(Second Session of International Symposium on Agricultural Archaeology, Oct., 1997, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.
OCR scanned by Paowen Hsueh, translated by B. Gordon, edited by B. Gordon & G. Leir)
The Second Session of the International Symposium on Agricultural Archaeology comprised 130 domestic and 20 foreign scholars from America, Korea and Canada, with everyone speaking freely in a warm atmosphere. Archaeologists mentioned it was a grand international meeting, its academic material providing much extraordinary data on the when, where and how of paddy rice origin. Allowance was made for disagreement, and its debate of >11 rice sites (1) compared formerly with 5-6; e.g.s, Hunan’s 12,000 year-old Yuchanyan Crag and 9,000 year-old Lixian’s Pengtoushan sites, 8,500 Henan Wuyang County’s Jia Lake site, 20,000 year-old Jiangxi’s Xianrendong site, lower Huai River site, etc. As paddy rice places of origin cannot include all, everybody "hopes to define a more accurate rice origin"(2). As a short conference precluded discussion, further analyses are needed. Where, when and how was China's rice domesticated?
Prof. Xiangkun Wang, discussing middle and lower Yangtze River paddy rice cultivation, introduced four prerequisites for rice place of origin: oldest cultivated rice remains, both wild and cultivated rice, ancient people and rice cultivation tools, and suitable natural environment plus pressure on people to develop rice (3). I approve highly his arguments, but we only will know for certain when we find more concrete answers.
Rice was domesticated in Jiangxi’s Dayuan Basin, which I once elaborated (4), but with insufficient detail. With this conference, detailed elaboration is as follows:
While ancient people relied on their environment, the social activity of domesticating rice needs a specific environment, something absent several tens of thousands of years ago. Until essential conditions existed, further steps were impossible.
Jiangxi’s 10,000 year-old Xianrendong is on the west side of Wuyi Mountain at the base of a small hill overlooking a 1 km diameter valley (now rice paddy fields). Its mouth faces the sun and overlooks Wenxi Creek, the land descending several dozen m to the crossflowing Wenxi Creek (river tributary). This joins another creek before reaching the river flowing to Boyang Lake, a total winding length of 100-200 km.
Climate is subtropical moist and windy, with daily spring rain and many summer rainstorms. Mean annual precipitation is 1300-2000 mm, with April-June precipitation equalling one-half annual precipitation -- fine conditions for paddy rice planting.
The area has two rice crops, and is golden-yellow in late autumn. Xianrendong is a cavern with 30-50 sq. m entrance and a 5-7 m high, 5 m wide winding tunnel ending in complete darkness. Although very long, the tunnel has artifacts, as do neighboring areas. 800 m southwest, Diaotonghuan Cave is 45 m up the side of a small 30-50 m north-south ridge. Its small 50 sq. m excavation has many plant, bone and tool-making workshop debris. It is dry and cool in summer, suggesting Xianrendong was used in winter.
Briefly, its environment offered some guarantee of rice domestication: (1) large cavern; (2) nearby water with access to rivers and lakes; (3) good surroundings; (4) suitable climate & rainfall; and (5) wild rice. (nos. (6)& (7) follow below, ed.)
In a cultivated rice region, wild rice must have been present for domestication. Widespread 10,000 year-old perennial ordinary wild rice has been found in Jiangxi’s Dongxiang County. Wild rice also exists in folklore, mountain rice, standing grain, holy rice, white pheasant rice, etc. Rice matured in this boggy area, grew abundant tillers, developed a root system, resisted strong frost (p.223) and leaf insects and had wide soil compatibility (5). We may estimate wild rice originally grew beside the creek. As long as the site’s inhabitants understood that planting resulted in needed staples, domesticated rice became inevitable.
Domesticated rice started from casual transplanting of ancient wild rice from nearby sources; e.g., a newly silted riverbank. Repeated long-term use by generations of farmers allowed it to thrive with many ears, resulting in domesticated rice seed.
