The Paper's reporter Yu Shujuan sorted it out
On April 30, 2022, the second session of the Sanlian New Knowledge Conference, with the theme of "Agriculture for the State: 10,000 Years of Chinese Agriculture", was presided over by Professor Zhou Feizhou of the School of Sociology of Peking University, and the guests were Professor Han Maoli and Tang Xiaofeng of the School of Urban Rings of Peking University, Chen Shengqian, Professor of the Department of Archaeology of Chinese Min University, and Professor Zeng Xiongsheng of the Institute of Natural Science History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This article is compiled from the shorthand of the event and has been abridged. The content has been reviewed by the presenter and is now the author's choice.
Hello everyone, today's topic is "Agriculture as a State: 10,000 Years of Chinese Agriculture". The 21st century we live in is an information age, which means that our society is changing rapidly. But it is such an era, this year I found that many friends' words, from the original theme, such as real estate, luxury cars, bags, etc. more and more turned to food and vegetables, many people said "we finally realized, as long as there is grain in hand, there are vegetables, a family together is the greatest happiness." So, today, we're going to return all the talk to a field that our ancestors experienced and worked in, and that is agriculture. But agriculture and all industries in society are the same, not always existed, agriculture originated about ten thousand years ago.
Before the origin of agriculture, humans had been on Earth for more than two million years. Archaeology tells us that more than two million years ago, human beings have completed the transformation process from apes to humans, but in these long two million years, what or how do humans rely on to continuously survive and reproduce? That's fishing and hunting and gathering.
To be precise, in nature, the way people fish, hunt, and collect food is almost similar to that of animals, that is, what is in nature, they take what they eat. Because of this, academia calls this access to food a "utilization economy." But ten thousand years, different, archaeology will be ten thousand years as the demarcation of "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic" two different eras, of course, these two eras are not only the way humans make tools are different, from a few stones to grind out a few stones, the most important thing is that human beings for food to obtain is not simply from nature, has its own production, agricultural origin. Because of this, academia has given a new definition of this mode of production, called the "productive economy".
The productive economy was born on the basis of the use economy, which is 10,000 years since neolithic. The changes that took place in the Neolithic age were enormous, so the British archaeologist Childe told us that this era can be called the "Neolithic Revolution", and the so-called revolution is the emergence of agriculture.
As for the reasons for the origins of agriculture, academics have been wondering why people abandon the use-based economy in favor of a productive economy that requires a lot of labor. There were no words in that era, so in the process of interpreting this problem, various views arose, of which the dominant view was considered to be the "population pressure theory". Due to the growing population, it is difficult to survive only by fishing and hunting and collecting ingredients, so in the process of fishing and hunting and gathering, it is inadvertently found that seeds can germinate on the ground, and hunted animals can be domesticated, and on this basis, the productive economy - agriculture was born. Between the two, there is a stark contrast to the use of land resources.
Western scholar Bettinger told us a conclusion in the process of discussion, if a family has only five members, the land space needed for this kind of utilization economy through fishing, hunting and gathering is about 100 square kilometers, which is replaced by an agricultural society, Chinese often say a word, thirty acres of land, a cow, a family of five. If these thirty acres of land are replaced by square kilometers, it is 0.02 square kilometers, and the use of land resources by the two changes from large to small, so the population carrying capacity of the land is increased. Because of this, the doctrine of explaining the origin of agriculture is dominant.
Climate change said. For example, the climate has become cold, the original ecological resources in nature cannot withstand the needs of the population, and new products will appear in their own production.
Competitive feast said. It refers to the leaders of those tribes, who are more attractive to other tribes if they enrich their own hands through their own cultivation.
Of course, there are not only these three doctrines, but many, many more, and if you look closely, these doctrines may interpret the most crucial problems in the process of agricultural origin. But it does not cover all the problems that need to be solved in the process of human activities on the entire earth. Therefore, I would like to say that the interpretation of the proposition of why agriculture originated is still on the way, and perhaps new doctrines are still being born.
