Schematic diagram of the Liangzhu culture paddy field at the Maoshan site.
Carbonized rice flotation on the eastern slope of Mojiao Mountain, the site of the ancient city of Liangzhu.
The above pictures are provided by Qinling
Liangzhu Museum is located in Meili Zhou Park, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, which is an archaeological site museum that comprehensively displays Liangzhu culture and is also a famous tourist attraction. When it comes to the treasures of the Liangzhu Museum, in addition to the exquisite jade objects such as Cong, Bi and Yuyue, the seemingly inconspicuous carbonized rice is indisputably among them.
In the first exhibition hall of the museum, a plate of carbonized rice and modern rice are displayed side by side. Black and white, spanning 5,000 years. A small piece of rice connects the initial cultural exchanges and integration of Eurasia, it is the starting point of the rice road, and it is also the first ray of civilization on the rice road.
Carbonized rice and Liangzhu City granary
According to the current archaeological discoveries, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, represented by the ruins of the ancient city of Liangzhu, are the only prehistoric civilization in Eurasia with a single crop (japonica rice) economy as the main agricultural production content. Therefore, the story of a rice grain needs to start with the rise of the Liangzhu civilization.
As early as about 10,000 years ago, the earliest settled villages in East Asia appeared in the Jinqu Basin in central and western Zhejiang, and archaeologists named the first discovered Shangshan ruins, calling these material cultures left by humans 10,000 years ago "Shangshan culture". In some sites of the middle and late Shangshan culture, the domestication of rice has reached a high level. After that, after the cross-lake bridge culture, Majiabang culture, Hemudu culture, Songze culture, and finally developed to the Liangzhu culture period (5300-4500 years ago), rice was the only crop in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, so rice agriculture became the core foundation of the civilization in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Mojiao Mountain is located in the center of the ancient city of Liangzhu, which is an artificially built earthen platform. Archaeologists conducted small-scale excavations on the eastern slope of Mojiao Mountain and found a thick layer of carbonized rice. This abandoned layer of rice covers an area of 600-700 square meters and is about 40 centimeters thick. Scholars speculate that it was originally a large-scale granary, but it was abandoned after two fires.
Subsequently, archaeologists discovered the exclusive "storage area" of the ancient city of Liangzhu on the south side of the Mojiao Mountain Tutai - Chizhong Temple. Here, scholars have found a huge volume of carbonized rice accumulation, covering an area of nearly 10,000 square meters, with a thickness of 0.2-1.2 meters, and it is estimated that the storage capacity of this waste rice can reach more than 360,000 catties. As the name suggests, Chizhong Temple is only connected to the Mojiaoshan Palace District on the north side, and the other three sides are surrounded by water, which is easy to fire and easy to transport.
The ancient city of Liangzhu and the prehistoric rice cultivation civilization
Carbonized rice and granaries are just the tip of the iceberg of the Liangzhu civilization. As the center of power and belief of the Liangzhu culture in the Taihu Lake area, the overall layout and scale of the Liangzhu ancient city site are the concentrated embodiment of this civilization.
The palace area in the center of the city site mainly refers to the Mojiao Mountain Tutai mentioned above. Mojiao Mountain is rectangular in shape, with a total area of nearly 300,000 square meters, and is the earliest palace city in China that has been discovered, and the age of use is between 5100 and 4800 years ago. There are three independent palace pedestals distributed on the Mojiao Mountain earthen platform, namely the Big Mojiao Mountain, the Little Mojiao Mountain and the Turtle Mountain, and there are squares and other houses built with sand and soil mixed and layered rammed between the platforms. In the whole palace area, there are currently 35 building foundations, with an area of 200-900 square meters, and the orientation is basically due north and south, arranged in an orderly manner.
If the Mojiaoshan palace area reflects the concentration of social power, then the water conservancy system of the ancient city of Liangzhu reflects the large-scale social mobilization capacity and superb planning level. The peripheral water conservancy system is located on the northwest side of the ancient city of Liangzhu, including 6 "high dams", 4 "low dams" and a long causeway in front of the mountain, which has the functions of flood control and water storage, transportation, irrigation and water regulation, and was built at about the same time as the palace area of Mojiaoshan.
