The vast world, where all things in the universe are born, has always been a mystery that humans have been tirelessly seeking to solve. Today, the face of the Earth has changed due to human beings. In cities and rural areas, human activities have formed beautiful artistic scrolls of the earth. When did our ancestors start taking the first step in transforming the world, and where was the starting point of ancient societies from barbarism to civilization? This starts with a small seed.
In the first millions of years of humanity, dense forests provided our ancestors with abundant food. People collected wild fruits and hunted wild animals in the jungle. However, about 10000 years ago, our ancestors began to leave the jungle, plant crops and settle, gradually giving up their expertise in gathering and hunting activities. Eventually, food collectors became food producers. What is the reason for all of this?
Nature is the environment and source of food and clothing that humans rely on for survival, but in the process of seeking it from nature, humans also face a struggle for life and death. In the game of survival, humans are not only hunters, but also prey on large carnivores. Apart from the dangers in the jungle, another reason why our ancestors walked out of the forest is due to climate change. About ten thousand years ago, the Earth experienced a glacier movement. With the end of the ice age, the main prey of humans, herbivorous animals, gradually decreased. In the end, except for wild boars and other animals, there were almost no suitable large mammals to hunt. Prehistoric ancestors urgently needed methods to provide a stable source of food.
Ten thousand years ago, on a sunny afternoon, the wind blew gently, and the fruits and seeds fell to the ground with the wind. Our ancestors, after observation, may have already imagined that the newly grown grass and food after winter are related to these fallen seeds. Among these seeds, one type of wild grass in southern China is called wild rice, while the other in northern China is called dogtail grass and wild millet. After several years of cultivation, they were domesticated by our ancestors into rice and millet, which may be the origin of the entire human civilization.
Zhao Zhijun, Deputy Director of the Research Center of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The origin of agriculture is the most important stage in the development history of human society, and this transformation is indeed of great significance. Before the emergence of agriculture, we humans had a passive adaptation to nature, which means that we could obtain whatever nature provided us for our basic needs. However, after the emergence of agriculture, we humans had the ability to actively transform and improve nature, so that we could obtain more of our basic living needs from nature.
Xianren Cave Site, Wannian County, Jiangxi Province
In 1993, an elderly American accompanied by Dr. Zhao Zhijun, who was studying in the United States, arrived at the Xianrendong Site in Wannian County, Jiangxi Province. Their goal was to find the origin of rice. The elderly man was Dr. Manis, a renowned expert in agricultural origin research. The old man once excavated and found the world’s earliest corn remains in Mexico, and he believed that the earliest agriculture should have emerged during the period of human cave dwelling. Upon arriving at the vast and secluded Immortal Cave, experienced Manis had an intuition that the origin of rice should be in China.
Zhao Zhijun, Deputy Director of the Research Center of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:
He believes that in order to find evidence of the earliest origin of agriculture, we should go to cave sites, because the process of our human transformation from a hunting and gathering economy to an agricultural economy often accompanies a transition from cave sites to flat land sites. Another important reason is that we have already excavated the Xianren Cave site, proving that the cultural accumulation of the Xianren Cave site dates back to around 10000 years ago, which is a common period in the origin of world agriculture. Therefore, Dr. Manis subconsciously believes that he should be able to find evidence of the origin of rice agriculture at the Xianren Cave site.
Two years later, Dr. Manis participated in a joint archaeological team from China and the United States to conduct another archaeological excavation of the Immortal Cave and the Hanging Barrel Ring site. They finally made a groundbreaking discovery in a pile layer. The joint archaeological team between China and the United States did not find rice, but found the plant silicate after the rice had decayed. There is a special form of silicate on the leaves of rice, which is hidden in the soil and can only be distinguished under a high-power microscope. Domestic and foreign experts have determined through the study and analysis of phytoliths that this is the earliest known cultivated rice relic in the world at that time, dating back approximately 12000 years. This conclusion excites experts, but at the same time, they have even stronger expectations in their hearts whether they can find the world’s earliest physically cultivated rice seeds ten thousand years ago?
In 2004, a joint archaeological team from China and the United States finally discovered five physical rice grains in Yuchanyan, Dao County, Hunan Province. These grains resemble both wild and cultivated rice, and are the most primitive cultivated rice type that evolved from ordinary wild rice to cultivated rice. Chronological dating shows that the seeds of these rice grains date back approximately 12000 years.
