People in China mined and burned coal as early as 3,600 years ago

It's the oldest example of systematic coal use in history.

Tibi Puiu by Tibi Puiu July 31, 2023 in Archaeology, News
Edited and reviewed by Zoe Gordon

China is by far the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, producing and consuming almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined. But although China's voracious appetite for coal is relatively new, fueled by rising energy demand as its economy grew at breakneck speed, its relationship with coal is anything but recent. In fact, more and more evidence points to the fact that China is the cradle of coal mining.

In a new study, archaeologists found that Bronze Age societies in northwestern China were using coal as an energy source over 3600 years ago — a millennium earlier than previously believed.

Unearthing ancient coal use
Before this discovery, knowledge of ancient coal usage was limited to written records. However, the excavations at the Bronze Age site called Jirentaigoukou, located in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region, have provided a unique window into the past. The site, nestled in the Tianshan Mountains near the Kashi River, was a bustling settlement between 3,600 and 2,900 years ago.

The coal was found in various forms throughout the settlement, indicating it was a shared resource accessible to everyone, regardless of their social status or occupation. Coal was discovered in large storage pits, houses, stone tool caches, cooking hearths, and smelting furnaces, revealing its versatility and significance in daily life.

It's not like some farmers accidentally found some lumps of coal in the field and threw them into a campfire sporadically. Rather, all of this evidence suggests that the Jirentaigoukou people intentionally devised a system to extract and use coal at a large scale.

More:
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/people-in-china-mined-and-burned-coal-as-early-as-3600-years-ago/