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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of rice domestication process is important for understanding how agriculture evolved in China. In this paper, we studied samples of rice phytoliths from the Shangshan (around c. 11,000-9000 cal. BP), Kuahuqiao (around c. 8200-7200 cal. BP) and Hemudu (around c. 7000-6500 cal. BP) periods in the lower valley of Yangtze River. Using two different techniques it was demonstrated that rice phytoliths could be separated into wild rice and domesticated varieties. Through time the percentage of wild rice phytoliths decreases while the percentage of domesticated rice phytoliths increases. The changes in morphological characteristics of double-peaked glume cells and scale-like decorations numbers of cuneiform bulliform cells indicates that human intervention likely impacted rice during the Shangshan, Kuahuqiao and Hemudu Periods. Based on morphological characteristics when classifying the rice phytoliths into wild rice and domesticated rice varieties of double-peaked glume cells, a large percentage of phytoliths could not be assigned to either a wild or domesticated variety. The large percentage of the uncertain type indicates that early domesticated rice phytolith may be neither completely wild nor fully domesticated in morphology. The result of this study indicates the evolution from wild rice to domestic rice occur between 12,000 and 7000 cal. BP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response, both to Fuller et al.'s recent criticism of Chinese research on rice domestication, as lacking evidence, and to their argument for the beginning of rice domestication around 4000 BC in the lower Yangzi River. We first survey previous publications that discuss the process from wild rice collection to rice domestication in China, and then examine early rice remains from the perspectives of rice morphology and archaeological context. We focus on three aspects: the timing of the initial rice domestication in the Yangzi River region; the earliest presence of domesticated rice in the Lower Yangzi and Huai River regions; and the implications of changes in rice grain sizes in archaeological assemblages. We also discuss problems relating to the presence of immature rice remains in the archaeological record, grain size increase and overall grain shape, which are three of the criteria used by Fuller et al. for distinguishing domesticated from wild rice. Based on published data and our research on rice, we demonstrate that by the early Holocene (9000 cal. BP), Neolithic people in both north and south China may have been harvesting wild rice and initiating rice cultivation that eventually led to domestication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]