Today, our brains have begun to explore the origin of the universe. However, ten thousand years ago, it was not easy for primitive ancestors to understand the way a plant grows. When did humans acquire the ability to associate? This is an unsolved mystery, but this special ability enabled our ancestors to take the first step in transforming the world. With the first artificially planted crop yielding food and the first wild boar being artificially domesticated, the agricultural civilization that changed the fate of the Earth officially began at the beginning of the Neolithic Age.
Xiannongtan Beijing
The Xiannong Altar, located at the southern end of the central axis of old Beijing, was a place where the Ming and Qing emperors held a land registration ceremony to worship the gods of Xiannong. Every year on the day of Zhongchun Hai, the emperor would lead a hundred officials to the Xiannong Altar to worship the gods of Xiannong. Food is the most important thing for the people, which is the golden rule of the rulers of all previous dynasties. Until today, agriculture is still the main content of the No. 1 central document of all previous years. Today, China is a large country with a population of 1.3 billion. Our population accounts for approximately 22% of the world’s total population, while the arable land area only accounts for 7% of the world’s arable land area. This means that we rely on 7% of the world’s arable land to support one-fifth of the world’s population. What magical stories have created our brilliant agricultural civilization in this ancient land. How did our ancestors solve the survival pressure brought about by the increasing population in ancient times?
This is the Ningshao Plain, with fertile land and sufficient precipitation, making it one of the most densely populated areas in China today. More than 6000 years ago, the most developed rice farming in China was born here.
In 2001, in Xiang’ao Village, Sanqi Town, Yuyao City, Zhejiang Province, only 7 kilometers away from the Hemudu Site, a heat treatment plant discovered a large number of tiles and pottery jars while drilling a well. Upon hearing the news, the archaeological department rushed to reveal a secret space that had been around 6500 years ago.
In the summer of 2004, archaeologists conducted the first archaeological excavation of a 300 square meter cultural accumulation layer at the Tianluo Mountain site. After more than 100 days of archaeological excavation, a large number of relatively complete cultural relics such as pottery, stone tools, bone tools, and jade were unearthed. During the excavation process, people found that small golden particles occasionally appeared in the black brown soil layer, but soon they turned into the color of soil. This is the ancient rice that plant archaeologists have been searching for. They have been quietly sleeping underground for more than 6500 years.
Sun Guoping, Researcher at Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
If we compare the current rice with the rice unearthed from the Tianluoshan site during the Hemudu Culture period, it is evident that there has been a significant change in its shape. If we use data to describe it, the rice in the Tianluoshan site is relatively thin and long, with a length to width ratio of 2:1. However, our current rice should be said to be thicker and shorter, or in other words, a white one is thicker. In this case, the change in data is closely related to the domestication process of this rice.
After five excavations and washing of the soil from the cultural layer, archaeologists obtained approximately hundreds of thousands of carbonized rice grains, which are rare in prehistoric sites around the world. This provides important evidence for the study of the origin of agriculture, but also raises some questions about how people planted rice and increased production capacity with such a large amount of hoarding? During the excavation process, dozens of special bone artifacts scattered in the geological strata caught the attention of archaeologists, which was the key to an important technological revolution in the origin and development of agriculture, known as the bone spear. These bony spears look very much like modern shovels or shovels, and their main purpose is to loosen soil.
Sun Guoping, Researcher at Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
This tool has a significant impact on improving the productivity of farmland or rice paddies. In the past, we used to say that the most important indicator of productivity level was the form or performance of the production tool. In our Hemudu culture, we also conducted some experimental research on the efficiency of production of the bone carp. (After stepping on it, it accelerates even faster, you see)
In modern farmland, the efficiency of this bone Si is not much different from that of the iron shovel, which is now used to dig the soil. Therefore, during the Hemudu culture period, this bone Si made of buffalo’s shoulder blades can be used in a large amount in the process of rice plowing, which played a great role in promoting the development of rice farming at that time.
The excavation of a large number of bone spears presents a fact to today’s people. Over 6000 years ago, the terrain here was low and flat, with dense forests and a warm and humid climate, making it a paradise for animals and plants. The ancestors worked hard on this large area of land, holding spears, digging up the soil, and sowing grain seeds. As the sun set, people who had been working all day returned with a full load. The villagers had already started using stone crushing pestles to process food and started cooking. The ancient clan settlement campfires lit up one after another, illuminating a corner of the night sky six thousand years ago in the dark. All of these indicate that six thousand years ago, the Hemudu people living in the southeastern coastal areas of China during the mid Neolithic period had already moved away from the backward state of slash and burn farming and developed into a stage where complete sets of rice production tools were widely used to cultivate rice. Their rice farming form can be regarded as the most advanced and developed plowing agriculture in the world at that time.
