The ancient dispersal of millets in southern China: New archaeological evidence

Abstract

This study presents the first direct evidence of millet cultivation in Neolithic southeast coastal China. Macroscopic plant remains and phytoliths, together with direct accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates on crops, have shown that both foxtail millet and broomcorn millet were cultivated with rice in the Huangguashan and Pingfengshan sites in Fujian province around 4000-3500 cal. BP. Ratios of different parts of crop remains revealed that crop processing activities such as dehusking and sieving were conducted within the site and thus demonstrated the local production of these crops. The new data, especially the discovery of foxtail millet and broomcorn millet, have greatly changed the current knowledge about the ancient distribution of millet in South China and have now identified southeast China among the potential source-region of Neolithic crops transported overseas to Taiwan and Island Southeast Asia. This study further draws a potential dispersal route of Austronesian languages and people from southern China through Taiwan throughout Southeast Asia.

Learning from Paleo-Landscapes: Defining the Land-Use Systems of the Ancient Malayo-Polynesian Homeland

“…For instance, more work could differentiate between dryland and wetland farming. Additionally, the remains of both foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) have been confirmed at sites such as Nanshan in inland Fujian as early as 3000 BC (Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Fujian Provincial Museum, and Mingxi County Museum 2017), at Huangguashan and Pingfengshan in coastal Fujian of southeast China by 2000-1500 BC or possibly earlier (Deng et al 2018b), and at Nangunglidong in southwestern Taiwan by 2300 BC (Tsang et al 2017). Our other studies in the Lower Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon (reporting in preparation with Zhen-hua Deng) discovered the remains of millets and other plants that could substantiate a more detailed picture of early MP landscapes beyond what we have reported here so far.…”

Assessing the occurrence and status of wheat in late Neolithic central China: the importance of direct AMS radiocarbon dates from Xiazhai

“…Additional crop diversity may have come from oilseeds or herbs like Cannabis sativa, Perilla frutescens and Brassica juncea, as well as some possible fruit trees, such as Ziziphus jujuba, Armeniaca vulgaris, Prunus persica and Morus alba (Fuller and Stevens 2019). This cropping system can be traced back to the Yangshao period, and the same range of crops was quite common at late Neolithic sites in other regions (Lee et al 2007;d'Alpoim Guedes 2011;Deng 2013;Jin 2013;Liu 2014;Stevens and Fuller 2017;Deng et al 2018). In other words, the rise of complex societies in central China was based on the traditional millet farming of the northern Chinese Neolithic, and there is nothing agriculturally distinctive, such as new cereals, that suggest economic superiority there compared with contemporary agricultural systems in adjacent regions.…”

Peer Review #1 of "The origin of Oxalis corniculata L. (v0.1)"

“…Then are reports from Henan Province 4950−4450 BP where 74 seeds were found (Deng et al, 2015). There are also reports of multiple preserved seed from the Huangguashan period in Fujian province from more than 3000 BP; from the Bronze Age in Yunnan province, and from during the Tang dynasty in Lantau (Atha 2012;Yao et al, 2015;Deng et al, 2017). The paper of Nasu et al (2012) has a particularly convincing illustration of a seed.…”