以文字地理學談上古中國主食作物

Abstract

Rice, wheat, maize, Kaoleung and millet are the five staple cereal crops in China today. However, according to the conclusive agricultural history, all of the cereal crops except milet were introduced into China after Neolithic Age: rice from India, wheat from Western Asia, magize from Cantral America, and Kaoleung from East African Plateau.With the basic geographic concept of regional areal differenciation, the author does not even agree with this single-origin theory in historical agricultural geography. This article is intended to study the said cereal crops in amcient China with a new point of views. Philological Geograhy is a "Brand New Field in Geography", named by the author. Philological Geography, in general and surface meaning, may be defined as a way to study "philology" with geagraphic theory and approaches. Geographers condisder "Language, Verbe1 and writter" as a type of cultural Landscapes, whcih man made them to reveal a cultural process of perceiving, evaluating and constructing the world. If so, geographers shall be possible and capable to reconstruct the ancient environmental landscapes thought the retrogressive method focusing on the "embryology and evolution" of philogical. Anyhow, philological geography is author's ambitious attemption to break through traditional philological study. It compiles retaled materials from various fields like philology, history. anthropology, archaeology, mythology, geology, into geographic study. This attemption is inmature and may be too board to handle perfectly. The author wishes to receive sincere critique as well as suggestion. All ranges of feed-back regarding this research are thankfully welcome and appreciated.