“Rice’s trajectory from wild to domesticated in East Asia” (2024), by Jianping Zhang et al. Earth and Planetary Sciences research paper. Original abstract below, unchanged. No free PDF was found.

Rice’s trajectory from wild to domesticated in East Asia

Jianping Zhang, Leping Jiang, Lupeng Yu et al. · May 23, 2024 · Earth and Planetary Sciences

Abstract

) serves as a staple food for more than one-third of the global population. However, its journey from a wild gathered food to domestication remains enigmatic, sparking ongoing debates in the biological and anthropological fields. Here, we present evidence of rice phytoliths sampled from two archaeological sites in China, Shangshan and Hehuashan, near the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. We demonstrate the growth of wild rice at least 100,000 years before present, its initial exploitation as a gathered resource at about 24,000 years before present, its predomestication cultivation at about 13,000 years before present, and eventually its domestication at about 11,000 years before present. These developmental stages illuminate a protracted process of rice domestication in East Asia and extend the continuous records of cereal evolution beyond the Fertile Crescent.

Source page DOI: 10.1126/science.ade4487