In an era when humans were not yet enlightened, giant trees in the forest grew wildly and towered into the clouds.
Until a flash flood breaks out, and big trees are knocked down and float on the water. Humans who are swept up in the flood cannot survive at all. The rapid water flow and the huge rocks rushing down at high speed are all fatal.
Only a few lucky people can climb onto the trees in the water to escape and cross the river.
Gradually, humans understood that giant trees could make themselves float on the water.
Later, humans derived more uses. They learned to use trees to actively cross dangerous rivers, but it was still dangerous to use primitive trees. They were slippery and easy to roll. People could not stand on rolling logs for a long time.
You may encounter attacks from some dangerous creatures in the river.
So people learned a simpler method: tie several logs together with ropes, thus forming a small floating land that would not roll over and be safer.
But such a raft can easily fall apart, and only highly skilled people can master a good enough raft-making method.
It was not until after a long period of practice in crossing the river that a clear realization emerged: as long as a section of trees was flattened and hollowed out, it could become a sturdy, durable and easy-to-operate vehicle - a canoe.
"A canoe becomes a canoe. This is the origin of the development of the canoe."
As the second big tree fell to the ground, Bi Fang sat on the tree, panting slightly.
Cutting down a huge tree with a diameter of more than half a meter with an ax is still very physically demanding, and it took an hour just to cut down the tree.
"Some people have recorded that in the Fuxi era, people mainly used rafts, and boats did not appear until the Yellow Emperor. In other words, rafts came first and then boats. Of course, there is no way to verify whether this statement about who appeared first is true or false."
"The canoe appeared about 7,000 years ago at the latest. In 2002, the remains of a canoe were unearthed at the Kuahuqiao site in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang. It was more than five meters long and half a meter wide. It was about 8,000-7,000 years ago.
Year."
Canoe wrecks are very rare. The wood is buried in the soil and is easily susceptible to decay and decay under the action of microorganisms.
"The original is a whole section of masson pine wood, which was first roasted with fire and then processed with a stone adze. The entire section of the boat body is relatively intact. It is one of the oldest canoes in the world."
【What is a stone adze?】
"Stone adze is a type of ground stone tool, rectangular, with a single-edged blade. Some stone adzes have a piece ground off the upper end, which is called a 'segmented stone adze'. It can be used for felling and digging soil with a wooden handle. It was a kind of stone adze at that time.
Typical tools for making canoes."
"This thing is one of the most distinctive production tools in the vast area along the eastern coast of China. It has been unearthed in large quantities at many sites, including the Hemudu site. It can be used in the manufacture and production of boats, and it has also been found in many places around the world.
, has become one of the important physical evidences for exploring the migration of early humans across the ocean."
[Historian Fang, online]
[Another day of study wasted]
[Although I don’t know what the use is of learning it, I’ll talk about it after learning it]
[You can brag when chatting with friends in the future (laughs)]
After resting for a while and regaining some strength, Bifang stood up and looked at the two big trees lying on the ground.
The visual effect of the fallen palm trees is even more intense. These two trees may not only be more than fifteen meters, but even close to twenty meters!
Bi Fang swung the ax again and chopped off the excess branches.
"The structure of the canoe in the early days was very simple. Generally, a section of trough-shaped rotten wood was harvested and the inside was slightly tidied, or a section of tree trunk was cut and dug into a trough, and then the outer branches and branches were cut off."
"The main tools for making canoes at that time were stone knives, stone axes, etc. It was of course very difficult to make a canoe with such crude tools, especially digging a groove in an entire tree trunk, so fire must be used when making a canoe."
After cutting off all the excess branches, Bifang dug a hole next to the two trees.
The tree was too big for him to move alone, so he had to make it on the spot.
The resort manager had no objection to this and instead welcomed it.
"A canoe is not just a matter of using a tool to cut a groove. The wood is hard and it is difficult for us to control our strength when chopping, so it is very likely that we will miss it accidentally, and then all our efforts will be wasted. If we use a small tool to make a groove,
It takes too long to plan a little bit."
"Furthermore, canoes were generally invented in the late Paleolithic period and did not enter the Iron Age. The tools used were basically stones. Using stones to cut wood was extremely inefficient."
"The method of making canoes at that time was to apply wet mud to the outside of the entire log, burn the dry wood in the middle of the log into charcoal, and then chisel it off with a stone tool. In this way, the entire log was layered inward.
The layers were chiseled off with stone tools, and finally a canoe was made.”
Bi Fang dug two large pits with a shovel in the nearby land, piled branches in one of them, and then lit a fire with flint and steel to make a bonfire frame.
The other one collected water and made a puddle, then poured soil into it and mixed it into mud.
He also planned to burn it first and then chop it.
"Of course, this is a more common method, and there is also a less common method that is unique to the local Aboriginal people in Australia."
"Compared with the one I just talked about, the methods of the local Australian aborigines are lighter and more imaginative."
"They will first find a thick tree, use a stone knife to break the bark at the bottom of the tree in a circle, and then break the bark in a circle at the top of the trunk. The length of the upper and lower distance depends on the length of the canoe they want to make.
, and then peel off the entire bark."
"Soak the peeled bark in water for a few days to allow the bark to fully swell, and then roast the bark in fireworks until it becomes soft. Fold one end of the roasted bark in half."
"The roasted bark is often very elastic. You need to find two small trees with trunks growing side by side, and use them to clamp the folded end of the bark."
"In order to prevent the volume of other parts from becoming smaller due to one end being folded in half, you can use short sticks to support it. After a few days, the shape of the clamped bark is fixed, and then use a stone knife to drill holes along the edges, and use rattan to sew the front and rear ends
Get up and a canoe is successfully built.”
"The soaked bark has a lot of water content and is very heavy. It often requires the strength of several adults to build a canoe."
"Of course, I actually have no way to choose this production method. On the one hand, I only have one person, and it is too difficult to do. On the other hand, it takes a long time, whether it is peeling off the bark and soaking it, or fixing the shape, and then sewing.
All require a lot of time and cost.”
"If something is accidentally missed, all the efforts will be wasted and the cost will be too high, so I still choose the simplest and most common firing method."