Chapter 3 Section 2 Agricultural Culture Seven or Eight Thousand Years Ago

China is one of the ancient agricultural countries in the world.As early as 6,000 years ago, the Yangshao Culture distributed in the Yellow River Basin had mature crop planting and livestock breeding, as well as splendid painted pottery art.The production technology achievements of Yangshao Culture indicate that there was still an initial stage of agricultural economy before this.However, the production and life of people at that time has been little known.When my country's agriculture began, there has been no definite answer for a long time. As early as the late 1950s and early 1960s, exquisitely carved stone sickles and stone grinding discs were found sporadically in Henan Province. The shape of the stone sickle is similar to the current iron sickle, with a crescent shape and a serrated edge.The discoverers thought it was a late harvesting tool and shelved it. In 1977, the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences determined the age of the stratum where this stone sickle was buried, which shocked the entire academic world. It is a relic around 8,000 years ago.Since then, several archaeological excavation teams gathered in the Central Plains to search for the remains of this kind of stone sickle, which opened the prelude to the study of early Chinese agricultural culture.

Over the past 10 years, nearly 100 early agricultural cultural sites have been discovered in the Central Plains and its adjacent areas.There is no unified understanding of the cultural naming and division of these sites.Most scholars divide them into four regions, the Peiligang Culture in Central Henan and Northern Henan with Songshan as the center, the Cishan Culture in Southern Hebei and Central Hebei, and the Weishui River Basin in Guanzhong It is called Baijia culture (also known as Dadiwan culture or Laoguantai culture), and it is called Lijiacun culture in Hanzhong area. The living conditions of the residents during this period were lower than those of the Yangshao Culture, living in small permanent or semi-permanent settlements.The residences are small in scale and are generally located on hills near the river.The houses they live in are mainly small semi-crypt buildings with an area of ​​less than 10 square meters, and they have been expanded several times into row houses of three or four rooms, with terrace-style doorways for access, and indoor stoves for cooking and heating , People lie down on the spot and eat on the spot.The tombs discovered are usually in groups, single burials are popular, and there are also joint burials. Most of the tombs are buried with production tools or daily necessities, such as stone tools and pottery. Some tombs have niches [kan] for placing funeral objects.The production tools at that time were mainly stone tools, and stone tool manufacturing was still in the initial stage of grinding technology. Compound tools made of ground stone tools and fine stone flakes were still in use. Shovels, axes, sickles, and grinding discs were the main stone tools; Tools made of bone, clam shell and other materials, such as bone cones, bone needles, bone arrowheads, clam sickles, clam knives, etc.Pottery has been widely used in daily life, and the pottery industry has deviated from the initial stage of human pottery making. It is handmade, the surface of the utensils is polished and smooth, and the shape of the utensils is basically determined according to the purpose. And so on, the original art of color painting has sprouted.The kneaded pottery pig's head and sheep's head are lifelike and are masterpieces of art at that time. The discovered pottery spinning wheel is the earliest evidence that the residents at that time had mastered the primitive spinning and fabric technology.It is worth noting that the seven-hole bone flute unearthed in the Jiahu tomb in Wuyang, Henan Province in 1987 already has a scale structure, which is a major discovery of music archaeology in the world; An important clue to the origin of Chinese characters.

The social economy at that time, in addition to following the previous gathering and fishing and hunting, had planting and raised livestock.The crops grown are mainly millet (rhubarb rice) and millet (millet).Carbonized products of this crop were often found in the settlements at that time. In 1976 and 1978, dozens of cellar-style granaries were discovered in the southeast of Cishan Village, Wu'an, Hebei.These granaries are rectangular in plane, about one meter long, less than one meter wide, and two to five meters deep.Carbonized millet was piled up in the granary, and the mouth was sealed with thick loess. It can be inferred that the granary might have been filled with uncarbonized millet at that time.This is the earliest granary for storing millet discovered in the world today.Livestock include pigs, dogs, and chickens.The discovery of the phenomenon of whole pigs being buried in pits not only reflects the primitive religious consciousness at that time, but also shows that a certain number of pigs were raised at that time.The remains of the domestic chicken found are the earliest found in the world so far.

With breakthroughs in the study of early agricultural culture in the Central Plains, relics of agricultural culture dating back 7,000 years ago have also been discovered in the Yangtze River Basin, the Liao River Basin in the north, and South China.Among them, the excavation of the Pengtoushan and Bashidang ruins in Lixian County, Hunan Province, obtained information on the remains of rice farming culture around 8,000 years ago. The Pengtoushan site is located on the Lishui alluvial plain in the northwest of Dongting Lake, and it is a low hill site. In 1988, 400 square meters were excavated, and house foundations and 18 tombs were found.The unearthed stone tools are mostly hammered stone tools and small stone tools, and polished stone tools are rare, mainly pierced pendants, stone pipes, small axes and so on.The pottery is all made of clay sheets pasted with molds, with primitive shapes, such as pots, kettles [fu axe], basins, bowls [bobo] and so on.Many carbonized plant particles were found on the pottery and in the mud used to make the pottery. According to preliminary observation, it may be rice husk or rice.According to the analysis and dating of the unearthed objects, the age of the Pengtoushan site is as early as 8,000 years ago, which is close to the Peiligang culture in the Central Plains.

The Bashidang ruins are located in Wufu Village, Mengxi Township, northeast of the Liyang Plain, about 25 kilometers southwest of the Pengtoushan ruins. The surrounding terrain is open and flat, and the ruins are slightly higher than the surrounding ground by one to two meters. Two excavations were carried out in 1993 and 1994, and a settlement site with trenches and walls of the same age as the Pengtoushan site was discovered.It is rectangular in plane, nearly north-south, the existing part is about 110 meters long from north to south, 70-80 meters wide from east to west, and the surrounding area is nearly 8000 square meters.The top of the wall is about three meters wide; the trench is on the outside of the wall, with a bottom width of about 3.5 meters and a height of two meters from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the wall.Many house foundations arranged in rows and a starfish-shaped high platform building site have been found inside the wall.This is the earliest settlement site with protective barriers discovered in my country.

With the emergence of agriculture, human beings can finally get rid of the wandering life of gathering, fishing and hunting, and turn to the farming and animal husbandry economy that relies on settlement to transform the natural world.Discoveries and research over the past 10 years have shown that, about 8,000 years ago, primitive farmers in my country were active in the vast areas of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River Basin.They were the first to plant millet and millet in the Yellow River basin and its northern regions, and rice in the Yangtze River system and its southern regions.Their hard work and inventions have made great contributions to the development of mankind.