In academic circles at home and abroad, the "three elements" - metallurgy, writing and cities were once used as the symbols of entering civilized society. In recent years, with the deepening of the Chinese civilization source exploration project, we have found that these "three elements" are summarized from the characteristics of the civilization of the Two Rivers Basin and ancient Egypt, and are not a "one-size-fits-all" standard. Based on this understanding, our archaeologists proposed a scheme for defining civilization and identifying the criteria for entering civilized society: first, production development, population increase, and the emergence of cities; The second is the social division of labor, class differentiation, and the emergence of classes; The third is the emergence of royal power and statehood, the first of which is inextricably linked to the invention of the well.
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Water is the source of life, every step of human progress is inseparable from the nourishment of rivers, and the four greatest and oldest civilizations in human history were born in the fertile river basin. In the long course of history, living by water has long become a human instinct. However, rivers are not always so docile, long-term living near the water, ancestors will be due to humidity to all kinds of evil diseases, more frightening is that the river or due to the rainy season flooded, or due to drought and stop flowing, so the flooding and drying of rivers will have a huge impact on the survival of human beings, and even endanger the survival of the race. The wise ancients may have accidentally discovered a spring water coming out of the ground one day, and after a while, when the spring water was no longer coming out, in order to continue to obtain water from here, they tried to continue digging in the place where the water was boiling, and this strong desire for water also gave rise to the idea of the ancestors digging wells and drinking. After countless attempts, I finally learned to use groundwater through wells.
So far, the mainland is the first country in the world to invent wells, and there are no records of wells in Egypt during the 20th Dynasty of the New Kingdom. In the valley of the two rivers, the Assyrian city-states in the middle reaches of the Tigris River used wells after 2000 BC, and as for the records of wells in ancient India, it was during the Mauryan Dynasty, and the time when the mainland used wells was five or six centuries earlier than the ancient Assyrians.
The original meaning of the well is the well, and Kong Yingda Shu in "Zhou Yi Jing Trigram": "The ancients pierced the ground to take water, and drew it with bottles, which was called a well." He also explained that "well" means "eight families and one well, like a Korean shape". Constructing Han is the wooden fence around the well, and the "Shuowen Shi Example" explains "Han" as "with wood as the frame, the circle is in the well, and the trap of people is also prevented". The discovery of wells not only freed human beings from many inconveniences caused by rivers, but also improved the quality of human drinking water and expanded human living space. Therefore, for the relationship between wells and civilization, Mr. Su Bingqi believes that wells are highly correlated with the origin of civilization and play an extremely important role in human progress, marking that human beings have begun to get rid of the shackles of natural water resources on the surface to a certain extent, and have taken difficult steps to transform nature, thus appearing the dawn of human agricultural civilization. An important symbol of sedentary agriculture is the invention and application of sinking technology, and the gradual maturity of sinking technology is an important reflection of the completion of the transition from terrace agriculture to plain agriculture.
Archaeological research has shown that in the Paleolithic period, primitive humans lived a life of gathering and fishing, mixed with wild beasts and birds of prey and jungle, their limited number lived in water and grass all year round, and migration was frequent, and there was neither the need to sink wells nor the tools for sinking wells in this period. By the early Neolithic period, agriculture was still in the primitive stage of "slash and burn", and the harvest after setting fire to the drought depended on God. This extensive farming technique not only made the grain yield low, but also quickly exhausted the land power, and the ancestors had to find another place to repeat the "slash and burn" production method again, so it was impossible to form a long-term sedentary life, and could only "make grass for a house", and in order to make life convenient, they could only move back and forth near rivers or springs. "Huainanzi Xiu Wu Xun" contains that "Shennong is the first to teach the people to sow five grains, suitable for the land, dry and wet and fertile, taste the taste of a hundred herbs, the sweetness and bitterness of the water spring, so that the people can have something to do" is about this history.
Archaeology believes that the depth of the groundwater table at that time, the shape is regular, the well wall has symmetrical foot sockets, and there are many water drawers, well circles or fine sand silt at the bottom, etc. may be wells, of which the water level, silt and sand layer at the bottom of the pit, water pump, etc. are the core criteria for judging the well, and the shape of the wellhead, foot socket setting, well depth, etc. are secondary criteria. This is mainly based on the shape of the well, and whether the above relics are found as the criterion for judging the well, the more phenomena that fit, the greater the possibility of the well, and vice versa. However, in actual fieldwork, it should also be noted that some simple wells will be converted to other uses after they are abandoned, so that the original characteristics of the well remains are obscured, so it cannot be ruled out that the remains of the reported ash pits or cellars are originally wells.
