The water pipes, which are the oldest ever excavated in China, show that Neolithic people were able to build complex, feats of engineering without the need for a leader.
An archaeological team has found a network of ceramic water pipes and drainage ditches in Pingliangtai – a well-known historical Chinese city. The network, which is estimated to be about 4,000 years old, is the oldest ever excavated in China. But that’s not even the only remarkable thing. Building the drainage system requires close community collaboration. And that while there is no evidence that the city had an influential leader.
Pingliangtai
The ancient settlement of Pingliangtai is located in what is today Huaiyang District in the Chinese city of Zhoukou. During the Neolithic Age (also known as the Young or New Stone Age), the walled city with surrounding moat was home to about 500 people. The inhabitants were ravaged annually by heavy summer monsoons, with at least half a meter of rain pouring down every month. Controlling this immense water was important to prevent communities in the region from experiencing flooding.
The drainage system
To contain the excessive rainwater during the rainy seasons, the people of Pingliangtai built a drainage system that was unlike any other at the time. They built simple, but coordinated lines of drainage ditches that ran parallel to the town’s houses. In this way they tried to divert the water from the residential areas towards a series of ceramic water pipes that carried the water to the surrounding canal.
Technical tour de force
These newly discovered ceramic bongs are impressive technical feats, the researchers write in their study, which was published in the journal Nature Water. They represent an advanced technological concept for the time. While there is some variation in decoration and style, each segment of pipe is about 8 to 12 inches in diameter and about 12 to 15 inches in length. Numerous segments were pushed together to transport water over long distances.
Photograph of several interlocked water pipe segments excavated at Pingliangtai. Image: Yanpeng Cao
Without leader
What surprises the researchers is that Pingliangtai shows few signs of social hierarchy. The houses were all small in size and it does not appear that there was any disparity among the population. Excavations in the town’s cemetery seem to support the same, a marked difference from excavations in other nearby towns of the same era.
Cooperation
But despite this apparent lack of a central government, the city’s population must have worked closely together to carefully construct the water pipes. The pipes had to be produced, it had to be figured out exactly where they would be placed, they then had to be installed and then maintained. It must have been an immense project that required a lot of effort from a large part of the community.
Refutes
The immense complexity involved in building the network disproves an earlier theory that it would only be possible to build such a sophisticated drainage system under the watchful eye of a leader or ruling elite. Such a leader would be able to properly organize construction, gather the right resources and then manage the large-scale project. But Pingliangtai now tells a different story. Apparently, more equal and communal societies were also capable of this kind of technical feat. “Pingliangtai is an extraordinary place,” says co-author Hai Zhang. “The network of water pipes shows an advanced understanding of engineering and hydrology that was previously thought possible only in more hierarchical societies.”
Common
The discovery of the ceramic water pipe network is therefore remarkable – and not just because it is the oldest complete drainage system ever discovered in China. “It shows that the people of Pingliangtai were able to build and maintain a very sophisticated drainage system, using Stone Age tools,” said researcher Yijie Zhuang. “And that without the organizational talents of a central government. Building the system required a high degree of planning and coordination, and it was all done collectively.”
The researchers are not exactly sure how the inhabitants of Pingliangtai divided the tasks and brought the project to a successful conclusion. But there is no doubt that they have delivered a fine piece of work. In fact, the drainage system is unique, as it differs greatly from water systems found elsewhere in the world. Its purpose is also different, as it was built to drain the abundant water of monsoons, while other Neolithic water systems were used for, for example, the drainage of sewage. It makes its discovery even more special.
2023-08-16 16:21:53
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