(6) Examination of Archaeological Data
1. If rice origin research has decisive significance in archaeological remains, what then is Xianrendong’s situation? It is 12 km from the east county boundary with a small south side. Dual excavations after the 1960’s produced stone, bone, freshwater mussels, pots, 90 potsherds and >10,000 bone fragments. Five human skeletons occur, plus 20 ashpits formed from high-piled firewood, up from 9 last year. (6)
In recent years, American archaeologist MacNeish has returned to study Chinese civilization. MacNeish, Wenhua Chen, Prof. Shifan Peng, etc., comprise the excavation crew who found the Diaotonghuan site. Examination suggests it is Early Neolithic above a Final Palaeolithic lower level. C-14 dates the upper formation at 9,000-14,000 years, the lower level at 15,000-20,000 years, with an archaeological stratum unexcavated.
Prof. Zhiheng Zhang says pollen grains are bigger in the two upper formations, approaching that of paddy rice, while phytoliths in the lower formation resemble those of wild rice. (7) "Pollen produced in the male flower and joining a female germ cell include inner and outer walls and nucleus. The outer wall is very firm, some walls preserving for a million years in soil. Pollen size and shape differ according to plant type, and may have appendages, holes or grooves along the pollen duct". (8) "After plant death, phytoliths fall to the soil, creating a most essential component". (9)
Japan's Sendao Qizi says undergraduate botany courses state phytolith or motor cells are unique to plant, falling to the ground as plant opals, their analysis leading to an understanding of paddy rice variety.(10)
The Chinese Academy of Science Genetic Institute’s Li Fan says "Jiangxi’s Xianrendong site has 14,000 year-old paddy rice phytoliths" (11).
The USA's MacNeish says "the Initial Neolithic is 11,600-9600 years-old in this site, with phytoliths revealing people were domesticating rough rice" (12).
The USA’s Jane Libby gave a favourable comparison, saying "phytolith research by Hunan’s Dr. Jimmy Zhao shows people used wild rice >20,000 years ago" (13).
The above cites proof of Jiangxi’s Xianrendong paddy rice, although actual rice grains have not been found because pre-Early Neolithic specimens are unpreserved. Rice husk-tempered pottery also is absent, but other specimens suffice.
3. Early Xianrendong people lived along the creek; in fact, "primitive agricultural remains occur in 22 places along Boyang Lake" (14), plus Hukow County’s Jia Lake site ca. 100 km away. Xianrendong remains may be extensive, "their tool type agricultural and characteristic of Early Intermediate Neolithic" (15). There is not yet an official excavation plan, but when I examined both surfaces of the earliest potsherds, I found 2-3 cm thick walls and sand temper, but also fired pottery indicating early culture.
(7) domesticated rice and the southern shift of the Bo people:
The Bo came from northwest Lu (Shandong Province) north of Bo Mountain, their original city called Zibo (originally Panyang). They gave their name to the Bo River, where seeds were sown (16). Millet agriculture came from their many original fields. The ancient Bo from Hebei were fierce warriors with hand-held broad-axes, but compelled 40,000 years ago to move south to Anhui Province’s Chao Lake. Then, they finally went to Jiangxi’s Xianrendong in Chiangnan, which has:
A small dip on a long knoll may have had edible wild rice, along with usable stems and leaves. A brook and pond might have many kinds of aquatic resources; e.g.s, fish, shrimp, mussels, clams and especially water chestnut and lotus root, which would have been available year round to appease hunger. On the nearby mountain, the hunting of birds and beasts (numerous like water buffalo) may have occurred. A few li north of Lu, living conditions were superior, with temperature first pleasant (winter high ca. 5-10 C), then falling. Also north on high ground lived the Yi ethnic group on Boyang Lake and Bo River, near Xianrendong.
(2) food staple of Bo people was grain.
They already could plant millet, but as its cultivation needs open flat fields while Xianrendong is in a valley where water accumulates, they used wild rice. Rice is not only highly edible, but seeds readily drop. Millet seed shedding is difficult, while its rough unhusked seed is difficult to swallow, so their staple food changed to husked rice. Wild rice was first gathered, but with a massive population increase, it was cultivated. Plentiful spring and summer rain allowed very easy paddy rice use in fields of 1000-2000 Chinese acres. Planting only 100-200 Chinese acres feeds several dozen people, maybe hundreds which may have come under a clan system (size would protect against invaders), with the place becoming the Bo clan center.
