Project History

Chinese archaeologists, geneticists, phytologists, taxonomists and palynologists have been looking for the earliest rice in archaeological sites for many years. Until a decade ago, the origin of Eastern civilization was thought to have been on the Yellow (Huang) River in north China, the supposition being that the complexities of paddy rice agriculture involving group effort of irrigation and transplanting must have come after millet, which can be grown rather simply under dry cool conditions, It was not until early dated rice was found near the Yangtze Delta that attention was drawn south, with acceptance of the complexities of early paddy agriculture. Since that time, even earlier radiocarbon dates in sites have been found as the Yangtze is ascended. Topography of the middle Yangtze River reveals a series of large lakes separated by mountains, holding basins or "reservoirs" for common Yangtze floods. The upper most Dongting Lake just below the Three Gorges Dam is particularly appealing because it is surrounded on three sides by hills. Its northwest part is also surrounded on all sides except the west, where foothills of the large mountains south of the Gorges have the wild rice ancestor of the domesticated rice.

As (1) the earliest rice cultivation was likely receding Yangtze floodwater agriculture in these basins, (2) sites are earlier proceeding upriver to the dam, and (3) the complexities of differentiating wild and domesticated rice requires experts from several fields, a multidisciplinary approach was undertaken for investigating sites in this basin. Such approach requires project members receiving close cooperation and adequate finding. A finding application made to the National Geographic Society in 1997 was approved in 1998. It was based on Chinese archaeologist Dr. Anping Pei doing all excavation using Chinese finds, and Dr. Bryan C. Gordon collecting and dating important rice samples from cultural levels of several sites, plus translating existing literature on these and related sites into English for the National Geographic, professional journals and a webpage available on the Internet.

Project Members