Plowshares (2 specimens) (Fig. 57, 1-2 ) are large symmetrical iron plates with developed blade shoulders and an oval unclosed tube. In terms of the length to width ratio, plowshares belong to the Bulgar type that existed in the XI-XIV centuries (Krasnov, 1979. Fig. 5, 7; Kultura Bilyara, 1985. Table 1).
Plow cutter - wedge (5 specimens) (Fig. 57, 3-7 ) is made of a large iron bar with a flat side blade. They date back to a wide period - from the X to the XVIII century (Kultura Bilyara, 1985, p. 16; Krasnov, 1978). The presence of plowshares with carriages indicates the appearance of improved plows, possibly with a wheeled front end (Drevnyaya Rus, 1985, p. 223).
Iron sickles and scythes are other agricultural tools.
Sickles (25 specimens) (Fig. 58). Sickles have a petiole with a bent end for attaching the handle. The angle between it and the initial part of the blade is less than 180 0. At the same time, there are two sickles with a heel, like a braid, and a serrated blade. The length of the sickle blade is within the range from 18 to 30 cm, the height of the blade is approximately half the length of the blade. The maximum bend is closer to the hilt, although there are sickles with a bend in the middle of the blade. Among the features of sickles, one can note the presence of a heel on three sickles in the transition from the petiole to the blade, the presence of lobes on one of the sides (4 pieces), denticles or a notch on the blade (6 pieces) and flattened points (6 pieces).
One sickle from the Zolotarevsky settlement was subjected to metallographic analysis at the Penza Polytechnic Institute by B.A. Putyunin and A.S. Fomin, as a result of which it was established:
1. The material of the sickle is a simple mild steel with high content phosphorus.
2. The microstructure consists of large polyhedra, ferrite and slag inclusions, which have their own structure.
3. By the presence of slag and the coarse-crystalline structure of the metal, it can be assumed that this is a critical steel forged at a high temperature.
Sickles in their proportions belong to the Bulgar type (Levashova, 1956, p. 73) and are similar in size (Kultura Bilyara, 1985, p. 21).
Braids (7 specimens) (Fig. 59, 1-7 ) belong to the type of pink salmon braids and differ in that instead of a cutting, like in sickles, they have a heel, as well as large sizes and a different blade shape. The length of the blade is up to 45 cm, the curvature of the blade is located near the handle, the width of the blade is up to 4 cm. On two braids on one side there are valleys, like on sickles. Unlike the old Russian braids, the Zolotarev braids do not have a heel in the transition from the petiole to the blade, and at the same time, the valleys characteristic of the XI-XIII centuries are also found on the Novgorod braids (Kolchin, 1959. Fig. 58).
Clamps (84 specimens) (Fig. 60) are made in the form of an oval ring of an elastic iron plate with pointed ends wrapped in a tube. On some clamps, rings are inserted into the tubes (14 pieces with one ring, 4 pieces with two rings). On one, a ring pulls together the ends of the clamp. Only 32 copies have survived intact. Among the features, one can note a dotted ornament in the form of zigzags (6 specimens) and a different section of the plates. One clamp is made of a knife bent into a hoop.
They are found in such quantity only in the Zolotarevskoye settlement. They are rare on other sites and are considered by many to be hand bracelets. Indeed, in Dyakov's monuments there are rings at the ends of bracelets, albeit bronze and twisted (Rosenfeld, 1982. Fig. 19).
In our opinion, the clamps were used to fasten the pink salmon braid to the handle.
Harvest processing tools are represented by fragments of stone millstones.
Millstones(7 copies) (Fig. 61) - round stone discs - by their design and use, belong to hand mills. Most of the fragments come from the lower stones, as indicated by their massiveness and deepening towards the center. The average diameter of the stones is 45-50 cm. In the center there is a hole with a diameter of about 3-4 cm. The upper part of the stones is badly worn out from prolonged use.
Similar mills were used in areas of developed agriculture: in Russia (Rybakov, 1948), in the Volga Bulgaria (Yovkov, 1976).
