Researchers from University College London (UCL) and Peking University have discovered that the oldest ceramic water pipe system ever discovered in China demonstrates that neolithic humans were capable of performing major engineering marvels without the necessity for centralized governmental control.
A report that details the results was released on August 14 in the journal Nature Water.
A network of ceramic water pipes and drainage ditches at the Chinese walled site of Pingliangtai, going back 4,000 years to the Longshan period (about 2600 to 2000 BCE), was described by the archaeological team in the study.
Around 500 people lived in the Neolithic settlement of Pingliangtai, which was fortified by walls and a moat around it. It is located in the enormous Huanghuaihai Plain's Upper Huai River Plain, where the climate 4,000 years ago experienced significant seasonal temperature fluctuations. The area might receive a foot and a half of rain every month during the summer monsoons.
With so much rain, the area needed to effectively control flooding. To help reduce the excessive rainfall during the rainy season, the residents of Pingliangtai appear to have constructed and maintained a two-tier drainage system. To redirect water from the residential area to a network of ceramic water pipes that carried the water into the surrounding moat and away from the hamlet, simple but well-planned lines of drainage ditches ran parallel to the rows of dwellings.
The group contends that this system of pipes demonstrates how the neighborhood worked together to create and maintain this drainage system.
The discovery of this ceramic water pipe network is remarkable because the people of Pingliangtai were able to construct and maintain this cutting-edge water management system with stone age tools and without the organization of a central power structure, according to Dr. Yijie Zhuang, senior and corresponding author on the paper at the University College London Institute of Archaeology. This method would have needed extensive planning and coordination across the entire community, and it was all done collectively.
Closeup photo of water pipe segments fitted together in situ at Pingliangtai. Photo: Yanpeng Cao
The oldest complete drainage system ever uncovered in China is made primarily of ceramic water pipes. The water pipes, which were constructed by linking separate parts and run along walls and roads to divert rainwater, demonstrate a sophisticated level of central planning at the neolithic town.
Researchers find it interesting that there is minimal evidence of social hierarchy in the Pingliangtai community. There were no obvious socioeconomic divisions or considerable inequalities among the inhabitants, and the homes there were all rather small. Similar to other adjacent towns of the same era, the town's cemetery wasn't found to have any indication of a class hierarchy in burials during excavations.
The town's residents nevertheless banded together and performed the painstaking coordination required to make the ceramic pipes, organize their layout, install them, and maintain them—a undertaking that probably required a lot of work from a large portion of the community.
These pipes' level of intricacy disproves a previous theory in the area of archaeology that only a centralized state power with ruling elites could marshal the organization and resources necessary to create a sophisticated water management system. Pingliangtai shows that more egalitarian and community cultures were also capable of such architectural accomplishments, whereas other ancient societies with complex water systems tended to have stronger, more centralized control, or even despotism.
Dr. Hai Zhang, a co-author from Peking University, said: "Pingliangtai is a remarkable place. The system of water pipelines demonstrates a level of engineering and hydrology understanding that was previously supposed to be feasible in more hierarchical societies.
For the time, these ceramic water pipes represented a high degree of technology. Each pipe piece was between 20 and 30 centimeters in diameter and between 30 and 40 centimeters in length, though there was considerable diversity in the design and styles. To transport water over great distances, a number of parts were slotted into one another.
Researchers are unable to say with certainty how the Pingliangtai population organized and distributed labor amongst themselves to construct and maintain this kind of infrastructure. The construction of the village's surrounding mud walls and moat would have also required this kind of cooperative community effort.
In comparison to other water systems in the world at the time, the Pingliangtai drainage system is distinctive. Unlike other neolithic systems around the world, many of which were used for sewerage water drainage or other reasons, its function is to drain rain and flood water from monsoons.
