twisted the origin of the Koreans and the formation of the Korean nation in a textbook of world history: they divided the inhabitants in the Korean peninsula into two groups, the natives and immigrants, and argued that those who had arrived in Korea before Christ dominated the natives and that in the course of this a “mixed-blood tribe” was formed, becoming the basis of the formation of the Korean nation.
The Korea Today editorial board serially introduces Professor Jang U Jin’s work on the clarity of the fact that Korea is one of the cradles of human civilization and that Pyongyang, capital of the DPRK, was the cradle of the Korean nation where the homogenuity of bloodline, language, culture and territory developed.
From Time Immemorial
A site of historical interest that dates back to the first term of the Old Stone Age, called Komunmoru Remains, was discovered at Hugu-ri, Sangwon County in 1966. It was named after the original name of the locality. In this site stone implements used by primitive people and animal bones from the past geological ages were unearthed in numbers. The stone implements were very crude ones including crescent-shaped, trapezoidal, pointed and broken stone implements, which were made artificially for the first time in history. The fossilized animal bones were of 29 large and small species and come under seven orders, 17 families, 22 genuses. Eighteen kinds of them are already extinct. Sangwon horse, Sangwon flat-antlered deer and Sangwon hyena with large spots were characteristic species ever known in history. Those animals are supposed to have existed during the early Diluvial epoch of the Quaternary period. They are quite consistent with the chronological background hinted by the morphological characteristics and primitive feature of the unearthed stone implements. Apparently the animal bone fossils date back a million years ago when humans appeared on the earth. Thus it can be said that the earliest primitive people just after the period of the ape-men began the human life in the Pyongyang area.
The Komunmoru people opened the human history in the Pyongyang peneplain keeping the Taedong River as a source of life-giving water. Later, they developed steadily in the severe struggle against natural rigours in the arena of the area.
That the descendants of the Komunmoru people lived from generation to generation in the Taedong River basin centering on the Pyongyang area is to be proved well by remains belonging to the middle Palaeolithic era, including those found in Taehyon-dong, Ryokpho District, Pyongyang, and the lower layer of a cave in Mt. Sungni in Tokchon City, South Phyongan Province, and remains ascribed to the late Palaeolithic era, including those in a cave at Mandal-ri, Sungho District, North Hwanghae Province, and the middle layer of a cave in Mt. Sungni in Tokchon City, South Phyongan Province. Gradually the Komunmoru descendants expanded their realm of life to wider areas of Korea centred on the area of Pyongyang. At first they were in a small collective of primitive humans, but as the population increased the group became bigger only to be divided into many smaller groups. Such a process repeated constantly and in the Old Stone Age the descendants of the Komunmoru people came to live in an expansive territory of Korea.
Remains from the early Palaeolithic era were unearthed in Kumgul in Tanyang County, North Chungchong Province, and in Kongju City, South Chungchong Province. Meanwhile, many stone implements were discovered in Jongok-ri, Ryonchon County, Kyonggi Province, which are estimated to come from the late first term, or the middle term, of the Palaeolithic era. Most of them were crescent-shaped axes, pointed trigonal and sharp stone implements, hunting stones and hammers made of quartzite and they were much more developed than Komummoru Remains. There were many types of crescent-shaped axes—spear-pointed, arch, oval and flat axes, in particular.
Entering the middle and later terms of the Old Stone Age the people’s vitality strengthened and they expanded their life to farther places from Pyongyang. The remains of the middle and later terms of the Old Stone Age were unearthed on the Tuman River in the north of Korea (Osinovka remains in the Maritime Province of Russia), in Rason City (Kulpho culture) and Jeju Island in the southernmost of Korea (the Pille Pond).