Early improvement of sandy habitat led to origin of agriculture in the farming-pastoral zone of northern China: Study
The beginning of agriculture is one of the most significant events in human history. The origin and spread of agriculture accelerated the development of human society and economy and fundamentally altered humans' role in ...
China is one of the world's three largest agricultural production centers. Our ancestors domesticated dryland crops, such as millet, in northern China as early as 10,000 years ago.
Archaeologists have proposed a variety of hypotheses about the origins of agriculture in northern China over the last several decades. Among them, three types of hypotheses are commonly used: stress caused by climatic instability, socioeconomic competition, and human-environment co-evolution.
In general, the debates over the factors driving the origin of millet cultivation in northern China highlight the importance of locating an archaeological site to investigate human use of plant resources, reconstruct the climate and vegetation evolution process before and during human presence, and further investigate why humans began to practice agriculture in northern China around the middle Holocene.
Archaeological work in northern China's farming-pastoral zone since 2015 has led to the recognition of the Yumin Culture (~8 ka BP) as the start of Neolithic culture in Inner Mongolia. Several archaeological sites have been excavated, including Yumin, Simagou, Xinglong, and Sitai.
These archaeological sites have yielded a large number of pottery and agricultural stone tools, as well as some animal bones and plant remains, providing evidence for the origins of agriculture in northern China's farming-pastoral zone. The Yumin site in northern China's farming-pastoral zone offers a new perspective on human-environmental interactions during the early Neolithic period, and studying the origins of agriculture in this area is critical to understanding the formation of northern China's traditional dryland farming system.
The Yumin Site is located in a small mountain basin in the hills. Credit: Science China Press
The climate records of the Yumin Site and others in the surrounding areas indicated a significant increase of precipitation during the early Holocene (Figure a-f), while the soil formation (Figure g), increased woody plants (Figure h) and organic matter (Figure i), and agricultural origin (Figure j) in the Yumin Site and its surrounding areas were discovered in the middle Holocene. Credit: Science China Press