Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: African Rice Domestication and the Transition to Agriculture in the Middle Niger Delta, Mali

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Under the direction of Dr. Douglas Price, MS Shawn Murray will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will continue her participation in archaeological excavation at Dia, located in the Middle Niger Delta in Mali. The site includes a series of mounds with rise above the Niger floodplain and evidence indicates that the earliest levels date to ca. 900-500 BC. The site is particularly significant because plant remains are extremely well preserved and rice is abundant in the earliest occupations. This may well represent a domesticated African species (Oryza glaberrima) and constitute the earliest known examples but because visual distinction between grains of wild and domestic rice is difficult, other means must be employed. To this end, lipid and DNA analyses will be conducted. If lipid analysis is successful it may provide a less costly alternative to DNA analysis for species identification. A preliminary study has successfully shown the presence of DNA in the Dia grains. The domestication of plants and animals occurred independently within the last 10,000 years in many parts of the world and this change from hunting and gathering to a more productive resource base set the stage for the rise of civilization. Because different crops were involved in widely differing areas, this transformation or "Neolithic Revolution" was not due to historical happenstance but rather results from a single underlying process. To understand this fundamental change, archaeologists employ a multi-case method: individual regional sequences are reconstructed and then compared and in this way fundamental similarities can be determined. Although Africa has not normally be considered such a center, in fact many plants were domesticated in the broad band which lies immediately South of the Sahara desert. While Southeast Asia served as one center for rice domestication, Africa served as another and wild progenitors grow in the region today. MS Murray's research will contribute to understanding of the evolution of African rice. It will likely document the earliest occurrence of domestic rice in the continent and shed light on the social and subsistence context within which domestication occurred. This research is also important because it will help to develop a less costly alternative to DNA analysis in this range of species and, if successful, lipid analysis will be widely used. MS Murray's research will also record rapidly vanishing agricultural practices in the Middle Niger Delta region, such as traditional crop harvesting and processing and will also assist in training a promising young scientist.