4,000 years ago our ancestors built pipes without any boss ordering them to do so.

An ancient ceramic water pipe system, the oldest ever discovered in China , shows that our Neolithic ancestors were capable of complex engineering feats without the need for a single authority figure or 'boss' to orchestrate the work, but instead organized themselves to build them. In a study published in 'Nature Water' , the University College London (UCL) archaeological team describes a network of ceramic water pipes and drainage ditches at the Chinese walled site of Pingliangtai , dating back 4,000 years to a time known as the Longshan period. The network shows cooperation among the community to build and maintain the drainage system, although there is no evidence of centralized power or authority.

Yijie Zhuang, a researcher at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and lead author on the paper, explains the significance of the find: “The discovery of this ceramic water pipe network is remarkable because the Pingliangtai people were able to build and maintain this advanced Stone Age water management system without the organization of a central power structure. This system would have required a significant level of planning and coordination across the community, and it was all done communally.”

Ceramic water pipes form a drainage system that is the oldest complete system ever discovered in China (other older examples exist, dating back nearly 6,000 years to ancient Babylon). Made by interconnecting individual segments, the water pipes run along paths and walls to divert rainwater and demonstrate an advanced level of central planning at the Neolithic site.

What surprises researchers is that the Pingliangtai settlement shows little evidence of social hierarchy: its houses were all the same small size, and no signs of social stratification or significant inequality among the population have been found. Excavations at the town cemetery also found no evidence of a social hierarchy in burials, a marked difference from excavations at other nearby towns from the same period.

But despite the apparent lack of centralized authority, the people came together and carried out the careful coordination necessary to produce the ceramic pipes, plan their layout, install them, and maintain them—a project that likely required a great deal of effort from much of the community.

The level of complexity associated with these pipes refutes the earlier hypothesis that only a centralized state with ruling elites could muster the organization and resources to build a complex water management system : Pingliangtai demonstrates that more egalitarian and communal societies were also capable of such engineering feats.

Pingliangtai is located in what is now Huaiyang District of Zhoukou City in central China. During the Neolithic Period, the town was home to around 500 people, living in a walled city with a surrounding moat. Situated on the upper Huai River Plain in the vast Huanghuaihai Plain , the climate of the area 4,000 years ago was marked by large seasonal weather swings, with summer monsoons often dumping half a meter of monthly rain on the region.

Managing these deluges was important to prevent flooding from overwhelming the region's communities. To help mitigate excess water during the rainy season, the people of Pingliangtai constructed and operated a two-tiered drainage system unlike any seen at the time. They built simple but coordinated lines of drainage ditches running parallel to their rows of houses to divert water from the residential area to a series of ceramic water pipes that carried the water to the surrounding moat and away from the village.

These ceramic water pipes represented an advanced level of technology for their time. While there was some variety in decoration and style, each pipe segment was between 20 and 30 centimeters in diameter and 30 to 40 centimeters long. Numerous segments were fitted together to transport water over long distances.

The Pingliangtai drainage system is unique among water systems in other parts of the world at that time. Its purpose of draining monsoon rainwater and floodwaters differs from other Neolithic systems around the world, many of which were used for sewage drainage or other purposes.