Chapter 9 Section 4 "Green Revolution"

Reaching out to nature to ask for it may not always be what you want. Human beings are determined to use their own wisdom to create the fruits they need, so animal husbandry was invented, and farming was also invented.The birth of agriculture is hailed by researchers as the "Green Revolution", and because its appearance is one of the important signs of the arrival of the Neolithic Age, it is also called the "Neolithic Revolution". Calling it a "revolution" seems to have come suddenly, but it is not. The origin of agriculture has gone through a very long process.In the Paleolithic Age, human beings mainly lived on gathering, fishing and hunting. All animals and plants that can be used as food in nature are the objects of extortion.After the invention of bows and arrows like the Zhiyu people in the Late Paleolithic Age, the success rate of hunting has been greatly improved.However, with the change of the environment and the proliferation of the population, gathering, fishing and hunting can no longer guarantee a stable source of life, and finding a new source of life has become more and more urgent.

Hunters are usually men, while gathering tasks are done by women.During the collection activities year after year, the women have gained a certain understanding of the law of plant growth.The endless repetition of spring and autumn, flowering and fruiting, may have puzzled human beings, and thinking and exploration began in this confusion.Probably the leftover plant seeds were thrown near the resident, so germination, flowering, and fruiting happened. People observed a complete plant growth process and harvested unintentionally planted fruits.On this basis, the women carried out countless experiments on purpose, and I don't know how many generations of experience accumulation, finally they no longer feel confused, they succeeded, and the farming era came.Women not only created new vitality for human beings, but also pushed human society into a new era of development.

Initial planting activities are small and usually around residential sites.Later, after gaining certain experience, they began to cultivate large fields and plant large areas.The way of reclamation has gone through the process of developing from burning to hoeing (plowing). Hoeding appeared in the later stage of the early Neolithic period, at least 8,000 years ago.At this time, the farming activities were on a relatively large scale, and better seeds of cultivated crops had been cultivated. The harvest volume could generally meet the needs of life, and there was a certain amount of grain reserves.

The greatest achievement of China's "Green Revolution" is the successful cultivation of the three major grains of millet, millet and rice.Due to the difference in geographical environment, China's primitive agricultural cultivation has formed two different types in the north and south since the beginning. In the warm and humid southern region, a large number of prehistoric rice cultivation remains have been found. The earliest era belongs to the Pengtoushan Culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which is more than 9,000 years ago.Around 7,000 years ago, rice cultivation in the Yangtze River Basin was quite common, and two varieties of japonica and indica had been successfully bred.These findings confirm that China is one of the origins of rice.The earliest remains of rice cultivation in other parts of the world were found in Thailand, only about 6,000 years ago.

In the vast arid area of ​​the Yellow River Basin, where the climate is dry, relics of the dryland crop millet have been found in several early Neolithic sites, which is the oldest cultivated millet in the world, indicating that North China is the origin of millet.In several other important origins of cultivated crops, such as West Asia, the Indus River and the Ganges River Basin, no such early remains of millet have been found.The same ancient cultivated crop as millet in North China is millet, but the planting range may be slightly smaller. Wheat and sorghum were the later successfully cultivated grains in North China. Discoveries and research in recent years have shown this more and more clearly.Past studies believed that wheat was first successfully cultivated in West Asia, and it was introduced to China in the early Western Han Dynasty.But more and more archaeological discoveries have confirmed that China may also be one of the origins of wheat.As early as the 1950s, 906 grams of carbonized plant grains were found in a pottery at the Diaoyutai site in Bo County, Anhui Province, which was identified as wheat by experts and dated to about 3,000 years ago. In 1979, when excavating a Neolithic cemetery in the northwest of Lop Nur, Xinjiang, wheat grains were found in several tombs at the same time, dating from 4,000 to 3,600 years ago. In 1985, a variety of carbonized crop grains were unearthed from the Donghuishan Neolithic site in Minle County, Gansu Province, including hundreds of cultivated wheat grains, dating to 5,000 years ago.On the burnt soil block of the Longshan Cultural House Site at the Zhaojialai Site in Wugong County, Shaanxi Province, there are also imprints of wheat straw, and the age is identified as 4300-4000 years ago.From these findings it can be seen that the earliest known evidence of wheat cultivation in China is at least 5,000 years old.Scientific investigation found that a wild common wheat was discovered in Tibet and Yunnan, which may be the ancestor of cultivated wheat, which found the prerequisite for the possible origin of wheat in China.Wheat in China may have been successfully domesticated in the western plateau at the earliest. It is estimated that it was introduced to the Yellow River Basin 5,000 years ago, and its cultivation may not be very common.

