古巴比伦、古埃及、古印度和中国是人类进化中留下的最灿烂四大文明古国。“大河文明”被学者提出来概述古文明与河流之间的紧密关系。但大多数世界级大河并没有产生相应的古文明，大河文明可能描述的是现代文明，却非古文明与河流的关系。古代农业是驱动古文明发展的重要因素，生产力低下时环境条件则对农业发展影响重大。四大文明古国均分布在干旱半干旱地带，至今还是沙尘暴高发区和沙尘黄土堆积区，农业均起源于旱作，绝大部分农地至今仍靠天然雨水而非河水浇灌。相对大河流水，宜耕的土地对原始农业的发展更为重要。在满足了温度降雨和耕作条件的广袤黄土地，农业能得以快速扩展，养育了更多人口，最终创造了更高的古文明，因此是黄土地文明。本项目拟开展以上古文明发祥地古代农业与适耕黄土地环境调查，尤其对13万年以来各地沙尘黄土堆积与气候变化进行深入研究，获取证据验证沙尘黄土的存在与气候变化对原始农业的作用，从全新的视角认识古文明起源。

Ancient Babylon, ancient Egypt, ancient India and ancient China are the four ancient countries of the most brilliant civilization in human evolution. The conception of “river civilization" is put forward to outline close relationship between the civilization and the rivers. But most world-class rivers did not produce the corresponding ancient civilizations, thus the conception of “river civilization” may describe the modern civilization, but not ancient civilization with rivers. Agriculture is regarded as an important factor driving the development of the ancient civilization. During prehistory when productivity was rather low, surrounding environmental conditions became significant for agricultural development. The four countries of great ancient civilizations are distributed in arid and semi-arid area. Until now, dust storms are still frequently happening there, as the result dust loess keeps accumulating. Archaeological studies show, these ancient agriculture started from dry farming, even present day most agriculture of the farmlands in such arid regions is still rely on natural rainfall watering rather than irrigation by river water. In comparison, suitable tillage loess farmland is therefore more important than river factor for developing primitive agriculture. That is because vast loess grassland meeting requirement of temperature and rainfall, these loess lands are much easier for agriculture rapid expand for feeding more population, eventually created a higher ancient civilization. Such civilizations are thus loess land civilization, rather than river civilization. This project intends to carry out: 1) detail investigation on ancient agriculture and their relation with farmland in the four birthplace of the ancient civilizations, 2) especially study on dust-loess accumulation and climate change since last130 ka in the same areas, 3) obtaining evidence to verify existence of loess and its role together climate change affecting on agriculture, 4) to understand the origins of ancient civilizations from a brand new view point.