In terms of technology and scale, rice cultivation during the Liangzhu culture period was quite mature. For example, the late Liangzhu paddy field found at the Maoshan site in Linping, about 4,500 years ago, there are ditches used for drainage and irrigation at the north and south ends, and each individual field area is 1,000-2,000 square meters. At the same time, a number of rice storage facilities and locations found in the ruins of the ancient city of Liangzhu also prove that there is a relatively centralized management and distribution mechanism in the rice farming economy of Liangzhu culture from the perspective of resource management.
In 2019, the ruins of the ancient city of Liangzhu were included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. According to the World Heritage Committee, the site of the ancient city of Liangzhu "shows people an early regional state in the late Neolithic period, supported by rice agriculture and a unified faith". It is the achievements of rice planting scale and technology in Liangzhu culture that give the foundation and support for the development of this rice agricultural civilization.
The Development of Rice Agriculture and "Why China"
Rice was domesticated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and entered the surrounding areas with the exchange of people and cultural integration, which contributed to the formation of the early Chinese cultural pattern and the development of regional civilization. It can be said that the Rice Road has written the first chapter of "Why China".
From 6000 to 5000 years ago, rice crops have appeared in the Central Plains, Guanzhong and even eastern Gansu. The spread of these rice-growing factors to the north and millet to the south has led to the formation of rice-millet mixed farming in China. Although the proportion of rice and millet varies greatly in different regions due to different climatic and environmental conditions, the mixed cropping model adapted to local conditions has become a solid soil for the sustainable development of traditional cereal agriculture in China, and has also laid the foundation for the formation of the agricultural model of "abundant harvest" in China's historical core areas.
Around 4,500 years ago, with the development of agriculture and population growth, complex social and regional civilizations were formed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, and China entered the era of the ancient kingdom (especially the period around 5800-3800 years ago in the accelerated stage of the origin of Chinese civilization). At the same time, rice agriculture continued to spread and develop to areas outside the ancient country, so that the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the southeast coast, the Lingnan region, and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau have gradually become emerging mountainous rice farming areas. On the one hand, the expansion of agriculture laid the foundation for the cultural pattern and geographical map of early China. On the other hand, these areas have gradually developed their own characteristics of mountain terraced rice farming, and have also formed a food culture that is different from the traditional grain food culture in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Around 4,000 years ago, the increasingly strong regional integration and interaction became the characteristics of the Longshan period, and the continuous development of the Erlitou culture was the time coordinate of early China's integration. Rice has further become a crop that reflects the difference of social hierarchy, and its proportion in the Erlitou site and the Bronze Age Tuyi type settlement is significantly higher than that of other village sites in the same period. Since the beginning of the Longshan period, with the development of the ritual system, rice wine has become an important part of the sacrifice and consumption in the increasingly complex banquets and funeral activities, and the value of rice is reflected in all aspects of economy, society and culture.
From its initial spread to the Yellow River Basin, to the shaping of China's geography in the early years, to becoming one of the important foundations in China's process of pluralism and integration, the Rice Road tells us the thousand-year history of "Why China".
Rice diffusion and cultural integration
In human history, agricultural diffusion has been an important driving force in shaping the cultural geography of the world. Behind agriculture is the dissemination and exchange of species, technologies and ideas, as well as the development and integration of people, languages and cultures. The carbonized rice found in different regions and eras has provided us with a world journey of people and cultures.
Rice, which has spread to Northeast Asia and Indochina, has one common feature – they are not the frontrunners in the spread of East Asian species. Millet agriculture preceded rice farming.
Nonetheless, the spread of rice farming to the east and south contributed to the process of social complexity and nationalization in these regions. On top of that, rice cultivation has since taken root and established a common food culture tradition for the people of the region.
The spread of rice farming is also one of the main manifestations of the origin and diffusion of Austronesian languages. Archaeologists have put forward the famous peasant-language diffusion theory, believing that the formation of this language family is the result of the spread of agricultural groups on the basis of rice agriculture and livestock breeding. Although new archaeological and genetic studies are constantly supplementing and revising this view, it is undeniable that the emergence of rice remains coincided with the Neolithic process in Southeast Asian islands. Therefore, the spread of rice is a hallmark feature in the formation of the spread of Austronesian languages, and the Rice Route is also an important clue for integrating archaeological, linguistic, and genetic research in the Pacific Islands.
Since the ancients chose this plant on the bank of the river 10,000 years ago, from domestication to development and dissemination, from settlement to cultural integration, the journey of rice is the basis of the origin of early civilization, the index of "why China", and the historical witness of the world's cultural exchange and collision.
(The author is an associate professor at the School of Archaeology and Museums, Peking University)