Sun Guoping, Researcher at Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
It can be said that the level of rice agriculture during our Hemudu culture period was already in a relatively mature stage, laying a good foundation for the rice agriculture during our Liangzhu culture period as the main sector of social production.
Liangzhu Culture is a late Neolithic cultural site located in the the Taihu Lake Lake basin, which dates from 5300 to 4000 years ago.
Shili Zhejiang Liangzhu Museum
This is a stone plow unearthed from the Liangzhu Culture Site. Its appearance further accelerated the process of human agricultural civilization. During the Liangzhu Culture period, the number of archaeological sites in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River increased dramatically and were distributed exceptionally densely. This sudden and significant increase in regional population was closely related to the rapid development of rice farming, as only stable agricultural production could sustain the survival of a large population in a relatively small area.
Cultivator Zhejiang Liangzhu Museum
Among the many agricultural tools unearthed from the Liangzhu Culture Site, the prominent new agricultural tools are finely ground triangular stone plows and soil breakers, as well as a type called “cultivator” due to its resemblance to modern farming tools. These advanced agricultural production tools have promoted the development of agricultural productivity.
Sun Guoping, Researcher at Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
We have a data that shows that during the Liangzhu Culture period, which dates back four to five thousand years, the yield of rice may reach around 300 jin compared to the Hemudu Culture period. Therefore, it can be said that from six to seven thousand years ago to four or five thousand years ago, during the development process from Hemudu Culture to Liangzhu Culture, the level of development of our rice agriculture has also greatly improved.
The Liangzhu culture has achieved brilliant achievements in many aspects, such as the construction of various large-scale buildings and the exquisite production of jade artifacts, especially the recently discovered Liangzhu Ancient City, which has a huge construction project and is still considered a super project today. These highly advanced civilizations require a large amount of labor input and complex social organization and management,
All of this requires a sound rice farming production system and sufficient agricultural product support.
Zhao Zhijun, Deputy Director of the Research Center of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The discovery of the ancient city of Liangzhu reveals an important piece of information to us, which is that during the Liangzhu Culture period, rice farming and agricultural production in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River had reached a very developed level, which could provide sufficient food for the society at that time. Therefore, we use these evidences to prove that during the Liangzhu Culture period, rice farming and agriculture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River had become the economic mainstay of ancient society at that time.
The representative crop in the southern region of ancient China was rice, while in the northern region it was millet. Over 6000 years ago, a large amount of millet was already planted in the Yellow River Basin. This is the most common dog tail grass found in the fields of the north, also known as the weed. Its plant shape is very similar to that of foxtail millet, and it is difficult to distinguish it from the seedlings of foxtail millet when it first grows, so there has always been a saying that “good and bad are indistinguishable”. Dogtail grass is widely distributed in Asia, especially in the Yellow River Basin of China. Our ancestors first planted wild Dogtail grass as feed and gradually domesticated it as the earliest type of cultivated millet.
In ancient agriculture in our country, foxtail millet was of paramount importance. There are many records of foxtail millet in the oracle bone inscriptions unearthed from the Yin ruins. At that time, foxtail millet was also known as millet, commonly known as He, and the Xia and Shang dynasties were also known as the “millet culture” dynasties.
In the famous agricultural book “The Book of Flood and Victory” over two thousand years ago, foxtail millet was listed as the top of the five grains. In the 6th century AD, in Jia Sixie’s “Qi Min Yao Shu”, foxtail millet still ranked first among the five grains. It was not until the Ming Dynasty that the cultivation of foxtail millet was relatively reduced due to the expansion of wheat planting area and the introduction of corn and sweet potatoes. However, foxtail millet still played an important role in the life of northern China.
