article
The origins and dispersal of rice cultivation
Antiquity • 72 • Published In 1998 • Pages: 867-877
By: Higham, Charles, Lu, Tracey Lie Dan, Malone, Caroline.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
The authors are interested in the question of where, when, why, and how rice was domesticated. They start with descriptions of the climate and environment of the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene. Some of these changes may have encouraged foragers to eat wild grasses including wild rice. Pottery has been found in terminal Pleistocene sites older than 10,000 B.P. Rice husks and straw used as temper date to 8900 B.P. Other remains indicate there were sedentary agricultural societies by 8000 B.P. By 8000-7500 B.P. rice cultivation had spread east and north from the middle Yangzi River valley. The southbound dispersal of rice cultivation is less well known. The authors also explore the evidence for the spread of rice cultivation in Southeast Asia. Only the data that pertain to southeast China Early Neolithic were indexed for OCM (Outline of Cultural Materials) subjects.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Theoretical orientation in research and its results
- Location
- Climate
- Fauna
- Flora
- Historical reconstruction
- Cereal agriculture
- Ceramic technology
- Lithic industries
- Chronologies and culture sequences
- traditionCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Southeast China Early Neolithic
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Asia
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- East Asia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Archaeologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Sarah Berry ; 2004
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- not specified
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 10,000-6000 B.P
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Yangtze valley, China
- NotesAdditional notes
- Charles Higham & Tracey L.-D. Lu
- Special section: Rice domestication, edited by Carol Malone
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 876-877)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 29021740
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- China--Antiquities