"A system of [4,000 year-old] ceramic water pipes, the oldest ever unearthed in China, shows that #neolithic people were capable of complex engineering feats without the need for a centralized state authority […]

with stone age tools […] pipes run along roads and walls to divert rainwater [i.e., monsoon floods, to a surrounding moat] […] no signs of social stratification or significant inequality"

https://phys.org/news/2023-08-china-ancient-pipe-networks-communal.html
#Pingliangtai #LongshanPeriod #AncientChina #Archaeology