Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-fg9bn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-01T04:14:43.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Middle Yangtze region in China is one place where rice was domesticated: phytolith evidence from the Diaotonghuan Cave, Northern Jiangxi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Zhao Zhijun
Zhao Zhijun*
Affiliation:
5050 Oak Street, Apt.821, Kansas City MO 64112, USA, zzhao@nelson-atkins.org
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Rice, Oryza sativa L., is one of the most important cereal crops in the world, and its emergence as a domesticated subsistence plant drives much of the interest and research in archaeology in South and East Asia. The homeland of domesticated rice has been proposed as:

1 a specific area, such as India (Vavilov 1926; Ramiah & Ghose 1951), South China (Ding 1957), Southeast Asia (Spencer 1963) and the Yangtze valley in China (Yan 1982; 1989)

2 a biogeographic region, such as the so-called ‘belt region’ with a great diversity of Oryza species (Chang 1976), or

3 an ecological zone, such as coastal swamp habitats (Higham 1995).

Keywords

rice domesticationphytolithChina

Information

Type
Special section: Rice domestication
Information
Antiquity , Volume 72 , Issue 278 , December 1998 , pp. 885 - 897
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bar-Yosef, O. & Meadow, R.H. 1995. The origins of agriculture in the Near East, in Price, & Gebauer, (ed.): 39–94.Google Scholar
Chang, K.-C. 1986. The archaeology of ancient China. 4th edition. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, T.T. 1976. The origin, evolution, cultivation, dissemination, and diversification of Asian and African rices, Euphytica 25: 425–41.Google Scholar
Chang, T.T. 1984. The ethnobotany of rice in island Southeast Asia, Asian Perspectives 26(1): 69–76.Google Scholar
Chen, T. & Hedges, R.E. 1994. AMS radiocarbon dates from the Pengtoushan potsherds and the China’s earliest rice remains, Wenwu 94(3): 88–94. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Cooperative Team of Wild Rice Resources Survey. 1984. A general survey and exploration of wild rice germplasm resources in China, Science of Agriculture 84(6): 27–34. (In Chinese with English abstract.)Google Scholar
Cunnar, G. 1995. The 1993 soundings, in MacNeish, & Libby, (ed.): 9–22.Google Scholar
Dai, G. 1989. Typology and chronology of the early Neolithic cultures in South China, Kaogu Xuebao 89(3): 263–74. (In Chinese with English abstrae).)Google Scholar
Ding, Y. 1957. The origin and evolution of Chinese cultivated rice, Journal of Agriculture 57(8): 243–60. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Fujiwara, H. 1993. Research into the history of rice cultivation using plant opal analysis, in Pearsall, & Piperno, (ed.): 147–58.Google Scholar
He, J. 1989. The early Neolithic cultures in the Dongting Lake area, Hunan Archaeology 5: 125–34. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Hedges, R.E.M., Housley, R.A., Bronk, C.R. & van Klinken, G.J. 1992. Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry date list 14, Archaeometry 34: 141–59.Google Scholar
Hicham, C. 1995. The transition to rice cultivation in Southeast Asia, in Price, & Gebauer, (ed.): 127–55.Google Scholar
Hill, D.V. 1995. Ceramic analysis, in MacNeish, & Libby, (ed.): 35–46.Google Scholar
Hunan Institute of Archaeology. 1990. Excavations at the Pengtoushan site, Wenwu 90(8): 17–28. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Jiang, W. 1988. Analysis of the wild rice found in Dongxiang County, northern Jiangxi, Resources of Crops 88(3): 1–4. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Jiao, T. 1994. The prehistorical cultures during the transitional period from the end of Pleistocene to the beginning of Holocene found from the Lingnan region, South China, Kaogu Xuebao 94(1): 1–24. (In Chinese with English abstract.)Google Scholar
Kachigan, S.K. 1991. Multivariate statistical analysis: a conceptual introduction. New York (NY): Radius Press.Google Scholar
Leyden, B.W. 1995. Evidence of the Younger Dryas in central America, Quaternary Science Reviews 14: 833–9.Google Scholar
Liu, K.-B., Sun, S. & Jiang, X. 1992. Environmental change in the Yangtze River Delta since 12,000 years BP, Quaternary Research 38: 32–45.Google Scholar
MacNeish, R.S. 1992. The origins of agriculture and settled life. London: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
MacNeish, R.S. & Libby, J. (ed.). 1995. Origin of rice agriculture: preliminary reports of the Sino-American Jiangxi Project. El Paso (TX): El Paso Centennial Museum, University of Texas. Publication in Anthropology 13.Google Scholar
MacNeish, R.S & Taylor, R.E. 1995. Chronometrics, in MacNeish, & Libby, (ed.): 72–9.Google Scholar
Maloney, B.K. 1996. Evidence for the Younger Dryas climatic event in Southeast Asia, Quaternary Science Reviews 14: 949–58.Google Scholar
Mikolajewicz, U., Crowley, T.J., Schiller, A. & Voss, R. 1997. Modeling teleconnections between the North Atlantic and North Pacific during the Younger Dryas, Nature 387/22: 384–7.Google Scholar
Mokishima, H. 1984. Wild plants and domestication, in Tsunoda & Takahashi: 3–30.Google Scholar
Mulholland, S.C. & Prior, C. 1993. AMS radiocarbon dating of phytoliths, in Pearsall, & Piperno, (ed.): 21–3.Google Scholar
Oka, H.-I. 1975. The origin of cultivated rice and its adaptive evolution, in Association of Japanese Agricultural Scientific Society (ed.). Hice in Asia: 21–34. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.Google Scholar
