China is a big agricultural country, and Chinese agriculture originated in the early Neolithic period, about 10,000 years ago.
First, the foundation of civilization: the origin and development of primitive agriculture
After the land of China entered the Neolithic Age more than 10,000 years ago, our ancestors began to settle down, and primitive agriculture gradually emerged.
1. Origins of primitive agriculture
China is a big agricultural country, agricultural production has a long history, in the long years, the mainland ancestors on the various edible plants gradually deepened their understanding, which formed the early agriculture. The earliest origin of agriculture originated from myths and legends.
Myths and legends of the origin of primitive agriculture
According to the legend of the "White Tiger Pass", shennong invented the farming tool - qi qi according to the time and place, and guided people to carry out agricultural production. Emperor Yan taught people to cultivate and was revered as Shennong.
Of course, understanding the origins of ancient agriculture through myths and legends lacks scientific basis. Archaeologists have revealed the mysteries of the origins of agriculture through archaeology.
Archaeology reveals the origins of agriculture
About 20,000 years ago, hominids began to manage some wild plants to help them grow better. From about 12,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, the remains of early cultivated rice have been found at the site of the Ten Thousand Years Immortal Cave in Jiangxi, the site of The Jade Toad Rock in Hunan Passage, and the site of Shangshan in Pujiang, Zhejiang. From 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, the remains of early cultivated millet and millet were found at the Donghulin Site in Mentougou, Beijing, and the Xinglongwa Site in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia.
At present, the world's earliest cultivated rice (rice), millet (millet) and millet (yellow rice) are all found in China. The artificial cultivation of rice, millet and millet is an important contribution made by our ancestors to human civilization.
2. Development of primitive agriculture
After more than 2,000 years of development, rice, millet and other agriculture in the north and south of the mainland gradually promoted, the original agriculture from the initial slash-and-burn development to the use of soil turning tools such as ploughing tools for sowing, the proportion of agriculture in people's lives gradually increased, while the breeding of livestock also began to appear.
From slash-and-burn farming to furrow farming
Slash-and-burn refers to people cutting down trees, uprooting thorns and weeds, drying and burning ashes into natural fertilizer, and simply loosening the soil and leveling the seeds, this primitive agriculture is often called slash-and-burn farming.
The raw material for the skeleton is the scapula of the animal. However, we will find that the shape of the bone is not the natural shape of the animal skeleton, but has been scraped and polished by humans according to the actual work needs, reflecting the progress of the original residents' technical level. The upper end of the bone is thick and narrow, and is the stalk, and the lower end is thin and wide, which is the blade. A horizontal hole is chiseled at the shank, two vertical holes are chiseled at the edge, and a horizontal wood is inserted into the cross hole, fixed with rattan bundles, and a wooden handle is placed between the two vertical holes, and then fixed with rattan bundles. When using it, hold the wooden handle on the bone, use the foot pedal to insert the wooden stick into the cross hole, push it into the soil, and then flip the wrist to lift the soil. Somewhat similar to today's shovel, indicating that agricultural production entered the stage of intensive cultivation at that time. Grinding techniques are not only used on the bone, but also in stone tools. We call this type of stone tool a ground stone tool, also known as a neolithic tool.
Livestock rearing began to appear
Morphologically, the piglet on the pottery also retains some of the characteristics of a wild boar, with four hooves and a mane, which can be judged by archaeological researchers to be domesticated after archaeological researchers have studied the proportion of its front and back bodies. Pottery does not exist in nature itself, it is made by people who shape the soil and burn it. This is the first time that human beings have changed the natural properties of things, and it is a model for human beings to use nature.
The emergence of crop cultivation, livestock rearing, and the development of settlements and grinding stone tools are important symbols of the rise and development of primitive agriculture.
2. Relics of civilization: Hemudu ruins and Banpo ruins
1. Yangtze River Basin: Hemudu Ruins
Seven or eight thousand years ago, the Yangtze River Basin had a warm and humid climate and abundant rainfall, and archaeologists found some sites of ancient human activities in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, of which the Yuyao Hemudu site in Zhejiang, which dates back to about 7,000 years, is the most representative.