Shovel (1 specimen) (Fig. 57, 8 ) was made of wood, and from it only the iron frame of the blade remained, as in Novgorod (Kolchin, 1959. Fig. 62).
Besides agricultural implements labor there are details of fishing tackle (hooks, spears) made of iron.
Hooks (10 specimens) (Fig. 59, 8-17 ) are rather large. Their length is 5-9 cm, which indicates fishing for large fish. According to the shape, the hooks are divided into two options:
1. Hooks with a barb and a loop at the opposite end (6 pieces). The bending radius is 1-1.5 cm, which indicates their use on zherlitsa, donk, zakidushka (Kultura Bilyara, 1985, p. 284; Ancient Rus, 1985, p. 227).
2. A hook with two stings, without barbs and loops at the other end (1 piece) (Fig. 59, 17 ). The bending radius is 0.8 cm. According to T.N. Nikolskaya, these hooks served as "cats" for pulling out nets (Nikolskaya, 1987, p. 126), and according to M.V. Sedova - these are smoking hooks (Sedova, 1978. Table 14; Sedova, 1997. Fig. 21). A similar form has been known since the middle of the 1st millennium AD. and was found both at the village of Tarantsevo (on the Seversky Donets), in a layer dating from the 7th - mid-8th century (Berestnev, 1991. Fig. 1), and in the ancient Russian settlements of the 10th-13th centuries (Nikolskaya, 1987. Fig. 66).
Dishes
Ceramic tableware represented by numerous vessels of pottery and stucco work. The analysis of dishes is based on ceramics obtained during excavations and collections and represented by a large number of both fragments and whole vessels, stratigraphically referenced and dating from related things, which makes it possible to link evolutionary changes in the shape of vessels with the chronology of the settlement. At the same time, it should be noted that the dishes in the settlements are less diverse than in the settlement, and household ceramics of a lower quality prevail in them. In settlements, the percentage of molded ceramics is much higher.
The study of pottery in the cultural layer of the settlement made it possible to trace certain tendencies (Table 9). In general, the saturation of ceramics of different layers (except for the lowest ones, which can be traced only occasionally) remains stable, only the ratio of stucco and pottery changes. If in the lower layer stucco was 32%, then in the upper - only 2%. The total amount of stucco ceramics also decreases from 71% in the lower layer to 5% in the upper layer. The ratio of pottery is more stable and averages 30% in different layers with a slight increase in the upper layers. Most likely, this is due to numerous digging of soil during the construction during the existence of the settlement. Among the pottery crockery stands out in brown, red, yellow, black, the ratio of which varies in different layers: yellow becomes much less - from 28% to 17%, red is slightly less - from 27% to 22%, black without any significant changes - 7% , but the percentage of brown rises sharply - from 38% to 55%. Approximately the same ratio can be traced in the ceramics of other sites with brown-red pottery (KKGP) of the 10th-13th centuries of the Upper Posurye (Belorybkin, 1990).
Both brown and red pottery are made of dough mixed with sand or limestone chips. The surface is often coated with brown and red clay, which is why it has bright colors up to raspberry and, as a rule, glazed. Many vessels have a carved ornament in the form of a multi-row wave, lines, combs and various figures (Fig. 63; 65). In the lower layer, the dishes are made of poorly elutriated and slightly fired dough, and in the upper layer there are more ceramics made of good dough. However, there are many fragments of slag pottery on the site, which is obviously associated with the fires. Jugs, mugs, pots, bowls, pots stand out in shape.
Stucco ceramics (Fig. 60) are divided into two groups. The first is characterized by black and gray colors, and on the surface there is a matte ornament. The second is mostly brown on a bumpy surface without ornamentation and is made of poorly fired dough with an admixture of sand and grit. On the one hand, it has its own traditions, and on the other, traces of the influence of pottery ceramics on it are visible in the form of the shape of vessels and the polished surface. Pots and pans are mainly distinguished by shape.
Firing of pottery ceramics - oxidizing - in forges, which is why it has yellow-brown-red tones, and stucco ceramics - oxidation-reduction, that is. stove, which makes it black and brown. It is these characteristics that determine the color of the ceramics.