When agriculture went from its origins 10,000 years ago to today, it has become the largest production sector in the entire world. Some people have done such a statistic, and of the land available on the earth today, agriculture occupies more than 64% of the land. Undoubtedly, this is the most extensive production sector among all the production areas. In the era of the origin of agriculture, it was only in a limited number of places, a limited number of lands, that agriculture sprouted. This is the three earliest agricultural origins in the world that we see on the map, the first is in West Asia and North Africa, where wild wheat was domesticated into artificially cultivated wheat more than 10,000 years ago; the second is in China, and about 10,000 years ago, wild plants were domesticated into millet and millet in the land of northern China, and wild rice was domesticated into artificial rice in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the south, including the Qiantang River Basin; in addition, in the land of the Americas, From Mexico in North America to the Andes Ines in South America, about seven thousand years ago, wild plants were domesticated into corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, etc., and it was a few small lands that completed the earliest domestication of world agriculture.
Agriculture is the origin of civilization, and there are three first domestication sites in the world's agriculture, namely the two river basins in Iraq, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River in China, southern Mexico and the Andean mountains of South America.
At this point, a question must be noticed, why is the world so big, and the place of early agricultural domestication was on such a few lands? This is a question I mentioned a few years ago. Many friends today say that 30 degrees north latitude is a magical zone. I once asked them, why do you say that 30 degrees north latitude is magical? They said that there are the most splendid ancient civilizations in the world, in addition to the prehistoric cultural sites in China, along this line stretching all the way to West Asia, North Africa, they saw Babylon, they saw ancient Egypt, and before the epidemic, young friends would also follow the 30 degrees north latitude and step on those magical lands. With such a trip, I asked them if there was a conclusion? Why is this a magical land? They waved their hands and told me, "Great! Spectacular! "But why is all the greatness and grandeur on such a land?" This is a question I asked many years ago.
So with this question in mind, I consulted my friends who came from history, and they told me that I "don't know" and that their teacher did not mention it. In addition to Chinese historians, I started asking scholars of overseas origin, and they also told me that their foreign teachers did not mention this issue. So I turned to the young students who are still studying abroad today, and from all walks of life, hoping to get this answer from their current study abroad process, and they also tell me that they "don't know" and "haven't paid attention to it." At this time, I found that I could not rely on others to solve this problem, and I needed to think for myself. Finally, one day I realized that the origin of agriculture should not be the most advantageous geographical environment in the world.
Let's take a look at the comparison of these photos.
Iraq today. Tigris River, Euphrates River, this is the origin of the world's earliest civilization, here gave birth to ancient Babylon, one of the world's four ancient civilizations. About 10,000 years ago, people here domesticated wild wheat into cultivated wheat, and crossed the Mediterranean Sea from the Tigris River and euphrates River, that is, ancient Egypt, which formed an oasis by irrigation on both sides of the Nile. If we've ever been there we'll have a deep feeling, drought. The Nile Oasis irrigated strip, which is about less than 10 miles wide, is far from there, as we see in the photo, which is an arid land.
But in turn, let's make another comparison, and the next picture is Germany. In the 4th and 5th centuries AD, the ancestors of the Germans, from the north, invaded the Apennine Peninsula and destroyed the Western Roman Empire. For this period of history, historians tell us that it was the barbarians who crossed the Alps and destroyed the ancient Roman Empire, which flourished for more than a thousand years in the history of the whole world. But what does it mean to be a barbarian? It means barbarism and backwardness.
But whether we see or set foot on that land, it's a place with very good natural resources, a lot of forest, a lot of grass. In these two areas where the contrast between the natural environment is very large, the ancient civilization was not born in the area where the Germans were active, and even including today's Russia, France, etc., are not the birthplace of ancient civilizations, but the production of civilization is a dry land. So an answer naturally came out: the origin of agriculture was not under the most favorable natural geographical environment, but in a place of drought and little rainfall. The Tigris, euphrates, the Nile, including the Yellow River in China, are large arid river basins that can provide limited resources for human survival. Relying only on fishing and hunting and gathering, when the population increases to a certain extent, simply from nature can no longer meet the needs, in this case, the seeds can germinate after landing, and the hunted animals can be kept in captivity, which is an inspiration for ancient humans, so agriculture was born. After the birth of agriculture, there must be the manufacture of tools, the construction of water conservancy and so on. All of this requires thinking, it needs to be created, and civilization is born.
