The emergence and rapid spread of agriculture from the early Holocene has made a great impact on the development of human societies and landscape change. Guanzhong Basin in the middle of Yellow River valley has a long continuous history of agriculture since the Neolithic. The pollen and charcoal records from Xindian in western Guanzhong Basin, together with the known distribution of archaeological sites, provide proxies to reconstruct the history of agricultural activity and landscape change. The concentration and percentage of Poaceae pollen increase from about 7700 yr BP ago and the concentration of charcoal shows the same trend. These records indicate that the ‘slash-and-burn’ cultivation for agriculture began around 7700 years ago. Between 7700 and 5500 yr BP, the evidence of cereal crops remained strong and charcoal concentration and archaeological sites increased greatly, which all indicate increased agricultural activity and the expansion of human populations. This was enhanced by the continuous development of new cultivation tools and techniques between 4700 and 3300 yr BP, especially in the Bronze Age of the pre-Zhou Dynasty. The original agricultural landscape had been settled after 3300 yr BP. Buckwheat became an important crop from around 5500 yr BP, perhaps because of increasing aridity. This is the earliest record of cultivated buckwheat in Neolithic China.
An, Z.S., Porter, S.C., Kutzbach, J.E., Wu, X.H., Wang, S.M., Liu, X.D., Li, X.Q. and Zhou, W.J.2000: Asynchronous Holocene optimum of the East Asian monsoon . Quaternary Science Reviews19, 743-62.
2.
Bellwood, P.2005: First farmers: the origin of agricultural societies. Blackwell.
3.
Burchard, I.1998: Anthropogenic impact on the climate since man began to hunt. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology139, 1-14.
4.
Cashdan, E.A.1985: Natural fertility, birth spacing, and the ‘First demographic transition’. American Anthropologist87, 650-53.
5.
Clark, R.L. 1982: Point count estimation of charcoal in pollen preparations and thin section of sediments. Pollen Spore 24, 523-35. Crutzen, P.J. 2002: Geology of mankind. Nature 415, 23.
6.
Crutzen, P.J. and Stoermer, E.F.2000: The ‘Anthropocene’. IGBP Newsletter41, 17-18.
7.
Diamond, J. and Bellwood, P.2003: Farmers and their languages: the first expansions. Science597, 597-603.
8.
Dodson, J., Hickson, S., Khoo, R., Li, X.Q., Toia, J. and Zhou, W.J.2006: A vegetation and environment history for the last 14,000 years from Dingnan, Jiangxi Province, south China. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology48, 1018-27.
9.
Fink, D., Hotchkis, M., Hua, Q., Jacobsen, G., Smith, A.M., Zoppi, U., Child, D., Mifsud, C., Gassat, H., William, A. and Williams, M.2004: The Antares AMS facility at ANSTO, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, 223-224, 109-15.
10.
Harlan, J.R.1971: Agricultural origins: centers and noncenters. Science174, 468-74.
11.
Higham, C. and Lu, T.L.D.1998: The origins and dispersal of rice cultivation. Antiquity72, 867-77.
12.
Huang, C.C., Pang, J.L., Zhou Q.Y. and Chen, S.2004: Holocene pedogenic change and the emergence and decline of rain-fed cereal agriculture on the Chinese Loess Plateau. Quaternary Science Review23, 2525-35.
13.
Huang, C.C., Pang, J.L., Chen, S., Su, H.X., Han, J., Cao, Y.F., Zhao, W.Y. and Tan, Z.H.2006: Charcoal records of fire history in the Holocene loess-soil sequences over the southern Loess Plateau of China. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology239, 28-44.
14.
Jiang, W.Y., Leroy, S., Ogle, N., Chu, G.Q., Wang, L. and Liu, J.Q.2008: Natural and anthropogenic forest fires recorded in the Holocene pollen record from a Jinchuan peat bog, northeastern China. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology261, 47-57.
15.
Li X.Q., Zhou, J. and Dodson, J.2003: The vegetation characteristics of the ‘Yuan’ area at Yaoxian on Loess Plateau over the last 12,000 years. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology124, 1-7.
16.
Li, X.Q., Shang, X., Zhou, X.Y. and Zhang, H.B.2006: Integrative method of sieving and heavy liquid in pollen analysis of loess. Arid Land Geography9, 663-67 (in Chinese).
17.
Li, X.Q., Dodson, J., Zhou, X.Y., Zhang H.B. and Masutomoto, R.2007: Early cultivated wheat and broadening of agriculture in Neolithic China. The Holocene17, 555-60.
18.
Li, X.Q., Zhou, J., Dodson, J., Zhou, J. and Zhou, X.Y.2009: Increase of population and expansion of rice agriculture in Asia, and anthropogenic methane emission from 5000 BP. Quaternary International202, 41-50.
19.
Li, Y.Y., Willis, K.J., Zhou, L.P. and Cui, H.T.2006: The impact of ancient civilization on the northeastern Chinese landscape: palaeoecological evidence from the Western Liaohe River Basin, Inner Mongolia. The Holocene16, 1109-21.
20.
Liu, C.J., Kong, Z.C. and Lang, S.D.2004: The statistic of plant relics of the crops from the Dadiwan site. Central China Cultural Relic4, 26-30.
21.
Liu, T.S.2006: A working hypothesis is basic to scientific innovation . Quaternary Sciences26, 673-77 (in Chinese).
22.