(3) as rice agricultural land must have been large, how was this done?
Juyang Chiyu says: From gathering to cultivation may have been quick, with full rice paddies possibly beginning with water buffalo (17), namely a technological step using water buffalo to plant rice, a use the Bo people may have discovered . They domesticated water buffalo under the Bo family or clan system, the name involving a glottal sound shift according to Shifan Peng (Yugong Classic Works) "Huize Wei Pengli", indicating the north Jianxi area.
Thus, Chiangnan's Boyang Lake area became the world’s oldest origin of domesticated rice <14,000-20,000 years, and Chiangnan’s first paddy rice area.
(4) hut construction:
To work in the field people left the cavern to occupy a farmhouse "living together beside the paddy in a small round hut with centre post and frame, with rush, brush and straw used in a loose wall, and chaff for clay binding along with straw (burnt later when the wall was fired like pottery), which completed construction" on the lake front of the plain (18).
(5) Bo cultural origin:
The Bo people domesticated rice and were tied to the soil. As they introduced their matrilocal marriage system, they quickly recruited outside sons-in-law (mainly as labour and guards), simultaneously sending their own sons to marry out to become leaders (middle and lower Yangtze River), where the name for father’s older brother (uncle) represents a sound shift to clan leader, a Bo people generational replacement of a language shift from a Chu dynasty overlord, once common throughout China.
(6) rice planting technology first passed to Dongting Lake:
40-50,000 years ago, the Pangu ethnic group of the central plain moved to the area northwest of Dongting Lake and east side of Wuling Mountains (19). This differs from Jiangxi’s Xianrendong cultivators because they were hunters. The Taohua people also lived at Dongting Lake and cooperated with the Bo, expanding the scale of planting. As Dongting Lake was stable, private clan ownership developed with the Neolithic, with later cultivation steps coming from northwest China. Thus, 9,000 years ago at the Pengtoushan site "paddy rice agriculture began, its cultivated remains west of Dongting Lake known as Pengtoushan culture" (20). (Thus, Dongting Lake was reciprocally linked). "Paddy rice agriculture developed at the time of Late Zaoshi lower level, Daxi, Qujialing and Jiahe cultures" (21).
An important agreement is that paddy rice origin must have simple requirements like real borders and essential tools, a reasonable conclusion both deterministic and worthy of debate.
But archaeological finds cannot be carried to an extreme. As Pei Anping says, "once people had land they expanded or retracted their borders, with archaeological finds falling into this predicament, namely new discoveries never stop but provide the basis and show" for new ways of thinking (22). This is because paddy rice origin requires conditions: (1), suitable climate and rainfall; (2), very good accommodation like a cavern; (3) control of water supply for cultivated paddy rice; (4) sufficient natural food; (5) wild rice; (6) domesticated rice; and (7) ability to domesticate rice.
Domesticated rice must have all these conditions. If north China is the origin of civilization (p.225), then paddy rice origin could only be Jiangxi’s Xianrendong in the Yangtze valley. But could a second place have the same conditions for domesticating rice as Jiangxi’s Xianrendong? We also have:
(2) Yuchanyan Crag and Jia Lake Sites
Although Yuchanyan (Jade Toad) Crag site has the oldest fossil rice grains, other conditions were insufficient. Therefore, we cannot consider it for paddy rice origin, but below are other opinions:
Zhiheng Zhang says: "As Yuchanyan Crag is in a humid area in the low latitude subtropics, it was impossible to develop early paddy rice agriculture due to its location and ecology". (27)
Anping Pei says: "Yuchanyan Crag rice grain is long and wide like wild rice, while Bashidang rice approaches japonica in wild rice width, with an important difference: "middle Yangtze River and South China paddy rice areas do not have the same relative position" (24).
