Abstract The dryland farming culture embodied in the Yangshao culture (5000–7000 B.P.) is a precious agricultural cultural heritage that profoundly influenced the development of Chinese civilization. Currently, the study of primitive agricultural cultures in the northern region is relatively limited. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the documentation and research on relevant farming techniques and heritage, which can serve as a basis for preparing the Declaration of Agricultural Cultural Heritage in China and even worldwide. In this study, soil profile field surveys, basic physicochemical analysis, and soil micromorphological analysis were conducted to extract ancient cultivation information from multiple cultural layers at the Yangshao Village site, aiming to understand the characteristics of agricultural culture during that period (5000–7000 B.P.). The results of the study revealed that the cultural layers were mostly gray‐brown in color and contained pottery shards, bones, and charcoal, with high total nitrogen content and the highest content of total phosphorus and calcium carbonate. The soil formation materials and aggregates in the cultural layers exhibited diversification, and microstructural observations revealed iron minerals and black charcoal formed by fire, crystals, aggregates, fecal pellets formed by fertilization and irrigation, and artificial disturbance traces formed by soil cultivation. Through the research, it was found that there was a good correlation between macroscopic observations, basic physicochemical analysis, and micromorphological analysis of soil samples, enabling the classification of ancient cultivation activity areas into high and low probability categories. By reconstructing the ancient landforms, it was discovered that ancient humans began their activities, particularly cultivation activities, in low‐lying areas, which promoted the formation of a sponge‐like microstructure in the soil. Overall, the macroscopic characteristics and basic physicochemical properties of the soils corroborate the micromorphological observations, suggesting that the soils in the region are associated with ancient human fire use and farming activities.
Zha et al. (Sun,) studied this question.