The reason why the cultivation of wheat in the Yellow River Basin was earlier but not widespread may be mainly due to the restriction of eating methods.China has a grain food tradition since ancient times, but the pasta technology is very underdeveloped, and the taste of wheat grain food is not good, and it cannot keep up with millet. Therefore, millet was the main crop in the north in prehistoric times.After the pasta technology was relatively mature, especially after the invention of the stone mill, the cultivation of wheat received enough attention. This history is only more than 2,000 years old.

Regarding sorghum, according to foreign research results and Chinese literature records, it is generally believed that sorghum was first successfully cultivated in equatorial Africa, and then introduced to Egypt in prehistoric times, and then to India around AD, and finally to southwest China in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. It was not until the Yuan and Ming Dynasties that it was widely planted throughout the country.In fact, this transmission route is only inferred. There are no early cultivated sorghum unearthed in Africa, and the earliest remains of sorghum unearthed in India were only in the early years of AD.However, Chinese archaeological discoveries of sorghum remains from the Western Han Dynasty are not uncommon, and they are concentrated in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. There is also evidence of sorghum cultivation in the Northeast and South of the Five Ridges.Many materials also show that there was sorghum in the pre-Qin period, and sorghum was also planted in the earlier Neolithic age.

As early as 1931, sorghum husks were found in the prehistoric site of Jingcun, Wanrong, Shanxi, and its age was 4,500 years ago according to the most conservative estimate. In 1972, a urn of carbonized sorghum rice was found in the late Yangshao Culture house site in Dahe Village, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, dating to more than 5,600 years ago. In 1985, a lot of sorghum grains were collected at the prehistoric site of Donghuishan in Minle, Gansu Province, dating to 5,000 years ago.At the same time, scientists have discovered wild species of sorghum in various places in the north and south of China, providing solid evidence for the origin of sorghum in China.Based on this, some researchers believe that Chinese sorghum originated in the relatively arid Loess Plateau, and it originated independently, and has nothing to do with African sorghum.

There are many other cultivated crops in prehistoric China, such as rape in Baijiacun culture, mustard in Yangshao culture, gourd in Hemudu culture, gourd, melon, soybean in Liangzhu culture, and possibly peanuts and sesame seeds. In ancient literature, the common grains are collectively referred to as five grains and hundred grains, mainly including millet (millet), millet, wheat, bean (bean), hemp, rice, etc., except for wheat and hemp, all have a cultivation history of more than 7,000 years .The ancients attributed the invention of agriculture to Shennong, saying that when hunting animals were insufficient, people invented farm tools and began to cultivate and domesticate crops by taking advantage of the right time and place.This subjective speculation about the origin of farming is roughly consistent with the facts of the "Green Revolution" revealed by archaeology.Archaeological discoveries have confirmed that China is an important central area where agriculture originated in the world, and occupies a very important position in the history of human cultural development.

The occurrence and development of primitive farming brought about the development of another auxiliary production sector—livestock breeding.There is a theory that the invention of planting may be the need for livestock breeding, that is to say, the early cultivation activities were for the purpose of raising animals, and then gradually cultivated edible grains as human food.Although this statement may not be very accurate, the close relationship between farming and animal husbandry is obvious, and the two are complementary to a certain extent. Among domestic animals, dogs were domesticated earlier, whose ancestors were wolves, and the domestication of wolves into dogs was due to the painstaking efforts of hunters.Dog remains have been unearthed in most Neolithic sites in China. The earliest ones are 7000-8000 years old and belong to the Cishan, Peiligang and Hemudu cultures.A whole dog was also found at a house site of the Xinglongwa culture in eastern Inner Mongolia, indicating the close relationship between dogs and humans.Pigs are the most important domestic animals in farming tribes. They were successfully domesticated at the same time as domestic dogs. They are commonly seen in various Neolithic cultures. Residents of many cultural communities have the custom of using pigs as burial objects, which shows how much people value pigs.

Like cultivated crops, there were also certain differences in the breeds of domestic animals in the north and south of prehistoric China.Pigs and dogs are raised both in the north and the south, and they are mainly pigs. The difference is that there are more buffaloes in the south, and chickens in the north. Both have a history of more than 6,000 years.In the past, it was believed that the Chinese chicken was introduced from India, but archaeological discoveries have found that the Cishan culture already had chickens.In the Longshan era, domestic horses, cats, goats and sheep were successfully domesticated in the north. It is not clear whether these domestic animals existed in the south. The traditional Chinese livestock are called "six animals", referring to horses, cattle, sheep, chickens, dogs, and hogs.In the Neolithic Age, these six animals were basically domesticated successfully, and the pattern of meat breeds we enjoy today has been formed as early as prehistoric times.