Cishan Site, Wu’an City, Hebei Province
In 1976, archaeologists discovered a large number of ancient production and living tools, including stone shovels used for plowing, stone sickles used for harvesting crops, stone grinding plates and rods used for processing grains, at the Cishan Site in Wu’an, Hebei, located on the north bank of the Nanming River at the eastern foot of the Taihang Mountains. Archaeologists determined the age to be around 7400 years ago through carbon-14 dating, which was in the early Neolithic period. In subsequent excavations, the unearthed grain cellars shocked the world. More millet has been discovered here than all previous sites combined. Within the 7400 square meter excavation area, a total of 548 cellars have been discovered, of which 80 grain cellars contain food relics, mainly millet and millet. Of course, they have already carbonized and become shells.
Liu Yong, Researcher at the Cultural Museum of Cishan Cultural Heritage Institute
Liu: When I discovered the grain, I knew it was grain. When I looked at it clearly, sometimes it turned red, orange, and green when it was unearthed. If it became moldy, it would become milky white and powdery when it was dried by the wind.
Pottery pots and bird head shaped supports are the kitchens of Cishan people, and also the representative utensils of Cishan culture. This pottery pot 7000 years ago once floated the fragrance of millet porridge for countless times. The golden millet nourished Cishan culture, as well as Xinglongwa culture, Yangshao culture, Hongshan culture, etc. The warm millet porridge is the milk that feeds the ancient culture of northern China continuously. As the birthplace of arid agriculture, the unique geographical environment of Xinglongwa makes the excavation of the site equally dramatic.
Tian Yanguo, Director of the prehistoric cultural museum in Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia
When we investigated the prehistoric site of Aohan Banner in the 1980s, a large amount of stone and pottery were scattered on the surface of the site. At that time, if we were to pick it up during the investigation, we could pick up a cart a day, which was not an exaggeration. Currently, the museum’s collection of cultural relics weighs only ten tons of cultural relics specimens, which were found during the cultural relics census.
In 2002, the Inner Mongolia work team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences conducted a large-scale excavation here. Archaeologists collected plant specimens from three locations for flotation and discovered more than 1500 carbonized grains, of which millet accounted for 90% and millet accounted for 10%, in an artificially cultivated form. After being tested and verified by Peking University and authoritative departments in the UK and Canada using the carbon-14 method, it was 8000 years ago and 2700 years earlier than the millet discovered in Europe.
Tian Yanguo, Director of the prehistoric cultural museum in Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia
We selected these carbonized millet and millet from Xinglonggou and brought them to Japan, Peking University, and Toronto, Canada for simultaneous testing. At the same time, the results were obtained, and the entire testing data was the same. The carbonized millet and millet produced from Xinglonggou flotation are eight thousand years old, which is amazing. Martin Jones from the University of Cambridge in the UK came and believed that the millet produced by Aohan flotation was carbonized millet, which was transmitted to Europe.
Archaeologists have also discovered a very unique tomb here: a human pig joint burial tomb. The tomb owner is likely a settlement leader style figure, dressed in a clam skirt, with two whole pigs buried on the right side. According to experts, these should be related to totem worship at that time.
Tian Yanguo, Director of the prehistoric cultural museum in Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia
(He was buried with one female, one male, and two wild boars. We took several individuals from this 8000 year old pig and tested them in the animal testing room of Peking University. Among them, three were not pure wild boars.)
For Chinese people, the importance of pigs is self-evident. The familiar word “home” can be seen from the text structure. Below the Baogaitou is a word for “rag”, which means “pig”. Pigs are gentle and highly reproductive animals. For ancient people, captive pigs provided a sense of food security, so raising pigs became a symbol of settled life.
In the early Neolithic period, the Loess Plateau was not as barren as it is now, but was covered in swamps and forests. At that time, the most commonly hunted animals were various deer animals and wild boars, which became the earliest animals to be domesticated. However, the reproductive ability of lively deer animals was greatly reduced under domestication conditions, and wild boars with higher fat content and stronger reproductive ability gradually became the main target of animal husbandry. Long term artificial domestication and feeding will gradually shorten the teeth of wild boars, especially the molars used for grinding, and make their living habits and appearance closer to modern domestic pigs, which is beneficial for family breeding and has gradually become an important living resource for people.
Besides being consumed by humans, pigs are also revered as tools for communicating the relationship between gods and humans. In prehistoric burial sites, the remains of whole pigs and dogs were often found, which later evolved into simple pig heads and pig mandibles, but their numbers continued to increase. This situation was particularly evident in the Yellow River Basin, indicating that the scale of pig farming at that time was already quite considerable.
