New Archaeobotanic Data for the Study of the Origins of Agriculture in China

TLDR

Flotation techniques introduced in Chinese archaeology over the past decade have expanded plant recovery. The study synthesizes new archaeobotanic data to propose ideas on the origins and development of ancient Chinese agriculture. The authors synthesize newly recovered plant remains from Chinese sites to analyze regional agricultural traditions. The extensive flotation recoveries across China yielded diverse plant remains—including domesticated crops like rice and millets and introduced species such as wheat and barley—providing direct evidence for studying the origins and development of Chinese agriculture.

Abstract

In the past 10 years, flotation techniques have been introduced and implemented in Chinese archaeology. As a result, a tremendous quantity of plant remains have been recovered from archaeological sites located all over China. These plant remains include crops that might have been domesticated in China—such as rice, foxtail millet, broomcorn millet, and soybean—as well as crops that were introduced into China from other parts of world—such as wheat and barley. The new archaeobotanic data provide direct archaeological evidence for the study of the origins and development of agriculture in China. This paper attempts a synthesis of these new archaeobotanic data while presenting some new ideas about the origins and development of ancient agriculture in China, including the rice agriculture tradition that originated around the middle and lower Yangtze River areas; the dry-land agriculture tradition, with millets as major crops, centered in North China; and the ancient tropical agriculture tradition located in the tropical parts of China, where the major crops seem to be roots and tubers, such as taro.