In turn, Germany, France, and even Ukraine and Russia, as we know it today, have vast tracts of fertile land, and the rich rewards of nature during the fishing, hunting and gathering stages. People just ask for it, so why invest a lot of labor? Therefore, these areas are not the origin of agriculture, but stay in the barbaric stage for a long time, which is why later generations called the Germans "barbarians".
However, from 10,000 years ago to today, this land has lived up to the rewards of nature in the context of modernization. Whether it is Russia or Ukraine, including Germany and France, they are all important agricultural powers in the contemporary world, both scientific and technological powers and agricultural powers.
We interpret an important question: the origins of agriculture were not born in the places with the best resources, but under deep environmental pressures. Agriculture ignites the fire of civilization. Ancient agricultural countries and ancient civilizations emerged after the domestication of agriculture.
We return the topic to Chinese soil in the world's vision. The origin of agriculture is often in the environment is not superior, in ancient times, drought and lack of rain is a harsh environment, full of swamps and wetlands, for the ancients may not be an advantage. The domestication of Chinese agriculture arose in a completely different geographical environment of one south and one north.
Northern China was the first domestication of dryland crops millet and millet, and there were no writings or records left in that era, and all information relied on archaeological results. The earliest domesticated dryland crops in China were millet and millet, and the earliest domestication was on the west side of today's North China Plain and the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains, which is today's Wu'an, Hebei Province, which is called the Magnetic Mountain Cultural Site by archaeologists. In fact, the discovery of the Magnetic Hill Cultural Site is very accidental, in the early 1970s, the locals built aqueducts here, inadvertently found the early millstones, grinding rods, etc. buried here, and soon the cultural relics department launched several excavations here, which surprised the cultural relics department that after three stages of excavation, they found a large amount of grain. How much food is there? If you are familiar with the results of archaeology, you will find that if you find more than a dozen or dozens of seeds of early grain crops in many tombs, everyone will feel very surprised, but in the first stage of the Magnetic Hill Cultural Site alone, there are more than 100 grain storage cellars, and there are second and third excavations. According to the volume, it is estimated that it is nearly 10,000 catties. How staggering that number is.
Magnetic Hill Cultural Site
Of course, with this number in place, the next step is to determine what kind of crop it is. The archaeological community tells us that this is millet, millet. After the threshing of these two crops, the dishes presented to us are millet and yellow rice. Today, they are no longer the most important components of our daily food, but millet and millet have a great place in Chinese history. In the first half of Chinese history, it was almost the basis for the development of our history and civilization, and its earliest domestication was in North China, where the Magnetic Mountain culture was dominant.
Since we are talking about the earliest, what is the age? Dating of the site went through two stages. At first, archaeologists believed that it was about 8,000 years ago, and in the early 21st century, a team led by Lü Houyuan conducted a final dating survey, telling us that it was 9,000 to 10,000 years old, which means that in the North China Plain, more than 9,000 years to 10,000 years ago, the ancestors here domesticated wild plants into artificially cultivated crops millet and millet. In ancient Chinese literature, this is "millet", "millet" and "黍".
In the land of China, another place worth mentioning is the primitive domestication of rice. In general, the earliest primitive domestication of rice was in China, from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the Qiantang River basin. Of course, rice in the world has been an important food crop from the early days to the present day, so there have been various discussions about the domestication of rice, where is it, India, Southeast Asia, Yunnan? From the 1980s and 1990s, with the development of Chinese archaeology, from hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River to Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, successive archaeological sites tell us a message, more than one site is related to rice, where early artificially domesticated rice grains, tools, ancient rice fields, and settlement sites inhabited by humans were found, and the timelines of all sites point to 10,000 years ago, or even earlier, 12,000, 13,000 years ago.