At present, the prehistoric wells seen are mainly distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, such as Yuyao Hemudu in Zhejiang, Qingpu Songze in Shanghai, Caoshoe Mountain in Suzhou, Jiangsu, and Xudun in Changzhou, Jiangsu. Some scholars believe: "On the one hand, it may be limited to some reasons that we have not discovered or have discovered but have not recognized; On the other hand, after the formation of a eating habit, it will last for a long time and not change easily, prehistoric people mostly lived by the river, accustomed to eating river water, not eating well water, this drinking habit will not be easily changed unless there are major changes in the natural environment or the insettlers strongly implement new habits, otherwise the use of wells becomes a new habit... This situation was also manifested in the Han Dynasty: wells were already widely used in the Central Plains of the Western Han Dynasty, and by the time of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty, Wei Lu was in the Xiongnu 'for the sake of a single plan, piercing wells to build cities, and governing buildings to hide valleys'; in Dawan, because there were no wells in the city, he taught them the art of digging wells, 'There are no wells in the city, and water flows outside the city... Wancheng newly obtained Qin people, know through the well'. Therefore, it can be said that the spread of sinking technology in local areas, the influence of eating well water habits, and the strong continuation of traditional and old customs have made prehistoric wells relatively concentrated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. ”
Ming Xu Guangqi's "Complete Book of Agricultural Government" said: "Wells, pools and caves also produce water." "Speaking of Texts", Qingye. Therefore, "Yi" is called: Jing Xi cold spring food. If you use stone, you will be clean and not muddy. If you take it, you will feed it and not be poor. ...... Ruofu cave spring sinus, flowing but not endless, inexhaustible, this natural well also. "The inventors of the historical wells mainly include the Yellow Emperor, Boyi, and Yi Yin, and the "Classic Commentary" contains: "The Book of Zhou is called 'The Yellow Emperor pierces the well'. According to books such as "Shiji", "Zuo Chuan", "Bamboo Book Chronicle", and "Chinese", "Boyi made a well", and Boyi once followed Dayu to control water. In addition, the Shiben recorded: "In the soup drought, Yiyin taught the people to dig wells to irrigate the fields. ”
The life era of the Yellow Emperor and Boyi was about the Longshan culture period, and Yi Yin's life was even later to Shang, but the earliest wells found by archaeology appeared at the site of Hemudu in Yuyao, Zhejiang, about 5700 years ago, far earlier than the Longshan culture period where the Yellow Emperor and Boyi lived, let alone Shang. Of course, there may be another explanation, that is, although the wells appeared very early, they began to be widely used on a large scale as late as the Yongsan culture period. Because the invention of the well is of great significance in human history, people attribute this invention right to tribal chiefs such as Huangdi, Boyi, and Yi Yin to show solemnity, and this practice of ultimately attributing collective creation to a certain big person is completely in line with the traditional recording method of ancient Chinese history and legend.
The invention of the well ended the nomadic life of the ancestors living by water and grass, began to get rid of the shackles of natural water resources on the surface to a certain extent, expanded the scope of human activities, promoted the formation and development of society, and took difficult steps to transform nature, thus appearing the dawn of human agricultural civilization. The invention of wells is a manifestation and important feature of civilized society, and the wells seen in the pre-Qin period are mostly distributed near residential sites or handicraft workshops, which greatly facilitates people's production and living needs, promotes production development, and accelerates population growth. Early cities appeared, promoting the progress of human civilization.
In an era when productivity is extremely backward, digging a sweet well not only requires a lot of manpower and material resources, but also requires wisdom and spirit. From the history of the well, we can see that every invention of human beings has extended the footsteps of human beings, and the cultural concepts related to the well have also subtly penetrated into all aspects of the material and spiritual life of the ancients, resulting in many intangible cultural phenomena related to the remains of the well, such as market culture, well field system, algae well architecture, etc., which greatly broadened the research field of ancient cultural history. (End) (Original title: The Invention of the Well and the Origin of Civilization)
Author/Zhao Yanjiao