40 | New Scientist | 21 March 2020
Even on a global scale, Liangzhu’s
waterworks were truly groundbreaking. The
Middle East is often considered the cradle of
civilisation, with a handful of urban societies,
such as Tell Brak and Uruk in Mesopotamia,
emerging in the fourth millennium BC. These
cities had developed water management
technology, but their engineering didn’t match
that of Liangzhu in size or complexity. As Liu
and Renfrew put it: “[Liangzhu’s dams] may
be the earliest communal works achieved
anywhere in the world on such a scale.”
Scarborough agrees. He visited the site in 2017
and was awestruck by how the citizens of
Liangzhu had completely reshaped their
environment. “It’s an engineered landscape
that is second to none, given its antiquity.”
There is just one surprising absence at
Liangzhu. So far, archaeologists have failed
to find clear evidence of writing, which is
sometimes considered a prerequisite of a fully
formed state society. However, it is possible
that some symbols found on the pottery and
jade aren’t simply decorative. Chunfeng Zhang
at the East China Normal University in
Shanghai says they have some linguistic
features. Some of the 656 symbols
documented so far are highly standardised
in form, and many regularly appear across
different sites at the same points on certain
artefacts, such as the leg or mouth of a vessel.
This suggests they may have a consistent
meaning, like a label. Zhang also points to
apparent rules in how certain symbols are
constructed, which may have changed their
meaning. These include the addition of new
strokes and the systematic combination of
different motifs, which again hints at a nascent
writing system. “Some symbols have only
decorative functions, some of them represent
meaning and for some of them it is difficult
to determine the function,” she says.
Zhang hopes we may one day find the
equivalent of a Rosetta Stone to decipher the
symbols at Liangzhu. Even without one, the
culture rivals other very early societies (see
“Cradles of civilisation”, page 39). With further
research, Liangzhu might even shed light on
the processes that led humanity to develop
complex urban societies. The move from a
hunter-gatherer to a farming lifestyle is one
known force for the establishment of early
settlements, as groups began to congregate
around fields. Eventually, farmers pooled
resources, collaboration and cooperation
increased, and communities grew. But what
pushes a society to make the final leap to a
large urban centre with more advanced
technology, architecture and politics?Scarborough argues that environmental
uncertainty played a central role in Liangzhu.
This included the risk of flooding in the wet
season, and drier periods that would have
destroyed the paddy fields. This uncertainty
might first have encouraged the establishment
of more regular religious practices that
brought dispersed groups together for
ceremonies. The depictions of a fearsome
monster on artefacts across the region suggest
the existence of some kind of shared
mythology. Organised religious practices may,
in turn, have encouraged the establishment of
stricter social norms and even leadership rolesfor people who seemed able to predict or
control the weather, for instance.
The formation of a social hierarchy could
then have helped to mobilise a large workforce
for more practical communal projects such as
dam building. While this would have brought
greater cohesion and prosperity for the whole
community, it would also have helped to
cement the elite’s power by allowing them to
control who had access to the technology and
who could enter or leave the city by its canals.
The result was a society with a formal
government, and with sufficient wealth to
create elaborate artwork and architecture.
Scarborough believes environmental
uncertainty played an key role in the formation
of civilisations in the Middle East too –
although the main threat there was drought.“ Liangzhu might
even shed light
on the origins of
complex urban
society”
“It was more the rerouting of a limited amount
of water off the Tigris or Euphrates to
accommodate the sizeable cities that were
beginning to spring up,” he says. In each case,
the need to control the environment prompted
greater cooperation and also gave power
to an elite, promoting a new kind of social
organisation. “Water [management] is not the
only trigger for social complexity, but it’s
certainly a primary one,” he says.
If flooding was a trigger that set Liangzhu’s
development in motion, it may also have been
its downfall. Analysing layers of sediment in
the region, Zhanghua Wang at the East China
Normal University and her colleagues found
evidence of repeated marine flooding
beginning around 4500 years ago, with
deposits of algae and small marine fossils
directly on top of the layers associated with the
Liangzhu culture. The damage caused by the
flooding, and the increased salinity would have
made rice cultivation more and more difficult
throughout the region, she says, undermining
“the most important economic and social
foundation of the Liangzhu society”.
While the society itself collapsed, its
influence appears to have lingered as the
inhabitants moved to other parts of what
is now China. Liu and others believe that
elements of Liangzhu’s culture, such as the
design of its jade congs, were borrowed and
adopted by later societies. And the local
landscape has forever been changed by the
impressive hydraulic engineering. Flooding
might have spelled the end of life in the city but
its citizens left an indelible mark. And, with the
ongoing archaeological excavations, this
amazing culture is changing our ideas about
the dawn of civilisation. ❚David Robson is a science
writer and author of The
Intelligence Trap. His website
is http://www.davidrobson.meThe people of
Liangzhu created
beautiful jade
objects long
before they were
seen in other areasIM
AGINECHINALTD/ALA
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