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

在Douglas Price博士的指导下，Shawn Murray女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将继续参与位于马里尼日尔三角洲中部的迪亚的考古发掘工作。该遗址包括一系列高出尼日尔洪泛区的土丘，有证据表明，最早的水平可以追溯到公元前900-500年。该遗址特别重要，因为植物遗迹保存得非常完好，在最早的占领中，水稻丰富。这很可能代表了一种驯化的非洲物种（Oryza glaberrima），并构成了已知最早的例子，但由于很难从视觉上区分野生稻和家养稻的籽粒，因此必须采用其他方法。为此，将进行脂质和DNA分析。如果脂质分析是成功的，它可能提供一个成本较低的替代DNA分析物种鉴定。初步的研究已经成功地证明了迪亚颗粒中DNA的存在。在过去的一万年里，在世界上许多地方，植物和动物的驯化独立地发生了，这种从狩猎和采集到更富有成效的资源基础的转变为文明的兴起奠定了基础。由于不同的作物分布在不同的地区，这种转变或“新石器革命”不是由于历史上的偶然事件，而是一个单一的潜在过程的结果。为了理解这种根本性的变化，考古学家采用了一种多案例方法：重建单个区域序列，然后进行比较，这样就可以确定基本的相似性。虽然非洲通常不被认为是这样一个中心，但事实上，许多植物都是在撒哈拉沙漠以南的广阔地带被驯化的。虽然东南亚是水稻驯化的一个中心，但非洲是另一个中心，野生祖先今天在该地区生长。Murray女士的研究将有助于理解非洲水稻的进化。它可能会记录最早在非洲大陆出现的国内水稻，并阐明驯化发生的社会和生存环境。这项研究也很重要，因为它将有助于在这个物种范围内开发一种成本更低的DNA分析替代方法，如果成功，脂质分析将得到广泛应用。Murray女士的研究还将记录尼日尔三角洲中部地区迅速消失的农业实践，例如传统的作物收获和加工，并且还将帮助培训一位有前途的年轻科学家。

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.