Silk fiber is an important material for clothing, which sustains humanity. It is ancient Chinese who developed this valuable material for textiles.

Sericulture is the most successful example of exploiting insect resoumankind in rces to serve ancient China. The legend says Leizu, wife of Emperor Huangdi (or Yellow Emperor), was the first to teach women to pluck mulberry leaves and feed silkworms. People learned to obtain silk filament from wild silkworms before they were domesticated. The domestication of silkworms began about 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists found in a site of the New Stone Age in Shanxi Province in northern China half a cocoon, which was cut more than 5,000 years ago . In another site of the same period in Zhejiang Province in eastern China, archaeologists unearthed silk fabric, strip and thread, which date from 4,700 years ago. In inions on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty, there were the characters for can (silkworm), sang (mulberry), si (silk), and bo (silks); and records of sacrifices to the god of mulberry and inspections of silkworm production. This shows that at that time sericulture had become part of the daily life.

Resource: http://www.orientaldiscovery.com/2006/9-21/2006921163040.html