摘要
马克思说:"要认识已经灭亡的动物的身体组织,必须研究遗骨的构造;要判别已经灭亡的社会经济形态,研究劳动手段的遗物,有相同的重要性。"对研究农史来说,我们不但要研究古代劳动人民种植哪些农作物,还要探讨他们是怎样种植,用什么劳动手段去种植,因此对古代农具的研究就具有非常重要的意义。遗憾的是,流传至今的农书,只有到元代王祯的《农书》才开始绘有"农器图谱"。在此之前的农书著作,大都限于简略的文字记载。历代学者为了考证这些文献,常常是绞尽脑汁也描绘不出古代农具的真实面貌。于是,人们把目光转向考古学。
In this article the author brings up his own views about the following controver-sial issues concerning the history of Chinese farm tools.1.Wooden farm tools:One view holds that the farm tools of the Neolithic Age aremostly made of flaked stone with polished edges and that stone tools predate wooden ones.Thisis not correct.Just as agriculture came from gathering economy,so the earliest farm toolsevolved from branches or wooden sticks used for digging root tubers.Only when pri-mitive agriculture developed to a certain level,could the bone and stone farm tools make theirappearance.Moreover,even after the stone tools came into use,those made of wood andbone still occupied an important place.The wooden tools,prone to decay,could hardly be preserved.There are also some excep-tions.At the Hemudu site,for instance,a large number of bone and wooden farm tools werediscovered.2.Bronze farm tools:One view contends that bronze farm tools were widely used dur-ing the Shang-Zhou period.Some even dates the use of the tools to some time before theShang dynasty.These are all unfounded.There is no evidence of them either from the Pre-Qin texts or from any archeological excavations.The farm tools unearthed from the Shang-Zhou sites were mainly made of stone,bone,wood or clam shells.Bronze tools were used inhandicrafts—axes,adzes,knives and chisels.At most they might be used as accessory imple-ments in agricultural production.3.Lei si(耒耜)and cha(臿):Views sstill differ as to whether lei si refersto two kinds of farm tools or two parts of a farm tool.We are of the opinion that the imple-ments for digging originated in pointed wooden sticks used for digging root tubers.Latera crossbar was attached to the lower part of the stick to form a single-pronged digging tool(单齿耒),which then developed into two-pronged fork(双齿耒)and hoe with a ftatish rec- tangular wooden blade(耜).Si(耜)is the synonym of spade-shaped cha(臿),an importantdigging tool popular during the Warring States,Qin and Han periods.4.The date of the first use of the animal-drawn plows:The view that dates the use ofoxen in farming from the Shang dynasty prevails,but proves groundless.A study of archeo-logical data shows that the stone plows and spades unearthed from the Shang-Zhou sites wereapparantly made to be drawn by men.The V-shaped iron plowshare,a sign of the animal-drawn plow,was already widely used in the Warring States period.From this,it can be sur-mised that the animal-drawn plows came into existence in the Spring and Autumn period.5.Ou-geng(耦耕):We agree to the old explanation of Ou-geng—two spades wereused cultivating the land side by side,but it should be enriched with more details.Accordingto the pre-Qin texts and the then cultivating system,ou-geng means two persons,each witha spade,are digging simultaneously;one turns up the soil to the right while the other tothe left.This method corresponds to longzo system(垄作制)practiced during the pre-Qin period and daitian method(代田法)in the Han dynasty.
出处
《考古学报》
1981年第4期407-426,共20页
Acta Archaeologica Sinica
