On the domestication of the soybean

Abstract

Soybeans, together with bananas, barley, common beans, cassavas, coconuts, maize, peanuts, potatoes, rice, sorghum, sugar beets, sugarcane, sweet potatoes and wheat, are man's principal food plants (12). Today, the soybean, like so many other food plants, is taken for granted, that is, without appreciable forethought as to when and where it was adapted to the needs of man, how, when and by whom it was disseminated, and whether or not the distribution of soybeans took place in prehistoric or within the modern era (73). In addition to the general lack of urgency in studying the origin of the soybean, it is unfortunate that the literature concerned with the antiquity and historical development of the soybean and its agricultural consequences is fraught with errors and misconceptions. This is mainly due to two reasons: (a) the soybean is autochthonous to the Orient, where western scientists are at a linguistic disadvantage with respect to historical records; (b) it is only in recent times that attention has been focused on studying in depth, using a team approach, the interrelationships between the domestication of plants and animals and development and needs of human society (10, 32, 67, 115). During the past 30 years, many Chinese historical books, commentaries and material media have been translated into western languages and a large amount of archeological material has been uncovered, both on mainland China and in Taiwan. This paper is an attempt to reconcile the old archeological, historical, agricultural and botanical literature with the more recent data and to establish a working hypothesis on the domestication of the soybean.