Ancient Chinese

Ancient Chinese Contributions

by

Ruchi Kumar

HUM111-World Cultures 1

Ruchi Kumar

Ancient Chinese Contributions

(1) Identify eight to ten of these useful inventions or contributions:

It is well known that China has an ancient and glorious history, from the feudal periods ending in 222 BC through the three Imperial and Intermediate Eras, up to the Modern era – over 4000 years of dynastic reigns. It may also be well known that China is the source of many wonderful and useful inventions from spaghetti to gunpowder.

· Row Planting : The Chinese started planting crops in rows sometime in the 6th century BC. This technique allows the crops to grow faster and stronger. It facilitates more efficient planting, watering, weeding and harvesting. There is also documentation that they realized that as the wind travels over rows of plants there is less damage. This obvious development was not instituted in the western world for another 2200 years.

· Compass : The Chinese developed a lodestone compass to indicate direction sometime in the 4th century BC. These compasses were south pointing and were primarily used on land as divination tools and direct finders. The spoons were made from lodestone, while the plates were of bronze. [1]

· The Seed Drill : The Seed Drill is used to plant seeds into the soil at a uniform depth and covers it. Without this tool seeds are tossed by hand over the ground resulting in waste and inefficient, uneven growth. Chinese farmers were using seed drills as early as the 2nd Century BC.

· Iron Plows : One of the major developments of the ancient Chinese agriculture was the use of the iron moldboard plows. Though probably first developed in the 4th century BC and promoted by the central government, they were popular and common by the Han Dynasty. A major invention was the adjustable strut which, by altering the distance of the blade and the beam, could precisely set the depth of the plow.

· Deep...