Table 9. Distribution of ceramics by layers
Chapter II.
LABOR TOOLS, TOOLS, PROPERTY
The plow is the main arable tool in the middle zone of European Russia. The device of the plow depended on the soil and topography of the area, farming systems and ethnic traditions. According to the number of openers, one-toothed, two-toothed and multi-toothed plows were distinguished, according to the shape of the openers - coded, with narrow openers and feather,
P. 18
With wide, on policemen (dumps) - reversible, or two-sided, in which the police were rearranged from one opener to another, and one-sided, with a motionless police. The most widespread were the two-toothed plows with a pedestrian police, called Great Russian. The main part of the plow - rassokha - is a thick long wooden board with bifurcated legs at the bottom, onto which the openers were mounted. The iron opener served for horizontal cutting of the layer, moving up the triangular feather and falling off the police. The coulters were installed side by side, inclined to the soil, in different planes. The rassokha was attached to the shafts with rootstocks (strings, strings) made of intertwined threads or thick ropes, and its upper end was clamped between two beams, a crust and a roll that served to control the plow, or hammered into a horn - a bar that fastened the ends of the shaft and served for control. Police - an iron oblong tapering blade with a handle, reinforced between the rootstocks and on one of the openers. The slope of the rake was adjusted to change the plowing depth. To do this, they pulled up or let go of the weekly horse.
Saban is an improved one-toothed one-sided plow with a runner sole, and therefore more stable, with a knife that cut the soil, two iron or cast-iron dumps, sometimes on a wheel front end, with a strongly curved drawbar or low shafts, which increased traction. It was used on heavy steppe soils in the east, in the Lower Volga region, among the Tatars, Bashkirs.
Roe deer (crooked) - an improved one-sided plow with a wide feather of the left opener, the edge of which was bent up and instead of a knife cut a layer of earth vertically. The police officer lay motionless on the left opener, and a flat wooden blade was placed on the right. It was used on dense, heavy soils, when taking up new, etc.
The plowshare is a plowing implement with a large share and a slightly curved blade, with shafts located low above the share. The plow strongly crushed the soil, making harrowing easier, was more stable, and it was easier for them to work than a plow.
Ralo is an ancient wooden plowing tool in the form of a hook, carved out of a tree with a rhizome. It was distinguished by a low application of tractive effort. One-toothed, two-toothed and multi-toothed rails were used for plowing, plowing and covering
P. nineteen
Niya seeds on fallow lands, in the steppe, where bread was sown directly over the stubble. It did not have a blade, tearing the earth and pushing it apart.
The plow is a tool for heavy, such as virgin, soil, clover, etc. It was distinguished by a curved drawbar with a low application of tractive effort, a wheeled front end and high handles. The wooden plow had a thick runner, an iron cutter knife, a wide iron ploughshare horizontally mounted on the runner, and a blade. It was mainly distributed in the southern steppe regions. IN late XIX in. purchased iron, more often Swedish plows appear.
Bucker - a plowing tool similar to a multi-body plow, was used in the southern Russian provinces, usually for plowing.
The harrow was used for processing the soil after plowing, covering the seeds. The earliest was a knotted harrow in the form of halves of short spruce logs knitted together with knots with rather long twigs left. Sukovatka was especially popular in the north, where the soil was littered with stones and was often butchered again after felling in the felled areas of the forest with the remaining stumps. The body harrows were more perfect in the form of a lattice of wooden beams or paired thick rods, between which wooden or iron teeth were fixed. Late iron harrows were of a similar type, sometimes a zigzag harrow, with zigzag curved iron strips into which the teeth were inserted. The harrows were attached to the horse's strings by an iron ring at one of the harrow corners.
When harvesting bread, they used mainly a sickle - an iron plate strongly curved in the form of an irregular semicircle, tapering towards the end; a handle was fitted on the opposite end at a right angle; teeth were often notched on the inner edge. The sickles were both imported from abroad and Russian.
