Presumed domestication? Evidence for wild rice cultivation and domestication in the fifth millennium BC of the Lower Yangtze region

Antiquity ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (312) ◽  
pp. 316-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorian Q Fuller ◽  
Emma Harvey ◽  
Ling Qin

Prompted by a recent article by Jiang and Liu in Antiquity (80, 2006), Dorian Fuller and his co-authors return to the question of rice cultivation and consider some of the difficulties involved in identifying the transition from wild to domesticated rice. Using data from Eastern China, they propose that, at least for the Lower Yangtze region, the advent of rice domestication around 4000 BC was preceded by a phase of pre-domestication cultivation that began around 5000 BC. This rice, together with other subsistence foods like nuts, acorns and waterchestnuts, was gathered by sedentary hunter-gatherer-foragers. The implications for sedentism and the spread of agriculture as a long term process are discussed.

1990 ◽  
Vol 173 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 297-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shijie Weng ◽  
Hushen Chen ◽  
Xueqing Zhou ◽  
Zhichen Cui

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110190
Author(s):  
Xiujia Huan ◽  
Houyuan Lu ◽  
Leping Jiang ◽  
Xinxin Zuo ◽  
Keyang He ◽  
...  

Rice is among the world’s most important and ancient domesticated crops. However, the spatial and temporal pattern of the early rice domestication process remains unclear due to the lack of systematic study of wild/domesticated rice remains and corresponding dates during the early Holocene. Here, we collected 248 samples from five typical Shangshan cultural sites in the lower Yangtze region where is the most likely origin place of rice for phytolith analysis. The results showed the following. (1) Rice bulliform phytoliths from the five sites all present domestication traits, suggesting that the rice domestication process had begun across the region by the early stage of the Holocene. (2) The relative domestication rates reflected by the rice bulliform phytoliths were different between sites, the sites with higher domestication rates were distributed closer to the mainstream river. (3) The rice domestication process revealed by bulliform phytoliths can be divided into three periods during the early Holocene: from 10 to 9 ka, rice domestication began and stayed at a low level under 35%; from 9 to 8.5 ka, rice domestication level increased to 50%; and from 8.5 to 8 ka, rice domestication level was in a fluctuating state. (4) By 9 ka BP, rice double-peaked phytoliths from glume cells are present in most of the studied sites, which imply the presence of crop dehusking processing. This study reconstructed the spatial and temporal patterns of rice domestication during the early Holocene, which will improve our knowledge of early crop domestication and enhance our understanding of changes in rice status.


Geophysics ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 1306-1312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dumming Deng ◽  
Qingxian Ou

The lower Yangtze region extends over the Jiangsu Province in eastern China. Most of the region is a huge alluvial plain formed by the delta of the mighty Yangtze River. Beneath the alluvial plain, thick marine carbonates of late Sinian to Middle Triassic age make up a substantial portion of the subsurface sediments of southern China. After deposition of the thick carbonates, this region was subjected to a stage of deformation and extensive erosion. During the Mesozoic and Cenozoic time intervals, clastic deposits formed a continental basin. In the past, most of the petroleum exploration in the region targeted the structures in the continental basins, and some minor oil fields were found. Marine carbonate formations in this region are expected to be more promising for petroleum exploration. Seismic surveys aimed at identifying carbonate structures in this region show that the subsurface structures caused by intense deformation are complex. Structural complexity and extensive erosion have made it difficult to obtain reliable seismic data to resolve the geology of the area. Some new techniques, including wide‐line profiling and 3-D seismic acquisition, along with integrated regional profiles, have overcome some of the difficulties in recent years and significant advances have been made.


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