History › First civilizations › Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution
Rice and millet farming in China
millet and rice domesticated c. 8000–5000 BC· Invention or discovery· Asia
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
Farmers in China domesticated millet along the Yellow River and rice along the Yangtze, independently of the Middle East.
See it on the History map →What happened
In the north, people grew foxtail and broomcorn millet, hardy grains suited to dry, dusty loess soils, from about 8000 BC. In the wetter south, rice was cultivated in the Yangtze valley from roughly the same time, but took thousands of years to become fully domesticated, by about 5000–4000 BC. Pigs were domesticated early too. Villages like Jiahu, around 7000 BC, left rice, bone flutes and traces of a fermented drink of rice, honey and fruit.
Why it matters
Millet and rice fed the Chinese dynasties that followed, beginning with the Shang. Rice farming later spread to Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia, and today feeds about half the world.
How we know
Charred grains and rice husks whose shape shows domestication, and plant microfossils called phytoliths, dated by radiocarbon at sites such as Cishan, Shangshan, Jiahu and Tianluoshan.
Still debated
How quickly rice became fully domesticated, and whether it happened once in China or also separately in India, is still debated.
Connections (2)
▸Rice and millet farming in China was an independent branch of the Agricultural (Neolithic) RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
China's farmers domesticated millet and rice from local wild plants, with no known contact with the Fertile Crescent. That makes China one of several independent birthplaces of agriculture, showing that farming was a widespread human response to the post-Ice Age world, not one invention spread from one place.
When and how
Yellow River valley (millet) and Yangtze valley (rice), from about 8000 BC.
How sure are we?
Different crops, tools and timing from Middle Eastern farming, and plant remains showing local wild ancestors gradually becoming domesticated.
Debates and open questions
When people began cultivating wild rice, perhaps 10,000 years ago at Shangshan, and when that became true farming, is debated.
▸Rice and millet farming in China fed Shang dynastyMostly agreed
The connection
Millet farming in the north and rice farming in the south had supported Chinese villages for thousands of years before the Shang. Millet, plus wheat arriving from the west, fed the Shang's Yellow River cities. Grain taxes and stores supported kings, armies, bronze workshops and rituals, and oracle bones often ask whether the harvest will be good.
When and how
The Yellow River valley of northern China, especially around the last Shang capital at Anyang, about 1300–1046 BC.
How sure are we?
Oracle-bone inscriptions asking about millet harvests; charred grains and storage pits at Shang sites; chemical traces of millet in skeletons.
Debates and open questions
How Shang farmers were organized, as free villagers, dependents or forced labor, and how much wheat they grew alongside millet, are debated.