Barnyard grasses were processed with rice around 10000 years ago

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa) is regarded as the only grass that was selected for cultivation and eventual domestication in the Yangtze basin of China. Although both macro-fossils and micro-fossils of rice have been recovered from the Early Neolithic site of Shangshan, dating to more than 10,000 years before present (BP), we report evidence of phytolith and starch microfossils taken from stone tools, both for grinding and cutting, and cultural layers, that indicating barnyard grass (Echinochloa spp.) was a major subsistence resource, alongside smaller quantities of acorn starches (Lithocarpus/Quercus sensu lato) and water chestnuts (Trapa). This evidence suggests that early managed wetland environments were initially harvested for multiple grain species including barnyard grasses as well as rice, and indicate that the emergence of rice as the favoured cultivated grass and ultimately the key domesticate of the Yangtze basin was a protracted process.

Neolithic cultivation of water chestnuts (Trapa L.) at Tianluoshan (7000-6300 cal BP), Zhejiang Province, China

“…Thus, humans had well-adapted and developed subsistence strategies based on local environmental and climate conditions. This viewpoint is now being recognized by more scholars in China 38,45–48 , and contributes to a deeper understanding of how non-cereal plants were influenced by human activity and selection in the Lower Yangtze River Valleys of China.…”

Dating rice remains through phytolith carbon-14 study reveals domestication at the beginning of the Holocene

“…Various sources of evidence, including rice husk phytoliths recovered from the residue of lithic tools (early Shangshan culture) (43,44), use-wear traces of several flaked stone tools (44), pottery tempered with rice husks (Fig. S6), and the emergence of sedentary villages at Shangshan (10), indicate common rice presence and significant reliance on rice.…”

Plant behaviour from human imprints and the cultivation of wild cereals in Holocene Sahara

“…Interestingly, in Eastern China, wild Echinochloa was processed with grinding stones but this became an agricultural weed once cultivated Asian rice became dominant in cultivation 51 . In the absence of any domesticated crop, our African records show that Echinochloa colona was cultivated in association with Panicum laetum among the others.…”