Lu, H.Y., Zhang, H.P., Liu, K.B., Wu, N.Q., Li, Y.M., Zhou, K.S., Ye, M.L., Zhang, T.Y., Zhang, H.J., Yang, X.Y., Shen, L.C., Xu, D.K. and Li, Q.2009: Earliest domestication of common millet (Panicum milliaceum) in East Asia extended to 10,000 years ago. PNAS106, 7367-72.
23.
Murray, A.S. and Wintle, A.G.2003: The Single Aliquot Regenerative Dose protocol: potential for improvements in reliability. Radiation Measurements37, 377-81.
24.
Normile, D.1997: Archaeology - Yangtze seen as earliest rice site. Science275, 309.
25.
Reimer, P.J., Baillie, M.G., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Bertrand, C.J.H., Blackwell, P.G., Buck, C.E., Burr, G.S., Cutler, K.B., Damon, P.E., Edwards, R.L., Fairbanks, R.G., Friedrich, M., Guilderson, T.P., Hogg, A.G., Hughen, K.A., Kromer, B., McCormac, G., Manning, S., Ramsey, C.B., Reimer, R.W., Remmele, S., Southon, J.R., Stuiver, M., Talamo, S., Taylor, F.W., van der Plicht, J. and Weyhenmeyer, C.E.2004: Intcal04 terrestrial radiocarbon age calibration, 0-26 cal kyr BP. Radiocarbon46, 1029-58.
26.
Rosen, A.M.2008: The impact of environmental change and human land use on alluvial valleys in the Loess Plateau of China during the Middle Holocene . Geomorphology101, 298-307.
27.
Ruddiman, W.F.2003: The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change61, 261-93.
28.
Ruddiman, W.F. and Thomson, J.S.2001: The case for human causes of increased atmospheric CH4 over the last 5000 years. Quaternary Science Reviews20, 1769-77.
29.
Ruddiman, W.F., Guo, Z.T., Zhou, X., Wu, H.B. and Yu, Y.Y.2008: Early rice farming and anomalous methane trends. Quaternary Science Reviews27, 1291-95.
30.
Shelach, G.2000: The earliest Neolithic cultures of northeast China: recent discoveries and new perspectives on the beginning of agriculture. Journal of World Prehistory14, 363-413.
31.
State Administration of Cultural Heritage2002: Chinese cultural heritage atlas: Shaanxi Province (Fascicule) . Xi’an Atlas Press.
32.
Stockmarr, J.1971: Tablets with spores used in absolute pollen analysis. Pollen Spores13, 615-21.
33.
Sun, J.Z.,Ke, M.H., Wei, M.J., Zhao, J.B. and Li, B.C.1998: Vegetation and environment during the Pleistocene in Loess Plateau, China. Journal of Geomechanics4, 30-42 (in Chinese).
34.
Sun, X.J., Song, C.Q., Wang, F.Y. and Sun, M.R.1995: The vegetation in the southern edge of Loess Plateau for the last 100 ka - the pollen record of loess profile in Weinan, Shaanxi. Chinese Science Bulletin40, 1222-24 (in Chinese).
35.
Tan, Z.H., Huang, C.C., Pang, J.L. and Li, P.H.2005: Relationship between soil charcoal in Holocene and wildfire in the Zhouyuan Region. Chinese Journal of Eco-Agriculture13, 31-33 (in Chinese).
36.
Underhill, A.P.1997: Current issues in Chinese Neolithic archaeology. Journal of World Prehistory11, 103-60.
37.
Van Andel, T.H., Zangger, E. and Demitrack, A.1990: Land use and soil erosion in prehistoric and historical Greece. Journal of Field Archaeology17, 379-96.
38.
Wang, Y.J., Hai, C., Edwards, R.L., He, Y.Q., Kong, X.G., An, Z.S., Wu, J.Y., Kelly, M.J., Dykoski, C.A. and Li, X.D.2005: The Holocene Asian monsoon: links to solar changes and North Atlantic climate. Science308, 854-57.
Xu, Q.H., Li, Y.C. and Yang, X.L.2005: The analysis of surface pollen in the main groups in grassland, North China. Geology Research24, 394-402 (in Chinese).
41.
Yang, M.J., Guo, Z.X., Yang, Y. and Chen, Y.Q.2007: The history of cultivated Buckwheat in China. Agriculture Science and Technology in Inner-Mongolia5, 85-86 (in Chinese).
42.
Zhao, J.B., Hou, Y.J. and Du, J.2003: Holocene environmental changes in the Guanzhong Plain . Arid Land Geography26, 17-22 (in Chinese).
43.
Zhao, Z.J.1998: The Middle Yangtze region in China is one place where rice was domesticated: phytolith evidence from the Diaotonghuan Cave, Northern Jiangxi. Antiquity72, 885-97.
44.
--- 2004: The elementary analysis of the floating sieving result from the Zhouyuan site (Wangjiazui site). Cultural Relic10, 89-96 (in Chinese).
45.
Zhou, K.S.1995: Study on the relationship between the Zhou Yuan Loess and its cultural layers. Quaternary Sciences2, 174-81 (in Chinese).
46.
Zhu, S.G., Wang, Y.L. and Hu, L.G.1998: Study on climate variations in the region of Guanzhong in the historical period. Quaternary Sciences1, 1-11 (in Chinese).
47.
Zhu, Z.C.1994: The basic characteristic of forest-grass in Loess Plateau , Scientia Geographica Sinica14, 152-55 (in Chinese).
48.
Zohary, D. and Hopf, M.2001: Domestication of plants in the Old World. Oxford University Press.
