From Early Domesticated Rice of the Middle Yangtze Basin to Millet, Rice and Wheat Agriculture: Archaeobotanical Macro-Remains from Baligang, Nanyang Basin, Central China (6700–500 BC)

Abstract

Baligang is a Neolithic site on a northern tributary of the middle Yangtze and provides a long archaeobotanical sequence from the Seventh Millennium BC upto the First Millennium BC. It provides evidence for developments in rice and millet agriculture influenced by shifting cultural affiliation with the north (Yangshao and Longshan) and south (Qujialing and Shijiahe) between 4300 and 1800 BC. This paper reports on plant macro-remains (seeds), from systematic flotation of 123 samples (1700 litres), producing more than 10,000 identifiable remains. The earliest Pre-Yangshao occupation of the sites provide evidence for cultivation of rice (Oryza sativa) between 6300–6700 BC. This rice appears already domesticated in on the basis of a dominance of non-shattering spikelet bases. However, in terms of grain size changes has not yet finished, as grains are still thinner than more recent domesaticated rice and are closer in grain shape to wild rices. This early rice was cultivated alongside collection of wild staple foods, especially acorns (Quercus/Lithicarpus sensu lato). In later periods the sites has evidence for mixed farming of both rice and millets (Setaria italica and Panicum miliaceum). Soybean appears on the site in the Shijiahe period (ca.2500 BC) and wheat (Triticum cf. aestivum) in the Late Longshan levels (2200–1800 BC). Weed flora suggests an intensification of rice agriculture over time with increasing evidence of wetland weeds. We interpret these data as indicating early opportunistic cultivation of alluvial floodplains and some rainfed rice, developing into more systematic and probably irrigated cultivation starting in the Yangshao period, which intensified in the Qujialing and Shijiahe period, before a shift back to an emphasis on millets with the Late Longshan cultural influence from the north.

Pathways of Rice Diversification across Asia

“…Change in this trait is also increasingly evident from regional sequences of archaeobotanical data and indicates some variation in separate regional trajectories. The data from Baligang, despite being predominantly non-shattering, consists of thinner grains more like wild rices and not comparable with the fatter rices in the Lower Yangtze that accompanied the rise of non-shattering (Deng et al 2015). This indicates that grain size evolved more slowly in the Middle Yangtze, where non-shattering evolved more quickly.…”

“…3800 BC. In the Middle Yangtze fewer such data are available, but evidence from the Han River (the Baligang site which is located on the Bai River, a small tributary of the Han River), a northerly tributary of the Middle Yangtze, indicates that largely nonshattering (>80%) rice was already established by 6300 BC (Deng et al 2015). This indicates that selection for this domestication trait started earlier in this region than in the Lower Yangtze, but it also suggests a separate process from the Lower Yangtze.…”

A regional case in the development of agriculture and crop processing in northern China from the Neolithic to Bronze Age: archaeobotanical evidence from the Sushui River survey, Shanxi province

“…Wheat was reported in several sites in the Longshan period including Zhaojiazhuang (Jin et al 2008), Liangchengzhen (Crawford et al 2005), Jiaochangpu (Zhao 2004), Yuhuicun (Yin 2013), Xijincheng (Chen et al 2010), Wadian (Liu and Fang 2010), Baligang (Deng et al 2015), and Xishanping (Li et al 2007). Among these, only Zhaojiazhuang site has produced direct date on wheat grain with an age of 3905 ± 50 BP (2570-2200 cal.…”

“…BC). Other dates are all inferred from Longshan period related contexts or from deposition rate of the surveyed profile, and the reliability of wheat dates before 4000 BP can be questioned (Zhao 2015;Deng et al 2015). The dating result of Zhaojiazhuang wheat has been suggested to be anomalous, and possibly not reflecting a Longshan era arrival of wheat (Stevens et al 2016).…”

“…While this has long been recognized based on the earliest written sources in Chinese, which relate to the end of the second millennium BC (Ho 1977;Chang 1980), this has come to be documented through systematic archaeobotany in recent years as systematic flotation has been more widely employed (e.g., Crawford et al 2005;Deng et al 2015;Fuller and Zhang 2007;Zhao 2010;Zhong et al 2016). The potential of systematic archaeobotany is more than just confirmation of the staple crops known from later texts but can provide information on the balance between those crops, how those crops were processed and what this might indicate about the social organization of agriculture, and what arable weeds might imply about cultivation practices.…”