The harvest was a woman's work. The men cleaned the bread with a scythe with "rake" - a kind of rake with very rare long teeth attached at an angle to the scythe. A scythe-stand, or lithuania, with a long shaft (oss, scythe), to which a short transverse handle is attached, was also used during haymaking in the meadows. In the north, where there are many stumps, stones or bumps on mows, as well as on slopes, a pink salmon braid with a short, slightly curved handle is common. When harvesting hay, a wooden rake and a three-piece wooden pitchfork were used
P. 20
Table III
TOOLS
P. 21
Table IV
AGRICULTURAL TOOLS
P. 22
From a thin tree trunk, diverging in three branches at an acute angle. When cleaning manure and other works, forged iron three-pronged forks with three teeth or twins (twos) were used. When threshing, a flail was used. It consisted of a long, human-sized handle (chain, hold) and a short, 50-70 cm and weighing from 600 g to 2 kg of the working part (thresher, hammer, chain), connected by a rawhide belt (putz, fett). The connection methods were different. For example, a channel about 10 cm deep was drilled in the handle and a transverse hole was punched in its base; a belt tied to the working part was passed through the hole channel and nailed to the handle.
The most common tool was an ax with a fairly wide blade and a wide eye. There were large heavy axes of woodcutters with a relatively narrow blade and a long straight ax, lighter carpenter's axes on a curved hatchet and small carpenter's axes - light, with a short, slightly curved hatchet. For chiselling troughs, trays, during cooperage work, an adze was used - an ax with a slightly curved working part of double curvature and a blade perpendicular to the hatchet. For planing, skinning of logs and poles, a scraper was used - a flat, narrow, slightly curved plate with a blade on the working part and two short handles on the sides, set slightly at an angle. In the XVIII century. for finishing wood, a planer appeared - a plane in the form of a large bar of hard wood with a wedge-shaped taphole cut into it, where a flat piece of iron with a one-sided blade on the working part, fixed in the taphole by a wedge, was inserted. When planing large planes, a large two-handed "bear" plane was used. Chisels of different sizes with a wooden handle inserted into the socket were used for chiselling, in contrast to the chisel cutting tool, the handle of which was mounted on the shank of the working part. Since ancient times, drills of different sizes have been used for drilling wood, and since the 19th century. - feather drills inserted into the brace. Logs were crosscut with two-handed transverse saws, and for sawing lengthwise, into boards, from the 18th century. began to use long two-handed rip saws, slightly tapering towards one end, with teeth in the form of an irregular triangle, in contrast to the cross saw, which had teeth in the form of an isosceles triangle. Carpenters also used bow and longitudinal saws with a narrow blade fixed between two high posts and a spacer in the middle.
P. 23
The ends of the saw were pulled together with a bowstring and a short twist resting against the spacer. One-handed hacksaw saws with blades of different widths were also used. For planing the profiles, joiners used a variety of fillets with semicircular glands, kalevki, pickers, zenzubels, etc.
For processing fibrous materials (flax, hemp), women used special tools. Crusher - an inclined plank or slotted gutter with a narrow board entering it on a hinge with a handle at the end. Ruffled - something like a large wide wooden knife with a handle. Wide maple ridges with frequent narrow teeth on a narrow long handle were used to scratch the tow by hand or inserted into the bottom. Spinning wheels for hand-made threads from a tow were of two types and consisted of a rather wide paddle to which the tow was tied, a thin leg and a bottom, which was placed on a bench; when the spinner sat on the bottom, the blade was at the level of her face. There were spinning wheels - a hoop, entirely hewn from the butt of a tree dug out with the rhizome, and composite spinning wheels-chisels, in which the base and the blade with the leg were made separately. When spinning with a spinning wheel, a spindle was used, on which a twisted thread was wound - a cylindrical stick about 30 cm long tapering to the ends, one end of it was thickened, or a slate spindle was placed on it for the stability of the spindle rotating like a top.
