中国农业起源研究的新资料和新思考

赵志军（中国社会科学院考古研究所）

摘要：本世纪以来，植物考古学的田野方法——浮选法开始被应用到中国考古研究中，并很快得到了普及，其结果，在遍布中国各地的百余考古遗址中出土了数量惊人的古代植物遗存。这些出土的植物遗存不仅包括有起源于中国的农作物品种，例如：水稻、粟、黍和大豆等，还包括有起源于世界其他地区的、后传入中国的农作物品种，例如小麦和大麦等。这些新获得的植物遗存资料为研究中国农业起源提供了直接的考古证据。通过对这些新资料的综合分析，本文就有关中国古代农业的起源和早期发展等问题提出一些新的思考。其中包括起源于长江中下游地区以水稻为主要农作物的稻作农业、起源于中国北方地区以粟和黍两种小米为主要农作物的旱作农业，以及起源于岭南地区可能是以芋头等块根茎类作物为特点的中国热带地区农业。

New Data and Issues for the Study of the Origins of Agriculture in China

Zhijun Zhao (Institute of Archaeology, CASS)

ABSTRACT: In the past ten years, flotation techniques have been introduced and implemented in Chinese archaeology. As a result, a tremendous quantity of plant remains have been recovered from archaeological sites located all over China. These plant remains include crops which might have been domesticated in China, such as rice, foxtail millet, broomcorn millet, and soybean, as well as crops which were introduced into China from other parts of world, such as wheat and barley. The new archaeobotanic data provide direct archaeological evidence for the study of the origins and development of agriculture in China. This paper attempts a synthesis of these new archaeobotanic data, while presenting some new ideas about the origins and development of ancient agriculture in China, including the rice agriculture tradition which originated around the middle and lower Yangze River areas, the dry-land agriculture tradition with millets as major crops centered in North China, and the ancient tropical agriculture tradition located in the tropical parts of China where the major crops seem to be roots and tubers, such as yam.

提交论文摘要下载