In the Xinglongwa cultural site, the earliest dragon shaped totems have appeared, and many of them are related to pigs, such as the Pig Head Dragon, Jade Pig Dragon, etc. The discovery of these relics proves the importance of pigs in ancient life.
In addition to domesticating pigs, humans have also domesticated a series of animals such as dogs, chickens, ducks, cows, horses, camels, etc. Most of them are still the main source of meat for humans today.
Today, we often use globalization as a symbol of the times. Surprisingly, thousands of years ago, ancient civilizations relied on certain species and other carriers to quietly carry out the process of globalization.
Northern China is the hometown of Xiaomi. Today, we see that the most planted crop in northern China is no longer Xiaomi, but wheat. So, when did wheat enter our food system, and where is the origin of wheat?
Zhao Zhijun, Deputy Director of the Research Center of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Among all crops, wheat is a legendary grain. We all know that there are actually four major ancient agricultural origin centers in the world, and wheat originated from the agricultural origin center of West Asia. The agricultural origin center of West Asia is part of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq today, and the southern part of Türkiye, which we often say is a semi secular area. According to current archaeological discoveries, wheat was spread to China about 4000 years ago, and gradually
Earth has replaced Xiaomi in China and become the main crop in the northern region of China.
In the Erlitou Cultural Site about 3800 years ago, the amount of wheat unearthed accounted for less than 1%. However, during the Erligang period about 3500 years ago, the amount of wheat unearthed suddenly increased, reaching 10% to 20%, becoming an important food crop second only to millet and sorghum.
From 5000 to 4000 years ago, all the main resources related to agricultural production appeared in China, including millet, millet, rice, wheat, soybeans, and pigs, dogs, cows, and sheep. The abundance of the five grains and the prosperity of the six livestock described the prosperity of ancient Chinese agriculture. The so-called “five grains” are generally believed to include foxtail millet, millet, rice, soybeans, and wheat. The so-called “six livestock” generally refer to dogs, pigs, chickens, sheep, cows, and horses.
The rise of agriculture and animal husbandry has played a decisive role in freeing humanity from barbarism, and it has also promoted the progress of human civilization.
Zhao Zhijun, Deputy Director of the Research Center of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Adequate food enables us in human society to carry out more detailed division of labor, causing some people to break away from basic production activities and engage in higher-level social activities, such as social management, art creation, handicraft production, specialized in warfare, and so on. The emergence of these different social classes has also brought about a huge change in the structure of our human society, which directly leads to the emergence of civilized society.
Xinglonggou Site, Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia
This is a complete settlement site excavated in Xinglonggou. Surface investigation shows that there are more than 150 house sites, all of which are rectangular semi underground buildings arranged in a northeast southwest direction, with a regular layout and divided into three areas: east, center, and west. Through sorting and studying the site, it was found that the ancestors living in the village already have a hierarchy.
Tian Yanguo, Director of the prehistoric cultural museum in Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia
The housing sites of Xinglongwa culture have an area of approximately 40-60 square meters for each house. In the entire Xinglongwa site, there are basically two large housing sites located in the center, side by side, with each house reaching 140 square meters. This illustrates a very important house, which may be the residence of the most important person in this tribe.
In the late Neolithic period, with the expansion of settlement areas, the tribal alliances formed in prehistoric society continued to expand, and internal and external conflicts intensified. Some agricultural tribal alliances that had improved production technology successfully completed the transition from primitive culture to national civilization, marking the formation of a country with human civilization. In the history of world civilization, the invention of agriculture and the emergence of settlement settlements are the common starting points for the four ancient civilizations, Mesopotamian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Indus civilization, and Chinese civilization, which have continued to flourish in the major river basins.
90 Seconds of History: Discovering Yangshao
This hilly area is located in Mianchi County, Henan Province. One day in April 1921, a Swede first came to this land. He was Antesheng, an advisor to the Mining Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of the Beiyang Government at that time. His purpose of coming here was not to search for minerals, but to discover prehistoric colored pottery pieces in a village called Yangshao Village.
This excavation began on October 27, 1921, and lasted for 36 days. A large number of ground stone tools, bone tools, and pottery were excavated, especially the exquisite colored pottery, which did not leave a single word in any Chinese literature. What kind of history is this, and what era it is in, to the extent that we have no idea. After the first excavation, according to archaeological conventions, this culture was named the Yangshao Culture. It became the first officially named ancient cultural system in Chinese archaeological history, marking the birth of modern Chinese archaeology,