Self-spinning wheels with a large wheel and a foot drive of various designs appeared rather late and were relatively rare due to their high cost. The working part of the self-spinning wheel was a roshmanok - a wooden slingshot, seated with curved iron teeth that caught the thread; the slingshot was mounted on an iron spindle along with a top and a view, chiseled at the same time, on which the thread was wound. The finished threads were then rewound onto sparrows - a large cross made of slats, into the ends of which spindles were inserted, a warp - a cross made of two frames and a reel - a vertical stand with two horns perpendicular to it and to each other. The weaving mill, or krosna, was a massive large frame made of beams in which the beams rotated - a shaft with wound warp threads, a seam - a shaft on which the finished fabric was wound and in which they moved with the help of the footrests of the stuffing - slats into which the reed the form of a comb with warp threads passed through it, and threads - a series of pairwise connected thread loops,
P. 24
Assembled on two parallel slats; a base was also passed through the threads, which was alternately raised to thread the shuttle.
When embroidering, a sewing was used in the form of a low column inserted in the bottom; at its end was a soft pad or a piece of suede, where the fabric in the hoop, a light double rim, was pinned with a pin.
When weaving lace, threads wound on bobbins - short smooth sticks with heads - were fixed on a tambourine - a round, tightly packed roller on the goats.
When washing, they used a roller - a massive, slightly curved wooden bar with a handle, "knocking out" contaminated soapy water from the fabric. When ironing a hard, dry canvas, a ruble was used - a massive block about 60 cm long, slightly curved, with teeth on the working plane and a handle, the fabric was wound on a rolling pin and rolled with a ruble on the table.
At the stove, the hostess used grips of different sizes, a poker, a chapel to take out pans, a large wide wooden shovel to plant bread. The grip is made of an iron strip bent in the form of an open circle so that the bottom of the pot or cast iron entered between the horns of the grip or stag, and the shoulders sat on the strip; the grip was mounted on a long handle. A chapelnik is an iron strip set on a wooden handle with a tongue carved from its middle and bent.
In household use, wooden salt licks with large-capacity lids of two types were used: in the form of a carved armchair or stool and in the shape of a duck. For cooking, cast irons and clay pots of various sizes were used with a rounded body, forming shoulders, and a narrow bottom (pots differed from cast irons by a low rim in the upper part of the body), and for frying - flat clay bowls - latches with high, almost vertical sides. Liquid food (kvass, milk, etc.) was stored in clay pots, throats, kubans with a rounded body, a small bottom and an elongated throat. They kneaded the dough, laid the finished baked goods on wide flat wooden nights like a tray with low sides. Food products were stored in chiseled tall containers with lids and in birch bark tues, or beetroots, also with lids. They ate from clay or chiseled wooden cups with wooden spoons. Clay products were etched, that is, covered with simple glaze, sometimes with modest engobe painting, wooden ones were covered with carvings.
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Table V
HOME STUFF
P. 26
Fight or painting. In household use, large clay pots with a capacity of up to two buckets resembling pots in shape were used for storing a consumable supply of water, making kvass, beer, wort, hop drinks on the table on holidays were served in valleys, wooden or copper tin-plated, rounded, with a spout, or in wooden brothers that did not have a spout, as well as in huge ladles-brackets, from which drinks were poured in small ladles-liqueurs. Bucket shapes were varied and differed mainly in the location and shape of the handle; for example, Kozmodemyanskie buckets were standing, with an almost vertical wide flat handle. They drank drinks from copper, pewter and wooden piles and from rather bulky (up to one liter) jugs assembled from rivets on hoops, with a handle and a lid. In general, cooper's utensils were widely used in peasant use: barrels, half-casks (intersections), lagoons, tubs, vats, tubs, tubs, gangs.
Slide 2
In ancient times, Russia was covered with dense forests. Freeing the land from the forest, the peasants turned it into their breadwinner. Farmers passed on the secrets of their labor from generation to generation. The year began in those days in the spring, and not in the winter, as it is now. After all, it was in the spring that the peasants went to plow. This did not happen on any particular day, but when the earth was ready. It was believed that the earth should dry out so that it would not be cut in layers, but crumbled under the plow. But she did not have time to harden so much that the plow could not take it. The readiness of the land for plowing was determined as follows: a handful of earth was first clenched tightly in a fist, and then the fist was unclenched. If the earth crumbled during the fall, it means that it is ready for plowing, if it fell in a lump, it is not ripe yet.
