ABSTRACT
The archaeological record and the earliest available sources suggest that the deep history of soy reaches back several millennia. Based on a thorough overview of early Chinese texts, this chapter details the roles of soy under the first cycle (from domestication to 900 CE). During the roots phase (from soy’s origins to roughly 200 BCE), soybeans were grown as one among several crops in the highly stratified early agricultural civilization around the Yellow River. A full regime phase then emerges roughly between 200 BCE and 200 CE, during the Han Dynasty, when soy acquired several important roles in the intensive, high-yield crop systems of North China. Soybeans provided soil improvement, survival insurance, food and sometimes feed for the great masses of mainly self-sufficient peasant households. Critically, soy was also used for commerce, military rations and protection against famines. From the 3rd century CE, the Northern Chinese agricultural system disintegrated along with Han power. The rupture phase of the first soy cycle unraveled gradually over several centuries with the center of agricultural production and commercialization gravitating to the Southern Yangtze River valley. This chapter closes with an appraisal of the shifts and continuities in the roles of the soybean under this first cycle.