Oka, H.-I. & Morishima, H. 1982. Phytognnetic differentiation of cultivated rice 23: Potentiality of wild progenitors to evolve the Indica and Japónica type of rice cultivars. Buphytica 331: 637–50.Google Scholar
Pearsall, D.M. 1989. Paleoethnobotany: a handbook of procedures. San Diego (CA): Academic: Press.Google Scholar
Pearsall, D.M. & Piperno, D.R. (ed.). 1993. Current research in phytolith analysis: application in archaeology and paleoecology. Philadelphia (PA): MASCA, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Pearsall, D.M., Piperno, D.R., Dinan, E.H., Umlauf, M., Zhao, Z. & Benfer, R.A. Jr. 1995. Identifying rice (Oryza sativa). Poaceae, through phytolith analysis, Economic Botany 49: 183–96.Google Scholar
Pei, A. 1989. The Pengtoushan rice remains and China’s prehistoric cultivated rice, Agricultural Archaeology 89(2): 102–8. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Pei, A. 1995. Preliminary analysis of the Pengtoushan Culture. Paper presented at the symposium on ‘Ancient Culture in the Middle Yangtze Region’, Changsha, China. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Peng, S. 1992. Pre-Qin archaeology in Jiangxi. Nanchang: Jiangxi High Education Press. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Piperno, D.R. 1988. Phytolith analysis: an archaeological and geological perspective. San Diego (CA): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Piperno, D.R., Bush, M.B. & Colinvaux, P.A. 1991a. Paleoecological perspectives on human adaptation in central Panama 1: the Pleistocene, Geoarchaeology 6: 201–26.Google Scholar
Piperno, D.R., Bush, M.B. & Colinvaux, P.A. 1991b. Paleoecological perspectives on human adaptation in central Panama 2: the Holocene, Geoarchaeology 6: 227–50.Google Scholar
Piperno, D.R. & Pearsall, D.M. 1998. The origins and development of agriculture in the lowland Neotropics. San Diego (CA): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Price, T.D. & Gebauer, A.B. (ed.). 1995. Last hunters-first farmers. Santa Fe (NM): School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Ramiah, K. & Ghose, R.L.M. 1951. Origin and distribution of cultivated plants of South Asia — rice, Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding 11: 7–13.Google Scholar
Redding, R.W. 1995. Preliminary report on faunal remains recovered from the 1993 excavation, in MacNeish, & Libby, (ed,): 53–8.Google Scholar
Sano, Y. 1989. Ribosomal DNA spacer-length in a wild rice population from Dongxiang, China, in Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Society for the Advancement of Breeding Researchers in Asia and Oceania: 493–6.Google Scholar
Shastry, S.V.S. & Sharma, S.D. 1974. Rice, in Hutchinson, J. (ed.), Evolutionary studies in world crops: 55–61. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, J.E. 1963. The migration of rice from mainland Southeast Asia into Indonesia, in Barrau, J. (ed.), Plants and the migration of Pacific peoples: 83–9. Honolulu (HI): Bishop Museum Press.Google Scholar
Stage, C.A. 1989. Plant taxonomy and biosystematics. 2nd edition. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Takahashi, N. 1984. Differentiation of ecotypes in Oryza sativa L., in Tsunoda, & Takahashi, (ed.): 31–67.Google Scholar
Tsunoda, S. & Takahashi, N. (ed.). 1984. Biology of rice. Tokyo: Japan Scientific Societies Press.Google Scholar
Vavilov, N.I. 1926. Studies on the origin of cultivated plants, Bulletin of Applied Biology 16: 139–248.Google Scholar
Wang, X., Jiang, Q. & MacNeish, R.S. 1995. Palynology and paleoclimate in the Dayuan Basin, in MacNeish, & Libby, (ed.): 59–68.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E. 1989. The amphi-Atlantic distribution of the Younger Dryas climatic fluctuation. Quaternary Science Reviews 8: 295–306.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E. 1993. Environmental determinism in Near Eastern prehistory, Current Anthropology 34: 458–69.Google Scholar
Yan, W. 1982. The origin of rice agriculture in China, Agricultural Archaeology 82(1): 19–54. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Yan, W. 1989. Re-thinking the origin of rice agriculture in China, Agricultural Archaeology 89(2): 74–83. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Yan, W. 1991. China’s earliest rice agriculture remains, Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 10: 118–26.Google Scholar
Yan, W. 1997. New development of studies on the origin of rice agriculture in china. Kaogu 97(9): 71–6. (In Chinese,)Google Scholar
Yang, J. 1994. Research on the ruins of Neolithic Age in the caves of Guilin and other relevant problems, in Zhou, (ed.): 94–104.Google Scholar
Yuan, J. 1996. New evidence for the rice domestication from the Yuchanyan site, News of Chinese Cultural Relics 96 (8): 1. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Zhang, Z. 1990. Studies of the Zengpiyan Site. Guiling: Lijiang Press. (In Chinese.)Google ScholarPubMed
Zhao, C. 1995. The transition mark from the Paleolithic period to the Neolithic Age, Relics From South 95(1): 28–37. (In Chinese.)Google Scholar
Zhao, Z. 1996. Rice domestication in the Middle Yangtze Region, China: an application of phytolith analysis. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia.Google Scholar
Zhao, Z., Pearsall, D.M., Benfer, R.A. Jr & Piperno, D.R. 1998. Distinguishing rice (Oryza sativa Poaceae) from wild Oryza species through phytolith analysis 2: Finalized method, Economic Botany 52(2): 134–45.Google Scholar
Zhou, G. 1994a. The supplemental study on the Bailiandong Culture, in Zhou, (ed.): 203–62.Google Scholar
Zhou, G. (Ed.) 1994b. Relationship between Chinese and Japanese ancient men and prehistoric cultures: 203–62. Beijing: China International Radio Press. (In Chinese with English abstract.)Google Scholar