Zhuzhou Engineering College, Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province, P.R.China 412008. (Agricultural Archaeology 2000:70-72. Transl. by Jianmin Wu; ed. by B.Gordon)
Analogy with the present makes it hard to believe we found 8000-9000 year-old paddies, carbonized rice grain and phytoliths near Pengtoushan and Jiahu. Today, we think ancient paddies were small and inefficiently round rather than today's square, rectangle or polygon. Records also show paddy rice was sown rather than transplanted, making it hard to emphacize ancient paddies and irrigation.
Researchers find ancient farmers overcame rice growing problems (winter seed dormancy, low sprouting rate, difficult collection) by choosing transplanting over sowing (Thoughts on the Evolution of Seed Cultivation1). Propagation problems, like few seeds on the stalk, irrigation and water control, resulted in small paddies, and made large scale planting difficult.
Researchers think water for these paddies came from "fields, ponds, wells, pools and ditches".
Majiabing culture's Caoxieshan site in Shuzhou has 44 paddies, 6 ditches, 10 wells, 8 ponds (some doubtful) and 2 elliptical pools. Paddies are round, elliptical, rectangular or irregular, the smallest only 0.9 sq.m, the largest 12.5 sq.m, with mean ca. 3-5 sq.m & 20-60 cm deep. Ditches measure 0.2-0.6 x 0.7-0.8 x 6.5 m. The largest well is1.85 m wide & 1.6m deep; the smallest 0.6-0.65 m wide & 1.8 m deep. Pools are ca. 250 sq.m and 0.55 m deep or more, their bottoms big or small, deep or shallow and 600 years old (Southeast Culture 1998(3):15-24); e.g., 15 depressions at Pengtoushan, Lixian, Hunan Province, with astonishing parallels to 370 at Jiahu, Henan Province.
Pengtoushan depressions include several non-functional 15-30 cm deep mainly irregular circles or ellipses (Cultural Relics 1990(8):19) like those at Caoxieshan, which differ slightly due to diversity and longer development. It takes about 300 years to increase paddy depth by 5-20 cm.
Jiahu pond shape and structure is complex in being round, elliptical, square, saddle-shaped and irregular. Walls are straight, inner or outer oblique, or anticlinal, while bottoms are flat, round, stair-like or irregular.
Pits have 40 complex types of wall shape and structure and bottoms. Walls are odd; e.g., vertical or inside- or outside-leaning, reflecting various functions2. The deepest is 2.68 m, the shallowest 0.2 m, the narrowest <1 m, the widest >3 m. Most are by dwellings, some like modern wells, with few near graves. While some are "earth, house or storage pits", a reasonable view; others are paddies, ponds, wells or pools.
A Jiahu pit (1.36-.42 m wide & 1.06 m deep) with much fishbone & scale and marten and river deer teeth may be for raising fish, but why teeth? As some suggest carnivorous marten and river deer ate the fish, frogs, birds, snakes, shrimps, eggs and plants, then fell in, it is obviously not a "paddy" but a "pond".
20-60cm deep depressions are likely "paddies", 60-150cm "pools" and 150-300cm "wells". Pengtoushan depressions are only 15-30 cm deep, so we might say water storage in "wells, pools and fish ponds" was absent, the people relying on rain or irrigation. When climate became arid, they dug ponds, wells and pools around "paddies".
Pits relate to climate; e.g., Pengtoushan rainfall was plentiful, while Jiahu rainfall was less, so water storage there was needed. From then on, ponds, wells, and pools were used.
Depression bottoms and walls play essential roles in identifying paddies. Caoxieshan "paddies & wells" have vertical walls, while pools slope. Pit walls are usually red from firing, but Caoxieshan pits are unfired and unfaced with charcoal and mud, while Jiahu pit walls H178, H33, H66 & H207 are mud-covered and H228, H108 & H207 bottoms also have charcoal, explaining their waterproofing. They obviously were yam and sweet potato cellars preventing aridity, humidity and deterioration, not for water or rice storage. The latter need bamboo warehouses that are widespread in the Yangtze Valley, Huanan and Xinan areas.
Very wide deep pits, waterproofed and staircut for quick access to water persist in the countryside around cities, providing vegetable growers with water; e.g.s, Jiahu's depressions H66, H156, H83, H91, H127, H172 & H171. H279 & H207 are roofed to lessen evaporation. They combat drought and store water for people, animals, fish and turtles. They contain many ceramics (containers, pots, cooking vessels, tub), plus fish and turtle bone; items defining pit use.
Paddy soil addition "cannot be identified from the underlying cultural level on texture or colour, while basement levels are identifiable". Cultural level 8 can be distinguished from its underlying level in darkness and fine texture. Texture, colour and material (soft or hard) identify paddies. Caoxieshan upper and lower levels are hard to divide, but their generally dark, sticky, soft, pure and 18-20 cm thick soil (Southeast Culture 1998(3):18) identify them as "paddies". Ancient transplanting "paddies" are 0.2-0.6 m deep and small diameter, with porous, dark gray or blue and black soil with much ash.
If paddy soil, carbonized rice and phytoliths are in Jiahu H267, H142, H295, H67, H56, H96, H100, H296 & H157, they are "paddies". 12 pits 0.4-0.75 m deep have much carbonized rice, while 0.8-1.48 m deep pits have less. Some are not sacrificial pits, but paddies. Deep pits made from ponds, housepits and caves may be converted to paddy. Can carbonized rice and phytoliths be in Jiahu without paddies, ponds, pools and wells? Many shallow "pits" in Jiahu are paddies, while deep ones are "ponds, pools, wells & fish pools", with few as housepits and storage cellars. 15 ponds at Pengtoushan are also paddies.
How can we explain the abundant pottery, artifacts, nuts and fish bone and scale in the pits? They cannot be "refuse pits" because the inhabitants did not clean inside and outside their houses. They cannot be proven to be sacrificial pits on various pit shapes and structures.
They were possible paddies, ponds, pools, wells and storage cellars filled with sacrificial goods to guarantee harvest, luck and good fortune; e.g., national minority Xisan, Kunming stockaded villagers annually sacrificed to river and mountain gods before spring sowing, offering pork, pig heart and rice while burning joss sticks for harvest, luck and good fortune (Chinese Encyclopedia. Religion:468).
As modern paddies are large and villagers sacrifice to all gods in one field, offerings appear fewer, but ancient paddies were small and a family with only one or two fields annually sacrificed in small areas, preserving the rest for planting. Eventually, they became sacrificial pits.
Whether Pengtoushan and Jiahu pits are paddies needs more archaeological research.