下川文化的生态特点与粟作农业的起源

Since the Xiachuan Culture came into being in 1972,in the area of Yellow River Valley and the middle and lower reaches of Changjiang River,there have been successively found out some culture with the same connotation.The span of time of this category of cultural remains can be traced back 24000-13000 years. Xiachuan culture is of a gathering and hunting economic-cultural type with typicalmicrolithic industry as its characteristics. One of the enlightenment that provides us with is that in the latter stage of its development,in about a span of time dating back 20000-12000 years,it developed into a high level gathering culture,when there appeared a set of plucking and gathering implements such as millstone ,mill-pestle,grinding rod,saw and sickle for use in cutting ,scraping and grinding.Its process(course)of development should be calledthe stage of "gathering agriculture", otherwise called the selecting stage of agriculturalcultivation.For the agricultural origin,it supplied the conditions of techniques and the strains of selecting.Its cultural typical products bear some historical relations with the Pre Yangshao Culture of millet crop agriculture. In another centre of the world civilization,Southwest Asia and North Africa,there havealso been found out the same cultural remains (with millstone and sickle as its typicalproducts),it can be dated back 18000-12000 years,the western scholars call it pre-potteryepoch,it proceeded into the gathering agricultural stage at the same time with our country. For the ecological view of the origin of agriculture,there exist two different view-points:the first argument:in terms of the growing conditions of the crops category,agriculture originated from the area of the growing conditions of the crops category,agriculture originated from the area of the rich gathering culture of superior ecologicalconditions ;the second argument.in terms of the angle lof the natural selection,agriculture ofiginated from the barren area.For the fearures of China's two main crops,paddy andmillet,both of the above said viewpoints are applicable ,the former applies to the origin of the paddy crop.the later applies to that of the milletone. Another enlightenment the ecological environment of Xiachuan Culture gives us is that in the later period of Pleistocene Epoch.the climate was often changeful.according to the stratification of Xiachuan culture and the combinatorial research of spore and pollen,in the span of that period dating back 36000-12000 years ,there had six times been cold and hot,dry and wet changes altermately,it was not what we imagine at that period there had always been icy severe cold climate.This kind of interglacial created the ecological conditions for the origin of gathering agriculture and agriculture.Therefore,the time of the origin of agriculture in our country should be earlier than what we inferred.This law is applicable to the whole land of our country. What was actually the fittist place for the millet crop agriculture in the beginning ,according to the second argument,in the interconnecting belts of forest and steppe of the loess plateau, on the basis of the ecologists'research,in the oless belt where the solum deeply deposited,because of insufficient water supply ,there would be underdeveloped forest ,while there would grow cogongrass and coppices,on the contrary,at the upper part of the bedrocks where the solum was meagre ,there would grow forest.if the soil is fertile ,there will be rich.The millet crop agriculture mostly grow at the bordering area of the forests where the soil is rather meagre,ie ,the interconnecting belts of forests and steppe.These places are mostly situated at the foot of hills ,that is ,the highlands and slopes,In Xhanxi and Shaanxi area,there widely spread this kind of ecological environment,and threr ought to be theearliest area of millet crop agriculture.And in these areas there widely spread the remnants of the early New Stone Age and the Microlithic Age Cultures. In north of China ,from the laws and features of the remains spread between the closi