How did the "Hubei people" manage water resources four or five thousand years ago? The earliest water conservancy facilities in my country have been discovered!

On December 4, archaeological experts from Hubei Qujialing Site announced new archaeological discoveries at a site meeting. After excavation, multiple water conservancy systems were discovered at the Qujialing Site. These water conservancy systems are large in scale and built according to the situation. According to expert research and analysis, the age of the early dams ranged from 5100 to 4900 years ago, making them the earliest and clearest water conservancy facilities discovered in my country so far. This time, archaeologists discovered multiple prehistoric water conservancy systems at the Qujialing Site Group, such as Xiongjialing and Zhengfan.

Archaeologists conduct archaeological work at the Xiongjialing Dam site (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

1. Xiongjialing Water Conservancy System: A prehistoric water conservancy project embodying the concept of “adapting measures to local conditions”

The Xiongjialing water conservancy system consists of "elements" such as dams, water storage areas, irrigation areas, and spillways, and is located in the northeast of the Qujialing ruins group.

Xiongjialing Dam is located on the east-west tributary of Qingmuzhai River. The dam is built of earth, connecting the mountains at the north and south ends to block and store water. The existing dam top is about 2 meters high and 13 meters wide; the dam bottom is about 27 meters wide and about 180 meters long from north to south. Xiongjialing Dam can be divided into two phases, the early and late dams. The late dam was expanded on the basis of the early dam.

The site of the Xiongjialing Dam (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

" Trace surfaces " were found in some parts of the two phases of the dam body, which were formed by beating and tamping, reflecting that the deposits of the two phases of the dam body had been artificially beaten, compacted or reinforced.

It is common to find rhizomes of grass plants mixed in the various layers of accumulation in the early and late dam bodies. Experts say this phenomenon reflects the primitive " reinforcement technology ".

Traces of " mud wrapped in grass " were found in the accumulation of early and late dam bodies, which is similar to the use of "grass bags filled with soil" when building dams today.

The east of the dam is the water storage area, which together with the natural hills covers an area of ​​190,000 square meters. The west side of the dam is an irrigation area of ​​85,000 square meters. According to the research and analysis of plant archaeology, there were prehistoric rice fields in this area. The northern gap of the water storage area is the spillway, with an entrance as wide as 26 meters and an outlet to the middle and upper reaches of the Qingmu River in the north. The overall situation is "high in the south and low in the north", which explains the builder's scientific engineering construction concept of "adapting measures to local conditions".

2. Prehistoric water control: an indispensable factor in agricultural civilization

According to the dating data of unearthed remains and carbon-14, the upper limit of the age of the early dam is about 5,100 years ago, and the lower limit of the age of the late dam is 4,800 years ago. Archaeological experts believe that the water conservancy facilities discovered at the Qujialing site are the earliest water conservancy facilities discovered in my country so far.

He Nu, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the water conservancy system discovered at the Qujialing site was initially speculated to be used to irrigate farmland. This reflects the transformation of the water management concept of the ancestors of Qujialing from "passive defense" to "active regulation", and to a certain extent, from "adapting to nature" to "transforming nature", and moving towards a prehistoric "water conservancy society". This has also become an important driving force for Qujialing to develop into one of the birthplaces of China's agricultural civilization.

A corner of the Qujialing ruins (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

Liu Jianguo, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that "prehistoric water control" plays an important role in agricultural civilization, and large-scale water conservancy facilities are a strong guarantee for agricultural harvests. A bumper agricultural harvest can provide our ancestors with stable food resources, thereby promoting sustained population growth, settlement development, class differentiation, and the continuous development of human civilization.

Luo Yunbing, deputy director and researcher of Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that as a large central settlement in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the Qujialing site has previously discovered a large number of prehistoric rice remains, the earliest dry crop millet remains in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the earliest fast wheel pottery making technology and polished black pottery production technology, the earliest known high-temperature black-glazed pottery in China, as well as regular moat facilities, superb construction technology, and unique "moat-type" settlements. A series of important archaeological findings further reveal that Qujialing is an important empirical site for the origin of civilization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Comprehensive sources: Xinhua News Agency, Hubei Daily, Hubei Culture and Tourism Voice, etc.