Swiss scholar De Candolle, as early as 1882, recorded wild melon specimens collected from Ghana, Africa, including two types: one is the wild edible melon growing on the banks of the Niger River melon. The second is the oval wild melon that grows on sandy ground and has plum-like fruits with a fragrant aroma. In the next 100 years, a large number of surveys, collections, and studies confirmed that the melon plant originated in Africa, and its true wild type only appeared on the east side of the Tropic of Cancer in the southern part of the Sahara Desert in Africa (T.W. Whitaker. 1962). In 1993, Jr. J. H. Kirkbride of the United States Department of Agriculture published the book "Biological System Monograph of the Cucurbitaceae Genus Cucumber", listing 25 species of the melon subgenus. These melons and their wild relatives are almost all produced in Africa, especially in East Africa on the edge of the Indian Ocean, such as Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and other places. Africa is therefore the primary center of origin of the melon plant.

With the migration of humans over thousands of years, the cultivation and domestication of plants and the development of agricultural production, many genetically diverse types of melons have emerged in the vast area of ??the Asian continent. This is as Soviet Malinina (1977) pointed out based on the fact that India has a large number of wild and semi-cultivated melon plants: Melon (referring to the wild, semi-cultivated and cultivated types within the melon species) originated from the Indian subcontinent. J.T. Esquinas-Alcasar (1983), an expert from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) who holds the same view, believes that cultivated melons occur independently in Southeast Asia, India and East Asia.

The author is based on the survey of Xinjiang melon germplasm resources (1979-1982) and the collection of Chinese thin-skinned melon and pear melon germplasm (1988-1991), as well as Japan (1986) and Uzbekistan (1990). , the collection and identification of melon germplasm samples from the USDA National Seed Storage (NSSL, Colorado, 1987) and the Iowa Introduction Station (NC-7, Iowa, 1988), and it is believed that the secondary origin center of melon is in India. . In the long evolutionary process, the cultivated melon types in the Asian continent can be divided into three derived secondary origin centers ("Chinese Watermelon and Melon", 2000). ①The secondary origin center of cultivated melons in West Asia, including present-day Turkey, Syria and Palestine, is the origin of European and American muskmelon, cantaloupes and cassaba melons. ②The secondary center of origin of cultivated melons in East Asia, including today’s eastern coastal areas of China, the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Islands, is the origin of the thin-skinned melon conomon. ③The secondary origin center of cultivated melons in Central Asia includes present-day Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Xinjiang of China. It is a large-fruited summer melon (ameri) and winter melon (zard), including Xinjiang cantaloupe and early-maturing melon. (chandalak) origin of etc.

K.Kato et al. (2002) in the paper "Revealing the genetic diversity of East Asian and South Asian melons using molecular polymorphism and morphological characteristics analysis" used isoenzyme, RAPD, CAPS and microsatellite technologies to After analyzing 114 wild and cultivated melon samples from India, China, North Korea, Japan, Myanmar, Laos and other countries, it was concluded that the genetic variation center of Asian melons is in India. Small-seeded, moisture-tolerant types of melons (i.e., conomon and makuwa) originate from central India. After being introduced to China through artificial selection, they are called pear melon and Vietnamese melon.

Melon has a long history of cultivation in China. Thin-skinned melons, according to "The Book of Songs Binfeng July" has "Melons are eaten in July and the pot is broken in August" (about 11th century BC to 7th century BC) and "The Book of Songs Xiaoyaxin Nanshan" has "There is a hut in the middle field, There are descriptions such as "There are melons on the battlefield, peel them off and offer them to the emperor." The above textual information shows that China has cultivated and eaten melons for more than 3,000 years. In recent years, Chinese archaeologists have discovered a cultural site more than 4,000 years ago (Qianshanyang, Wuxing, Zhejiang Province) and unearthed melon seeds from it. This pushes back the cultivation history of thin-skinned melons in China by more than 1,000 years.

Central Asia is the secondary origin of thick-skinned muskmelons. According to research, Xinjiang, China was rich in thick-skinned muskmelons as early as the 3rd to 4th centuries AD.

In 1959, a Jin tomb (262-420) was excavated from the Astana ancient tombs near the ancient city of Gaochang in Turpan, Xinjiang Autonomous Region. There was half a shrunken melon in it, and its seeds were the same as those cultivated today. Two pieces of melon rind were found in a Tang tomb (6th to 9th century AD), and their reticulation was thicker and deeper than the current black eyebrow variety. In the same year, a tomb A from the Northern and Southern Dynasties (4th to 5th century AD) was excavated near Tuokuzshalai, Bachu County, southern Xinjiang Autonomous Region, containing 11 thick-skinned melon seed shells. The above three examples are only archaeological objects. In addition, there are other texts that can be tested, such as "Book of Liang" (about the 6th century AD) which records: "In the Kingdom of Tian (now Hotan)... there are houses, markets, fruit melons, "Vegetables." Another example is recorded in Changchun's "Journey to the West Volume" (1148-1227): "On the ninth day of the lunar month, we arrived at Bacicheng City in Changchang (Zhangbali, at the northern foot of Tianshan Mountain, which has been lost)... Gangua is like this. Take a pillow, and its fragrance covers China." According to the above historical records and physical research, thick-skinned melons were commonly grown in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region at least 800 to 1,700 years ago.