An Archaeological Study Of The Rotating Stone Mill In The Warring States Qin And Han Dynasty

The rotating stone mill is an ancient food processing tool, relying on mutual friction between the upper and lower millstones, to grind grain crops. Main power is from human or animal. Turning wheat, beans into a stone mill to grind can be processed into flour and pulp, which can make much more abundant food. More efficient hydraulic drive appears later. Since the late Warring States period that the Mill was born, after 400 hundred years’development, it had gradually become the typical food processing tool in northern area.The Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties is the important period that rotating mill evolve from burn to mature. It also occupies important position in the food processing tool. After finishing the former studies, three main shortages have been found(?) people pay not enough attention (?), especially the status of (?) in the study, while making the difference between practical mill and funerary ware rotating mill may lead to confusion of the questions. Second, people emphasized wheat, but ignore the relationship between rotating stone mill and beans. Third, most scholars put the view on the timing development process of rotating stone mill, and no space on the spreading process. According to the problems above, the research ideas and methods are established. After finishing the former studies, we can grasp the approximate geographical scope based on where they found.Typological analysis of rotating millstone, only Falin Li has done before, which uses a kind of gear grinding’s tooth grain as the standard. Even though it can reflect the timing development process of mill, there is a large limitation as well, and we need to look for new standards to explore more development rules. So I will analyze the funerary stone mill based on their shapes and analyze the useable stone mill on the teeth of them. After the analysis, temporally it can be divided into 3 periods:late warring states period-the early western Han dynasty, early western Han dynasty period-the eastern Han dynasty, the eastern Han dynasty period. Spatially, there is an obvious regional character of the stone mill, which lays the foundation for researching the spreading with crops.The development of the rotating stone mill is closely related to crop rotation Soybean and wheat are the main food crops. Their distribution affects the development of the stone mill. I will study the archaeological findings and historical literature to find the planting condition of soybean and wheat. Combined with the distribution of the stone mill, we can speculate the original place of it. The mill to make soybean milk is also an important type of the stone mill. According to the data, most of the early mills are used to make soybean milk, which is closely related to the planting of the soybean and wheat.The rotating stone mill has an important significance to the development of the society. The mill contains a wealth of science and technology. It improved the diet of ancient people. Though the study, we can know how the rotating stone mill develop. Based on the analysis, we can explore the agriculture and society of Qin and Han dynasty further.