Slide 3
Peasants in the field
Slide 4
The land was plowed at first with a plow: frequent and deep furrows were obtained with the same slope on both sides. The main part of the rassokha plow is a thick long wooden board with bifurcated legs at the bottom, on which they put metal tips - openers. With openers and cut the ground horizontally. The second time the plow was cutting through each dumped layer of earth. Plowing with a plow was not easy: every now and then it jumped out of the ground. In addition, the plow must be kept on weight all the time. Therefore, this work was very hard.
Slide 5
Slide 6
Along with the plow, a plow was used as a plowing tool. Unlike the plow, he not only cut the soil layer, but also turned it over. The plow was used on heavy soils with a deep fertile layer - in the southern steppe regions. In the north and north-east of Russia, where the soil is poor and deep plowing is not needed, they plowed with a plow. The wooden plow had a thick skid, an iron knife - a cutter, a wide iron ploughshare horizontally planted on the skid and cuts a layer of earth from below, and a blade.
Slide 7
Arable implements (ralo, plow)
Slide 8
After plowing, the farmers harrowed the soil. The harrow was made of lattices with teeth-nails. The harrow in ancient times was called a knotty: it was made of spruce logs with rather long knots. Later, they began to make harrows in the form of a lattice of wooden beams, between which wooden or iron teeth were fastened. The bars in the harrow were fastened with roots. As the comb comb through the hair, so the harrow - the field, levels, pulls out the pebbles. After the harrow, the earth is like fluff. And when it was necessary to close the seed deeper, they also used the plow. But this rarely happened, because excessive deepening of the seeds leads to the death of the crop.
Slide 9
1 . Knot harrow 2. Wicker harrows
Slide 10
The oak spatula helped straighten and sharpen the scythe blade. The use of wood made it possible to protect the blade of an expensive tool. When the scythe becomes dull, it starts to get stuck and walks lazily on the grass. If the grass was tall, they were mowed with pink salmon - a scythe curved on a short handle. For low grass, a large braid was used on a long handle. She was called Lithuanian.
Slide 11
Litovka and pink salmon
Slide 12
The whole peasant family went out to hay and dry the grass. They turned the grass over with a rake, and laid it down with a pitchfork. Fork and rake
Slide 13
They removed the bread with sickles and scythes. If the rye grew tall and thick, a sickle was preferred, and not very tall and thick rye was mowed with a scythe. They worked with a scythe in the morning, because the raw grain from the scythe did not crumble, and the dried one could already be reaped with a sickle. Sickle
Slide 14
At the end of the harvest, there was still no rest. Now it was necessary to separate the grain from the ears: the time for threshing was approaching. They thrashed on a current, or on the palm. This was the name of a rather large platform, oiled with liquid clay and specially rammed. It was done in the open air. Sheaves on it were spread in two rows and they began to beat them with a flail, or with a hammer. Flail or thrashed
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The materials of archaeological excavations give a well-known idea of \u200b\u200bthe development of productive forces during the Shang (Yin) period.
First of all, items made of bronze are becoming widespread, but at the same time stone and bone tools are still of great importance.
During excavations in Xiaotong of the Yi'i city, the capital of the Shang (Yin) kingdom, many items of copper and bronze were found: sacrificial vessels, household utensils and weapons - swords, halberds, axes, arrowheads, spear points. In addition, bronze tools were found: axes, knives, awls, chisels, pitchforks and needles.
If we take into account that in the pre-Ying period, vessels were made mainly of clay, and tools and weapons were made of stone and bone, then it should be concluded that during the Shang (Yin) period, great progress was made in the development of productive forces.
This is also evidenced by a wide variety of forms, more skillful dressing of products, in particular vessels, rich painting on them.