Ruins of Hemudu
Need to pay attention to the Zhejiang Hemudu site, of course, the date of this site is more than 7,000 years ago, after its excavation, it has attracted the attention of the world's agricultural community, but at this time, everyone's perspective has not yet placed the domestication of rice in China. Before the discovery of a large number of rice domestication sites in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Chinese archaeological community was also thinking, was the earliest domestication of rice in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, or in Zhejiang. Mr. Yan Wenming of the School of Archaeology of Peking University has already spoken of such a problem in that era. He told us that the Hemudu site is a stage where rice domestication and rice farming has entered a higher stage, so there must be a primary level stage. Of course, shortly after Mr. Yan's view was published, the results of the archaeological community were put forward to us, that is, the Tianluo Mountain and Shangshan ruins we saw, also in Zhejiang, 10,000 years ago.
The rice ruins of 10,000 years ago are not only in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, etc., from the middle reaches of the Yangtze River through the lower reaches, to the territory of Zhejiang, connected into a line, with irrefutable evidence to prove that the original domestication of rice is in China. Of course, whether it is the southern water country, swamps, wetlands, for the ancients is really not an excellent geographical environment, so from the collection and fishing and hunting stage to the domestication of primitive agriculture, it also has the result of environmental pressure. This environmental pressure is characterized by different characteristics from the drought in the drylands of the north, but it also creates difficulties for the use-oriented economy that humans simply derive from nature.
We are the world's three major agricultural origins, what kind of contribution has such an ancient civilization brought to the world? A lot of people will say that we have four great inventions. I want to tell you that before the four major inventions, the biggest gift Chinese to the world was agriculture, and the Ancient Chinese people have long said that "the people take food as the sky". From the moment humanity stood on the earth, until today, 2022, we have not left agriculture.
I want to tell you, what kind of position do our domesticated crops occupy in the whole world? An American scholar made such a statistic, he said: In today's world, wheat as the main ingredient accounts for 70% of the world's total population, and the proportion of the world's total population with rice as a food is also 60% to 70%, and the sum of the two is greater than 100%, which means that there are many people in the world like us, eating both pasta and rice, so the sum between the two is greater than 100%. This statistic from Westerners is enough to see how big this gift we give to the world really is.
Nowadays, when we go to any corner of the world, we just pick up a bowl of rice, and the earliest domestication is in China. Of course, China has given the world not only rice domesticated in the southern land, but also millet and millet in the north, which is dryland agriculture. From this point of view, it can be said that this is the largest gift from the Chinese to the world.
China is undoubtedly one of the four ancient civilizations in the world, but also the earliest domestication of the world's three major crops, under the support of agriculture, our civilization has begun to have a long development process, but the population has increased on this basis. The population increases, the claim for land leads to the expansion of farmland, the desire is unlimited, but the environmental resources are limited, between this infinite desire and limited resources, what kind of creation has Chinese done?
When it comes to innovation, there is always a little bit of grandeur today. For the innovation of the land, it has long been downplayed by contemporary people. But I would like to say that on the same land, the ability to take advantage of the time difference between crops and the emergence of crop rotation and replanting is another contribution that the world is in the stage of an agrarian society, Chinese make.
Three ripening in two years in northern China
The natural environment in the north and south of China is different, the rotation of crops in the northern land is the "two-year three-ripening system" in the discourse of contemporary people, the core crop of the two-year three-cropping system is winter wheat, the original domestication of winter wheat is in West Asia, North Africa, the climate of that place is different from China, the geography circles call it the Mediterranean climate, the biggest feature is that spring and summer are the driest seasons of the year, into the autumn only into the rainy season, in order to avoid this dry season, all the crops that sprouted in this area, domesticated crops are sown in autumn, After a winter, the harvest enters early summer. The growing season of winter wheat introduced to China is still the same, so when it is based on the land of China, northern farmers use this growth period to implement crop rotation. At the beginning of June of the solar calendar, winter wheat is harvested, and from June, July, August, and September, there are about three and a half months of agricultural growth, so the second crop is planted. There were two harvests this year. The crops are planted only once in the second year, sown in March, harvested more in August, and then continued to sow winter wheat in September in the autumn, which is a two-year three-cropping system.
