The human relationship with water has changed profoundly over thousands of years, but it is only recently that archaeology and multidisciplinary research has explored this complex subject. The emerging story is a complex meld of climate change, gravity human modification, and technological innovation kept in check by ritual observance and religious beliefs. Today, we take water for granted as an anonymous, plentiful commodity, but history teaches us that the societies that last longest are those which treat water with respect, as an elixir of life.
There are three general themes in the history of water, which form the background of this keynote, as an introduction to the research we’ll discuss at the Forum. The first is gravity, the fact that water flows downslope, from a higher point to a lower one. There was no other way of moving water except for small-scale pumps and waterwheels until the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century. Gravity powered the agriculture of pre-industrial states on scales that we are only now beginning to appreciate with the development of landscape and settlement archaeology, helped by LIDAR and other remote sensing technologies. New discoveries are rewriting history, with the discovery of large-scale management works at sites like Anuradhapura in South Asia and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Archaeology and historical records tell us that China has a long tradition of moving water from the rice-growing south to the drought-plagued north. Today, gravity still plays a critical role in water management everywhere, witness the huge aqueducts that carry water long distances to vast cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles. Gravity lies behind the flexible inexorable forces of water. But we cannot pretend to control them.
A second theme revolves around the close relationship between ritual and water management. It is the essence of fertility and growth, of sustained life, of renewal. I explore some of the intricate relationships between ancient human societies and water, epitomized by the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime, and ancient Egyptian and Maya beliefs that the world originated in dark, still waters.
Today, technology operates against sustainability, at efforts to live within one’s hydrological means, witness the Hohokam irrigation farmers, who once flourished on the site of modern-day Phoenix, Arizona. By the sixteenth century CE, the European and Mediterranean worlds had reached the limits of gravity-driven water systems. Two centuries later, the Industrial Revolutions changed the equation with pumps and earthmoving machinery that opened up deep groundwater for humanity. Today, we wrestle with shrinking groundwater supplies and mushrooming human populations. We stand at the threshold of a time when water conservation, control of this basic commodity, and drastic measures will be necessary and a profound change in attitudes toward water that respect it and approximate with those of earlier societies. We have much to learn from the past.

千万年来，人与水的关系已发生了深远的变化，然而直到近年，考古学和其他诸多学科的研究才探及这一复杂话题。人与水关系的始现是气候变化、人地变迁和被礼仪、宗教信仰所约束的科技革新等融合的复杂产物。当今，我们理所当然地认为水是一种普通、丰富的日用品，但是历史却告诉我们只有恭敬待水，视水为生命灵丹妙药的社会才能持久。

作为本次论坛讨论内容的导引，同时也作为这一研究的主旨背景，水的历史将从以下2方面开展。首先是重力，它使得水依势自上而下的流动。直到18世纪工业革命，除了小型抽水机和水车外，我们没有其他的办法改变水的这种流向。重力赋予了前工业时代农业规模发展的动力。而这方面的认识归功于景观考古和聚落考古的发展，以及激光雷达和其他遥感技术的帮助。随着遗址中大规模组织管理系统的发现，如南亚的阿奴拉达普勒、柬埔寨的吴哥窟，这些新发现正在重新书写历史。考古材料与文献材料表明中国有着长久的将水从稻作的南方导引到受旱的北方的传统。现今，无论何处，重力依旧在水资源管理方面具有重要的作用，庞大的水渠将水长距离输送到众多城之中，如美国的菲尼克斯、洛杉矶。正是重力赋予了水灵活且势不可挡的力量，然而我们却不可以试图去控制它们。

第二主题将围绕仪式和水资源管理的紧密关系展开。这是繁衍和生长、持续生活和更新的基础。我将探讨一些古代人类社会与水的复杂关系，澳大利亚土著人的黄金时代、古埃及和玛雅的信仰等正是万物源于水的缩影。当今，科技的运用挑战着水的可持续利用，曾在当今亚利桑那州的菲尼克斯繁荣一时的霍霍坎文化的灌溉农民见证了这一点。16世纪，欧洲和地中海地区，依靠重力驱动的水利系统达到了其极限。两个世纪之后，工业革命改变了这一态势，水泵、推土机为人类带来了深层的地下水。如今，我们挣扎于不断缩减的地下水和不断激增的人口矛盾之中。当我们站在这一时代的节点上，水资源的保护、水作为基础日用品的管控，以及有力的措施等应成为必须。同时，人类对于水的态度要有深刻地转变，尊重它并使之接近早期社会的情况。在此，我们要向过去学习。

Brian Fagan was born in England, was educated at Cambridge University, and worked in Central Africa before coming to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1967. He is now Emeritus. One of the world’s leading archaeological lecturers and writers, Brian is the author of numerous general books on archaeology. His most recent books are Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind and Beyond the Blue Horizon: How the Earliest Mariners Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean, The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present and Future of Rising Sea Levels, and Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization.

布莱恩•费根教授出生于英格兰，毕业于剑桥大学，1967年在加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校任教前于中非工作，现在为名誉教授。作为世界知名的考古学学者和作家之一，他出版了众多考古学通识著作。最新著作有《万物之灵：水与人类的历史》、《蓝色地平线之外：最早航海者如何解密海洋之谜》、《进击的海洋：过去、现在和未来的海平面上升》、《渔业：海洋如何孕育文明》。