What were the recording tools before papermaking appeared?

Before the invention of paper, the main materials used in ancient China were Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bamboo slips and silk.

A is the shell of a tortoise, and the bones are the shoulder blades of animals such as cattle and sheep. Ancestors used them to write "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" in Shang Dynasty more than 3,500 years ago, and later called it "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". Although Oracle Bone Inscriptions is very different from modern Chinese characters, it is the oldest known Chinese character in China.

Bamboo slips are the most commonly used materials in ancient times. Bamboo is abundant in the south, so bamboo slips and bamboo slips are used more. In the north, willow and poplar are mostly used to make wooden slips and wooden slips.

Although bamboo slips are bulky and inconvenient to write and read, they are available everywhere and easy to make. After they were used in Shang Dynasty, they quickly became popular and became the most common writing materials in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

Archaeologists found a large number of silk books in Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province. It is conceivable that silk was also a writing material at that time.

Silk is very expensive, so only a few princes and nobles can write with it. People must find a kind of writing material with convenient writing and low price, and paper came into being under such circumstances.