I believe that many friends want to know when such a land rotation system was born. From the ancient records seen today, it is probably the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Of course, speaking of that era is a general time, of course, not all the countries in that era can implement this rotation system, because the rotation of a crop increases the input of labor force is very large. According to the historical documents seen today, the earliest implementation of the two-year three-cropping system was in today's Shandong area, and in the subsequent historical process, it became a common planting system in the northern land.
The south is a subtropical geographical environment, making full use of the land, the implementation of land rotation is a two-year rice and wheat rotation system, if the rice and wheat rotation system and the two-year three-cropping system in the northern land in the time, it is about a thousand years late, and finally became a mature planting system probably in the Northern Song Dynasty. But here is a key link, that is, in the southern subtropical geographical environment, winter wheat is still the core of crop rotation, sown in September of the solar calendar every year, after a winter, in the spring to the beginning of summer, probably from May to the beginning of June of the solar calendar, the winter wheat harvested, after the harvest can be rotated to the next stubble of rice, that is, late rice can be planted here. But the key issue is the transplanting technology.
Where was the seedling transplanting technology born? The earliest to raise this question is the Japanese scholar Nishishima Dingsheng, he believes that during the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cui Yu's "Four People's Moon Order", as well as the Northern Wei Dynasty agricultural book "Qi Min Zhi Shu", all tell us a conclusion, the northern Loess Plateau, where there are rivers, will also grow rice, the local people in order to weed, so when the rice grows to more than a foot high, the rice seedlings and grass are all pulled out, the grass is in the soil, the rice is inserted in place, this is not planting seedlings, it is a process of weeding. However, it is possible that the northerners moved south to the southern land, so in the Tang Dynasty, seedling planting became popular, from planting to completing the water and drought rotation and rice and wheat rotation of the same land, after a period of technical exploration, the technology matured during the Northern Song Dynasty.
It is precisely because it is possible to cook twice in one land in a year, so we have heard a historical proposition - the southward migration of the ancient Chinese economic center. Historical documents tell us that Jiangnan was the earliest to implement water cultivation and fire, judging from this technology, half of the land is in use, half of the land grows grass, the next year the long grass land burns after having fertility, can be cultivated, the other half of the land continues to grow grass fallow, this is the basic principle of water farming and fire, land utilization rate of 50%.
Since the Tang Dynasty, the population has increased, immigration has increased, and artificial fertilization has been added to the land, so the land utilization rate has become 100%, and later in the Northern Song Dynasty, the ancient Chinese economic center of gravity has completely moved to the jiangnan land, harvested twice a year, and the land utilization rate is 200%. Does Gangnam refer to all the great rivers south of it? No, only in the Taihu Lake Plain, the Yangtze River Delta, because two crops a year require a lot of labor, late rice needs fertile land, all of which meet the environmental standards is exactly what we call the Taihu Lake Plain, which is the most economically developed area in the concept of the ancients, we call it the economic center of gravity.
At a time when the world was in the stage of agricultural society, China's agriculture almost always stood on the tip of the pyramid of that era.
Since the 18th century, with the industrial revolution, the world has entered the stage of industrial society, and today's 21st century has entered the information stage, but in the past five thousand years, food and agriculture have never left our lives, so it is said that "the people take food as the sky and agriculture as the foundation", but in the future life, what kind of development is agriculture? Are all our food sources provided by the land as they are now? The next step in the discussion is for you to continue. Thank you!
(Zhu Tingting also contributed to this article)
Editor-in-Charge: Han Shaohua
Proofreader: Yan Zhang