Exploring the core factors promoting the evolution of civilization is the key to facilitating the building of ecological civilization. Based on the transformation of the agricultural technology-economic paradigm, an analytical framework was constructed in this study to discuss the evolutionary process and mechanisms of development of agricultural civilization in the Yellow River Basin. The research shows that: (1) The transformation of agricultural technology-economic paradigm is the fundamental driving force for the evolution of agricultural civilization. It includes the revolution of human-based general agricultural technology, changes in the organization of production, and changes in the agricultural production environment; (2) The evolution of agricultural civilization in the Yellow River Basin can be divided into five stages: Neolithic Age wood axe plowing agricultural civilization, Bronze Age metallic tools plowing agricultural civilization, Iron Age intensive agricultural civilization, Machine Age industrialized agricultural civilization, and Computer Age information ecological agricultural civilization; (3) The evolution of agricultural civilization shows a spiral escalation pattern. The evolution of the form is the result of collaborative innovation among the three components of the agricultural technology-economic paradigm, and co-evolution between the productivity and production relations; (4) Promoting the green transformation of technology-economic paradigm is the key to the construction of ecological civilization. Considering the green information technology as the core, constructing a resource saving and environment-friendly information ecological agriculture civilization will be the future direction of development of agricultural civilization.