The history of mankind developed to about 654.38+0 million years ago, that is, at the end of the late Pleistocene in geological history, at the end of the last ice age in tectonic history, and in the archaeological Mesolithic Age, the ecological environment of the earth on which human beings depended for survival changed greatly. Global temperature rise, changes in animals and vegetation, and changes in sea level (mainly rising) have led to a series of new things. The origin of agriculture, the raising of livestock, the settlement of life, and even the germination of primitive religion and art, therefore, some scholars regard the Middle Stone Age as a turning point in human history, among which the origin of agriculture is particularly prominent, and its significance lies in making the economic life of human beings complete a qualitative leap from predatory economy to productive economy. At the same time, it also profoundly affects the development of other things. The academic research on this topic is also quite enthusiastic, and there are quite a few questions to be answered. For example, Mr. Xu Wang put forward six problems to be solved in the study of agricultural origin: (1) the causes of agriculture; (2) the place where agriculture came into being; (3) the time when agriculture came into being; (4) Who first produced agriculture; (5) the way of agriculture; (6) the object of agriculture.

However, few articles have conducted in-depth research on the evolution mechanism and development process of agricultural origin, and most of them have touched on the words "transition" and "transformation". In the article The Origin of Agriculture in West Asia, Mr. Kong put forward a syllogism from the origin of agriculture to rural agriculture after the formation of agricultural economy through primitive agriculture. Starting from the initial opportunity of agricultural germination, the whole process of its development, maturity and emergence and its motivation are inferred, and the general model of agricultural origin is put forward, which is also divided into three stages.

First stage

In the long prehistory of mankind, due to the influence of ecological environment factors, the economic lifestyle of ancient human beings was directly restricted. In the Paleolithic Age, primitive people lived in scattered places, with strong mobility and low population density, and nature had enough resources for human beings to enjoy. According to the principle of optimal foraging mode (usually used to explain the survival mode and cultural evolution of prehistoric people), prehistoric people always follow this law in their economic life, that is, to arrange their own production methods with the best economic benefits, that is, to strive for the greatest benefits at the lowest cost in practice. Before agricultural production technology was mastered, with the level of human productivity at that time, hunting should be the first to obtain more abundant food at a smaller cost. For example, a small primitive crowd spends half a day catching two cows and three wild boars, so these are enough for a dozen people to eat for two or three days, but if they spend a day collecting a lot of wild fruits or other plant food (according to the amount they can carry), then these are only enough for them to eat at most two or three meals. Counting the length of time, difficulty and energy of food, plants are obviously at a disadvantage. On the other hand, large herbivores, such as cattle and pigs, have a large amount of meat, are stupid and easy to catch, which can fully meet the needs of feeding. According to the best foraging mode, large animals were always at the highest level in the diet of ancient humans, and they were always the favorite food of hunters and gatherers regardless of the number. However, plants, especially those that are time-consuming and laborious to collect and process, no matter how rich they are, even if they have high nutritional value, they will not have a high grade in the recipe. Therefore, hunting naturally became the main economic form of paleolithic human beings. This hunting-oriented economy can be called pure hunting economy.

With the end of the last ice age, frozen soil and grassland, birch and pine trees gave way to deciduous forests represented by oak trees; The number of large herbivores decreased, and finally there were almost no large mammals except wild boar; The rise of sea level has also led to the expansion of estuaries and the expansion of lakes and swamps. Many changes, on the one hand, lead to a significant reduction in human favorite foods, on the other hand, the types and quantities of low-level plants, fish and shellfish in the recipes are extremely rich. In addition, after millions of years of development, human beings have reached a considerable number, and the population pressure is increasing. All these have forced people to give up the best foraging mode and try various foraging methods, which has taken a turning step towards the origin of agriculture-broad-spectrum economy based on fishing and hunting, or compound fishing and hunting economy.

Broad-spectrum economy, as its name implies, refers to a "wide-recipe" economy, including collecting plant fruits, roots and grains, fishing in rivers and lakes and catching fish and clams, or catching clams and shellfish in shallow coastal waters. The specific form and content can be varied, depending on local natural conditions. Of course, hunting is still an important food source to some extent, but it is no longer dominant. This broad-spectrum economic form is only an unstable adaptation to the unstable ecological environment. Strengthen the development of fish, shellfish, seeds or nuts and other resources with fast regeneration and large quantity. Although this can solve the temporary worries, it does not solve the fundamental problem, and there are still hidden dangers and the danger of resource depletion. Once the environment fluctuates greatly, people may face a crisis of survival.