The houses of the Hemudu people are mainly dry-column buildings, with wooden stakes inserted in the ground, and the top is spliced with wooden planks to form a house, which is the earliest wooden structure in China and has had an important impact on classical Chinese architecture. Their buildings are called "dry-column buildings". Archaeologists have restored it, showing that it was built on a wooden stake a few meters above the ground. Because Hemudu is located in the southern region, there is more precipitation, so the construction can be waterproof and moisture-proof, anti-beast, and also conducive to ventilation. Dry-column buildings are an important basis for the residents of Hemudu to use their wisdom to adapt to the natural environment. It also shows that the residents of Hemudu have achieved a settled life. Tenon and tenon structures have also been found in the Hemudu building. The concave part is called 卯, and the convex part is mortise. When building a house, the mortise is embedded in the tenon to connect the components. Such a building is solid. The tenon structure is the main feature of Oriental architecture that distinguishes it from Western architecture, and it is also the ancient gene of oriental culture's tolerance and acceptance characteristics, containing unlimited Chinese wisdom. Archaeologists have also found wooden wells at the Hemudu site, the earliest wood-framed wells ever found.
A large number of relics of cultivated rice have been found in the site, which indicates that the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are one of the origins of Rice in Asia, the agricultural tools are most typical of bone rivets, the livestock are mainly pigs, dogs and buffaloes, and the Hemudu people make pottery, jade and simple musical instrument bone whistles. The bone whistle is a musical instrument that shows that the inhabitants of Hemudu not only pursue food and clothing, but also show the pursuit of spiritual life.
Next, we turned our attention to the representative of the Yellow River Basin in the north, the Banpo site. The Banpo site was discovered in 1953 and was determined by carbon 14 to date from about 6,000 years ago, slightly later than the Hemudu site. On this basis, the first prehistoric settlement site museum in the history of New China, the Xi'an Banpo Museum, was established.
2. Yellow River Basin: Banpo Ruins
Xi'an Banpo Museum
What kind of exquisite design is hidden in the exterior of this museum?
The Xi'an Banpo Museum draws on the semi-crypt architectural style of banpo residents and the representative ornamental human face fish pattern.
First, let's take a look at the houses of the original residents of Banpo and see how they differ from the houses of the original residents of Hemudu.
The semi-crypt is a circular house
The houses of the Banpo people are mainly semi-crypts and circular houses, mostly made of wood as pillars, and there are stoves in the houses. Why did the Banpo people build houses of this shape? The main reason is that the Yellow River Basin is dry, the wind and sand are large, and the climate is relatively cold, which can withstand wind and rain, prevent cold and keep warm.
The residential area of the Banpo site has houses, cellars and trenches, and outside the residential area there are public cemeteries and kiln factories for firing pottery. They would make exquisitely ground stone tools, and the Banpo people would also make bone and horn tools, reclaim land for agricultural production, and mainly grow millet. Raising pigs and dogs and other livestock, they also use bows and arrows, spears, stone balls and other animals to hunt deer, roe deer, rabbits and other animals, fishing with harpoons, fishing hooks, fishing nets, and sometimes collecting wild fruits as a supplement for food.
The living utensils of the Banpo people are mainly pottery. The most distinctive is the faience pottery. Faience pottery is mainly decorated with black ornaments on a red background, and the ornaments are mostly geometric patterns, as well as animal and plant ornaments, of which fish patterns and deer patterns are the mainstays, and the patterns are vivid. The most typical representative is the human face fish pattern faience pot excavated from the Banpo site.
The mermaid pottery pot is made of fine clay red pottery, showing red, black, white and other colors. The inner wall of the clay pot is depicted with black color to outline the symmetrical fish pattern. The face in the pattern is round, the left half of the forehead is painted black, the right half is black half-curved, the eyes are thin and straight, and the bridge of the nose is straight and serene. There are two fish stripes next to the mouth and at the ears, which subtly constitute the human mouth and ears. This mysterious and peculiar pattern shows us the rich imagination and creativity of the residents of Banpo and is a masterpiece of primitive human art.
The clay pot with fish pattern is an important microcosm of the production and life of Banpo residents, from which it can be seen that the life of Banpo residents is very closely related to fish, and it can be seen that there is also a fishing and hunting economy in the development of the original agricultural economy.
There are also geometric figures such as triangles, circles, trapezoids and so on in the basin, and compared with the pig-patterned clay pots made by the residents of Hemudu, the residents of Banpo have gone from simply realistic imitation to learning simple artistic generalizations, reflecting the great leap they have achieved in artistic creativity.
At that time, the mortality rate of hominid children was very high, and they were buried in urn coffins after death. The clay pot with the fish pattern of the human face is the lid of the urn coffin. This mysterious pattern may be a kind of totem, reflecting the worship and reverence of human ancestors for nature. It can be seen that human spiritual civilization is developing along with the progress of material civilization.
The thinking and exploration of the ancestors in production and life have left us a valuable wealth, which is still worth inheriting and carrying forward today. The design of the 2008 Beijing Olympic mascot Fuwa Beibei was inspired by this and received great praise.