Dissertation Research: Searching for the Origin of Rice (Oryza sativa) in China: An Application of Phytolith Analysis

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Under the direction of Dr. Deborah Pearsall, Mr. Zhijun Zhao will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will travel to the Middle Yangtze region of China and collect soil samples from a series of archaeological sites which span the Neolithic period when settled village life first emerged. He, and his Chinese collaborators will also collect soil cores from areas most likely to preserve organic remains and they shall analyze the pollen and phytoliths in all of the materials collected. The goal of the project is to gain insight into the origins of rice domestication and on the basis of pollen grains and phytoliths, which are silicate bodies formed in plant tissues, it will be possible both to detect the presence of rice and to determine whether the species represented are wild or domesticated. The information derived from analysis of soil cores will allow the team to reconstruct changing climate over the Neolithic period and to examine the relationship between cultural and environmental change. Based on an extensive literature review and study of both botanical and archaeological information, Mr. Zhao postulates that rice was first domesticated in the Middle Yangtze region and that climatic change provided the proximate cause. The changes which occurred in China and other parts of the world at roughly the same time are often referred to as a `revolution` because it was during this process that a variety of plants and animals were first domesticated, that pottery first appears in the archaeological record and that a settled village-based way of life emerges. This process appears to have occurred independently in China and the domestication of rice seems to have played an important role in this change. Archaeological data however are extremely scanty and plant remains are not well preserved in the archaeological record. Therefore it is not possible to determine either just when or where domestication took place and at what stage in the Chinese Neolithic domestication occurred. Without this knowledge it is difficult to unravel the chain of cause and effect which propelled the `revolution` along. Pollen, and especially phytoliths, are relatively well preserved in the archaeological record and Mr. Zhao's advisor, Dr. Pearsall has developed keys which allow the identification of both wild and domestic rice on the basis of the phytoliths they produce. Mr. Zhao will apply this technique in China. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed new insight into one of the most significant changes in human prehistory and will assist in the training of a promising scientist.