stage Ⅱ

Because of the unstable environment, the fluctuation of resources is inevitable, especially the exhaustion of high-end food varieties and the increase of population pressure. People need to acquire and master some animals and plants that can be used frequently as reserves when food is scarce. At first, by concentrating the population, adopting the method of settlement or semi-settlement, through strict organization, strengthening labor input, and adopting various technologies to develop, utilize and store grain, the harvest was guaranteed and fruitful. At the same time, production tools become smaller and more complex. This is also an adaptation to the changes in the ecological environment and economic model. For example, at this time, the worldwide microlithic technology appeared, which adapted to the situation that large animals were exhausted and small animals were numerous, while the multi-purpose composite tools adapted to the broad-spectrum economic production mode. With this premise and preparation, in the process of collection and preservation, people sometimes find that some plants will grow new plants regularly, and sometimes they will find that buried fruits will automatically grow new plants after a period of time. So people pay special attention to this kind of plants or fruit trees, and gradually accumulate harvest experience, and find some plants that can feed repeatedly for a period of time (for example, one year) (only plants, not including animals or aquatic products, because the latter, no matter how strong its regenerative ability is, can't breed several groups of individuals to feed in one year). So, naturally, people have taken a key step towards the origin of agriculture-centralized collection.

In the centralized collection activities, people narrowed the collection object from the chaotic recipes in the broad-spectrum stage to one or several plants with strong regenerative ability, which can be eaten many times in a period of time and is convenient for preservation. This is the earliest cultivation and domestication object. Different regions have different training objects. Some areas are rhizomatous plants, and some areas are Gramineae plants, which are different due to different natural environmental conditions. For example, in the south of China, the earliest domesticated plants are probably asexual rhizomes, thus moving towards garden agriculture; In the Yangtze River valley, rice may be the earliest domesticated Gramineae. In the northern region, chestnuts became the first artificially cultivated plant.

At this stage, broad spectrum still exists, and centralized collection is only the evolutionary development stage of plant collection activities. Although this branch will lead to the emergence of future agriculture, people did not foresee it at that time, and its advantages gradually emerged. Fishing and hunting also coexist. Hunting has not completely disappeared. Although there are not many large herbivores, some small and medium-sized animals survive and become the target of hunting. They are small, light and flexible, and it is difficult for adults to get them. Most of them can get old and young individuals. Generally, the old are slaughtered quickly, and the young are kept in captivity (for example, dogs are such small animals, and dogs are generally considered to be one of the earliest domesticated animals). The plants collected in a centralized way have solved their food sources to a certain extent, which is quite similar to the saying that "the origin of agriculture is to provide food sources for livestock raising". But this is different. We believe that the origin of agriculture is not simply to provide food for livestock, but to play this role objectively. To be exact, it is the origin of agriculture that caters to the development of animal husbandry.

The third stage

After a period of concentrated collection, people gradually became familiar with the growth habits and laws of these plants. In the process of collection, they gradually evolved from unconsciousness to consciously leaving some young plants, simply taking care of them and collecting them when they grow more suitable for eating. The significance of this is that people have unconsciously started to simulate agricultural cultivation. Some scholars also call this behavior gathering agriculture. Because the growth of plants is not completely concentrated, but naturally distributed, people still need to "pick grass by grass" when collecting. In order to avoid this long-distance running back and forth, people transplant them to places closer to their homes or safer to grow, which is easy to take care of and convenient to harvest. In this process, people take care of the plant seedlings brought back to their homes. Through close observation and personal exploration, they gradually understand the physiological cycles of plants such as flowering and withering, mature seed dropping and rooting, and also understand that plants need to be sown first and then watered and fertilized before they can be harvested. So this is an important step towards agricultural farming.

This step is also influenced by livestock breeding, because people are inspired by the process of taming young animals and realize the vitality of young animals, so they choose young individuals when choosing plant objects. In the process of agricultural origin, livestock breeding is closely related to the domestication of wild plants. On the one hand, the centralized collection of wild plants objectively provides food sources for livestock breeding; On the other hand, the domestication of wild plants is also influenced by livestock breeding. In a sense, they complement each other and are full of vitality.

This step is not easy, but it is actually a rather complicated and long process. When farming agriculture first appeared, its proportion in people's economic life was still very small, and it was still a supplement, not a substitute. Macneish found in the study of Tevacan's agricultural origin that it took 7,000 years for Central Americans to rely on cultivated crops from 5% to 75%, which shows that there is still a long way to go from primitive agriculture to agricultural economic formation. After people started their own enclosure for agricultural cultivation, they accumulated agricultural experience and developed new cultivated varieties, so that land and crops could be fully utilized, and agriculture gradually became the dominant economic form.