What did the ancients rely on to tell the direction?

1952, people found a clan village site about 67,000 years ago in banpo village, Xi City, Shaanxi Province. In this site, there are complete residential areas, including 46 round or square houses, all of which face south. From this, it can be concluded that travelers can accurately identify the direction. How do they tell the direction? Presumably, they observe the sun and stars to tell the direction. General objects, such as trees and houses, will produce shadows in the sun. People often observe these shadows in production and life practice. Slowly, people found that these shadows not only changed with time, but also changed regularly. "Immediate Effect" is an ancient surveying work by China. The ancients used "immediate effect" to set the direction, determine the time, or determine the length of solar terms or even the year of return, and so on. It can be said that the oldest and simplest measuring tool in China is "table", that is, ordinary bamboo poles, wooden poles or stone pillars. People have studied the "polar shadow" for thousands of years. After long-term production practice, people have created a set of "the skill of measuring lofty" through the calculation and deduction of "extreme shadow", and "immediate effect" has become an idiom in Chinese. References:

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