Beginning in about 7,500 BC with classical millet agriculture, China's development of farming over the course of its history has played a key role in supporting the growth of what is now the largest population in the world. Jared Diamond estimated that the earliest attested domestication of rice took place in China by 7500 BC^[1] Excavations at Kuahuqiao, the earliest known Neolithic site in eastern China, have documented rice cultivation 7,700 years ago.^[2] Finds at the ruins of the Hemudu Culture in Yuyao and Banpo Village near Xi'an, which all date back 6,000 to 7,000 years, include rice, millet and spade-like farm tools made of stone and bone. The first signs of settled agriculture however was around 5000 B.C