Xiangkun Wang says: "Hunan’s Yuchanyan Crag rough rice does not resemble primitive cultivated rice" (25).
Yuchanyan Crag has Neolithic tools, pottery, etc., but lacks preceeding and following developments. Where did it go and why do I not yet see a true explanation?
Henan Province’s Wuyang County Jia Lake site rough rice is 8,500 years-old, with equally old excavated foundation, graves, pottery kiln, etc. Its rice tools number nearly a hundred and cultural features, several thousand. In particular, it has a Middle Neolithic 7-note bone flute and engraved full-grown turtle carapace" (26). Certainly, the stone vessels mark the period of Jia Lake site, with "simultaneous Pengtoushan site growth slightly earlier and possibly a higher development stage" (27). As its background is unclear, it cannot be considered a place of domesticated rice origin.
As for other sites, their condition is such that they could not be rice origins.
I think that while conditions at all the other places were insufficient, including the lower Huai River, the latter is still worth further examination because it may be another paddy rice world origin. My reasons are:
(1) Tianhuang on the lower Huai River had paddy rice culture in the last 20-30,000 years (28), with the Yellow River civilization an important source. But "sea level fell greatly in the last 15,000-18,000 years, particularly 15,000 years ago when it was lowest, ca. 110 m lower than now (29). As most of the important remains near Tianhuang are underwater, and related sites known to us now are unexcavated, I believe there are many valuable remains; e.g., "Zhaoyang Valley (valley facing sun) was called Tianwu by god"(30), but is actually Tianhuang. As the Zhaoyang region still exists and much fine stoneware remains in the Yuntai Mountains, I believe earnest survey will result in very good finds. Another piece of historic data: "Over a 200 li circumference facing the Yuntai Mountains from the central coast is a sunny valley with a high peak in a strange gully, with different grass and fresh flowers" (31). Certainly, this is not the same valley, but there may be ties? This also is worth attention.
(2) Lower Huai River culture includes the Erjian and Dragon (Longqiu) Village sites, both different from Shandong and Chiangnan as unique cultures. Eastern "Jiangsu and Anhui cultures and Shandong’s Li and Beixin cultures are pairs with very divergent ties; loosely related with Hemudu culture but not a similar place" with a river (32). This may explains its independent development.
The Jiangsu Institute of Agricultural Sciences Grain Research group said the Lienyungang area is possibly a paddy rice origin, as does Japan's Sendao Qizi (33).
Yu Yunfeng believes "paddy rice is tropical, where indica is basic, but where differerentiation between japonica and indica may result from variation in the natural environment, which changed suddenly in the great Ice Age in the Tai Lake-Yuntai Mountain Binhai region, resulting in plant but not seed variation, a product of glacial climate and volcanic activity. "The Tai Lake-Yuntai Mountain area has the most potential for paddy rice origin" (34).
(3) Tianhuang also has two important remains that cannot be neglected:
1. Jiangjun Cliff. According to my textual research, a rock painting shows a sacrifice to Tianhuang's god >20,000 years ago, perhaps the first national rock painting source; (35)
2. Dawenkou culture has excavated pottery and writing. According to my textual research, this is the Kunlun Mountain chart, a Jiangjun Cliff painting of sophisticated shape showing the Tianhuang clan emblem (36).
(4) I think Henan’s Wuyang Jia Lake culture moved from the lower Huai River upstream. As Wuyang’s Wu ethnic people loved dancing, a bone flute is symbolic proof of music & dance. Jia Lake sophisticated writing also can only have come via Tianhuang culture. Yu Yunfeng says (p.226) "Jia Lake paddy rice came from lower Huai River", in Some Jia Lake site tools resemble early Dawenkou culture (Agricultural Archaeology, 1994, vol. 3, p. 68 p.) (37).
(5) Hunan’s Dao County Yuchanyan site is the greatest line of immigration downriver to the Huai River, people first moving south from Huai River upstream to Dongting Lake, and clearly going south along Hunan down to Yuchanyan. They since may have made earthen mounds near the Kunlun Mountains along Yellow River possibly south (pity that Yuchanyan culture ended).
