Developmental History of Paddy Rice and Arid Agriculture in Ancient Chinese Civilization

F. Bayerl): The lower Yellow and Yangtze Basins are seen as two independent origins of Chinese agriculture. The Yellow offers arid conditions, while the Yangtze has an aquatic environment, the former favourable to maize, millet and sorghum, and the latter to paddy rice. The two main theories of agricultural origins are Optimal Foraging and Competitive Feasting. The differing environments of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers reflect these two theories, paddy rice origins relating more to Competitive Feasting, and arid agriculture more to Optimal Foraging. Lower crop yield in the Yellow Basin led to slower population growth, but the people had to rely on technology and warfare to survive, thus leading to a more advanced civilization than in the Yangtze Basin. The origin of agriculture is a revolutionary process in the history of human evolution. Not only does it reflect increased manipulation of nature and the environment, but more importantly, increased land yield in the agricultural economy. It allowed a larger population to live in a community environment. People could combine their collective intelligence and effort to improve and invent new techniques to increase yield for improving society. The urban and industrial revolutions could not have happened (Childe, 1951) without agriculture. In mankind’s long slow two million years of history, economic agriculture only began about 10,000 years ago, with animal and plant domestication appearing 8000-9000 years ago in widespread parts of the world (western Asia, Central America, China). These beginnings indicate a similar catalytic mechanism in major economic progress. Although little is known about its overall process, one thing is very obvious: countries with the earliest civilization had the earliest agriculture, leading to much faster social progress. Based on the available archaeological evidence, the Yellow and middle and lower Yangtze Valleys are seen as two independent origins of Chinese agriculture. Although they were both very early, their domesticated plants differed vastly. In central China, agriculture was mainly foxtail millet, pinnacle millet, common millet and sorghum, and in the middle and lower Yangtze, mainly paddy rice, i.e., arid and aquatic agriculture, respectively, with obviously different motivations and paths in plant domestication. Two of the principal theories of agricultural origin are Optimal Foraging and Competitive Feasting. Optimal Foraging, first used by Boserup (1965) and later thoroughly discussed and substantiated by Cohen (1977), considers animal and plant domestication as a reaction to food shortage from massive population increase, i.e., the food chain was greatly disturbed by drastic postglacial environmental change, with some animals moving away or disappearing. In the long Palaeolithic period, slow population increase forced people to all corners of the world except Antarctica. With this population growth and low hunter-gatherer yield due to large animal extinctions, people faced food shortages and hunted smaller animals and gathered fruit, widespread activities needing more time and effort for consumption. When large ungulates were abundant, these lower-grade seeds, mollusks, snails, fish, fruit, etc., were ignored. Their gathering and processing required new tools and methods, with labour investment and improved methods becoming more intense. To assuage hunger, lower-grade foods were harvested, with