Although in the life of the population of ancient China during this period, primitive forms of economy - fishing and partly hunting - still retained their importance, they no longer played a decisive role. They were supplanted by cattle breeding and agriculture, and the latter began to play a major role.
To designate various kinds of concepts related to agriculture, a number of signs are used in the inscriptions on the bones, meaning: "field", "well", "arable land", "border", "wheat", "millet", etc. Sign "field" (tian) was depicted as regular four squares connected together, or as a rectangle divided into several parts, or as an uneven five-hexagon.
The main crops in northern China were millet, which required relatively little moisture, wheat, barley, and sorghum (gaoliang). It is possible that the rice culture also existed at this time in the Yellow River basin.
The inscriptions on the bones indicate the presence of horticultural crops in the Shang (Yin) period, as well as the cultivation of silkworms (silkworms) and the cultivation of mulberry trees. According to legend, silkworms have been bred in China since ancient times.
Silk cocoons were found during excavations of one of the sites in Xincun village (Shanxi province).
Inscriptions on the bones often contain signs depicting a silkworm. Silkworm caterpillars were held in high esteem by the Yin. Even sacrifices were made to their spirits.
In fortune-telling inscriptions, signs depicting silk threads (a product of a silkworm), a dress, etc. are often found.
The further development of agriculture is evidenced by a higher, than before, land cultivation technique.
A number of modern Chinese scientists suggest that even then irrigation was used, apparently primitive and even on a small scale.
This conclusion is suggested by both ancient legends, which report the rudiments of artificial irrigation as early as the pre-Yin period, and inscriptions on the bones.
In the latter, there are a number of hieroglyphs expressing the idea of \u200b\u200birrigation. One of them depicted a field and streams of water, which were like irrigation canals.
Metal tools were already used in agriculture. This is evidenced by copper shovels found during excavations in the vicinity of Luoyang and near Anyang.
The interpretation of a number of signs in the inscriptions on the bones suggests that the Yin people used livestock for cultivating the land.
So, one of the signs, "y", depicted an ox standing on the side of an agricultural tool.
Another sign, "li" (plow, to plow), also has an ox, and sometimes, but rarely, a horse.
In the fortune-telling inscriptions, there are also combinations of two hieroglyphs for a plow and a bull.
According to Chinese legends, in ancient times there was a so-called "paired plowing", when two people plowed together.
This had more effect on loosening the earth. The concept of "paired plowing" also had a broader meaning: it meant the combination of the efforts of two or more people in cultivating the land, that is, collective cultivation of the field.
Hunting and fishing no longer played the main role in the economy of the Yin people, but they continued to remain essential. This is evidenced by many inscriptions on the bones.
Cattle breeding occupied a significant place in the Yin society. This is evidenced by the number of animals sacrificed to spirits. Sometimes it was numbered in units and tens, but on especially solemn occasions - in hundreds. In two inscriptions, for example, it is said about the sacrifice of 300 bulls, in one inscription the numbers are given - 100 sheep and 300 bulls.
Excavations in Xiaotong near Anyang have yielded a large number of bones from domestic animals - dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, bulls and buffaloes. All these animals are mentioned in inscriptions on the bones of the Yin time. In addition, these inscriptions contain an indication of the domestication of an elephant and a deer. Hieroglyphic images of animals allow us to conclude which of the animals were domestic and which were wild.
For example, a bull was depicted with a wooden crossbar (one or two) inserted into the horns; the hieroglyphs for a horse and a dog included such graphic elements that depicted shackles and a rope. Images of wild animals usually consisted of signs of an animal and an arrow.
Elephants were used by the Yin people, apparently, in the economy, as well as during wars with other tribes. Ivory was engraved and painted. Elephant bones were found during excavations of the Yin capital in Xiaotong. In the inscriptions on the bones, there are references to the fact that elephants were sent to the Yin kings by dependent tribes as a tribute.
Excavations in Xiaotong indicate that the Yin used the horse for transportation purposes. The inscriptions on the oracle bones speak of a team with a pair of horses. As a rule, four horses were harnessed to war chariots or royal carts.
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