(6) We still have Suzhong Dragon Village site, Cailin Wang says: "Dragon Village paddy rice was growing in the last 7000 years", but from where did it come? (38). Reasonable inference suggests only Tianhuang culture.
In brief, lower Huai River archaeology is worth exploring.
(4) Lower Huai River Paddy Rice Archaeological Proposal:
As lower Huai River paddy rice origins approximate Xianrendong’s, it is undecided which is main origin, as archaeological data below is few and shallow.
(1) As there are eight very ancient sites as opposed to last year’s Erjian site, we must firmly decide on paddy rice world origin by finding even more ancient sites; e.g.s, Yuchanyan and Jia Lake sites compare favorably with cultural remains.
(2) Jiangjun Cliff painting had to be done by paddy rice agricultural people because mere human residence is incapable of creating rock painting. But Jiangjun Cliff painting cannot irrevocably prove paddy rice agriculture.
(3) It is essential to consider Chaoyang Valley and Donglei as key points for a general survey, especially at Shuiliandong (which must consider Donglei).
The third item has made unprecedented progress on paddy rice origin. Xianrendong is older than other origins. (written 1997/11/7)
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
(1) Chinese Agricultural History 1996(3):29.
(2) Conference paper: Xu Wangxiang, China Agricultural Museum (Origin of paddy rice based on plough agriculture).
(3) Conference paper: Xiangkun Wang, etc.: (Chinese cultivated rice origin: research on present situation and forecast), p.1.
(4) Agricultural Archaeology 1995(3):84 (Zhurong culture and paddy rice origin).
(5) Agricultural Archaeology 1992(1):94.
(6) Agricultural Archaeology 1992(3):346.
(7) Conference paper: Rice origin on the middle and lower Yangtze River, p.2.
(8) Agricultural Origin and Growth. Hong Kong Rubber Institute, p. 187.
(9) with (8) 188 p.
(10) Conference paper abstract: p. 25, Sendao Qizi, Zuoteng Yang - Lang Ding; (Several examples of biological evidence for the origin of japonica rice on the lower Yangtze River).
(11) Conference paper abstract: p. 51, Li Fan; (New discussion on the origin of Chinese paddy rice in the Yangtze valley).
(12) Conference paper abstract: p. 15. R. S. MacNeish, Andover Foundation for Archaeological Research,USA (Late Palaeolithic-Middle Neolithic archaeological sequence from Jiangxi Province).
(13) Conference paper abstract; p. 15, Jane Libby, Andover Foundation for Archaeological Research,USA (Scientific research comparison of paddy rice origin).
(14) and (8) 241 p.
(15) conference paper abstract: p. 66, Yang Chiyu (Hukow County research on paddy rice origin).
(16) Agricultural Archaeology 1995(3)88.
(17) Agricultural Archaeology 1995(3)86.
(18) and (8) p.254.
(19) Agricultural Archaeology 1995(3)88.
(20) and (7) p. 9.
(21) and (7) p. 10.
(22) Conference document: Pei Anping: (Pengtoushan culture paddy rice remains in Chinese prehistoric agriculture) p. 7.
(23) and (7) p. 9.
(24) and (22) p. 8.
(25) and (10) p. 90.
(26) and (10) p. 29.
(27) Agricultural Archaeology l994(1)68.
(28) Agricultural Archaeology 1996(1): (Jiangjun Cliff rock paintings and paddy rice origin).
(29) Agricultural Archaeology 1990(2)87.
(30) (Shan Hai Classics - Overseas edition).
(31) Agricultural Archaeology 1985(2)98 pages (Haiting County records).
(32) Conference document: Ren Zhong (Huai River basin paddy rice origin), p. 9.
(33) and (8) p. 221.
(34) Conference paper: Yu Yunfeng (Paddy rice growing origin and spread). p. 12.
(35) (36) and (28).
(37) and (34)7.
(38) Conference paper: Wang Cailin (Gaoyou Dragon Village site phytolith analyses), p. 8. (p.240)