Agronomical and Archaeological Investigation on Rice Cultivation Culture at the Ancient Times in Southern China

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The object of this field research in China is studying the rice cultivation culture in the ancient China in order to clarify the origin of rice cultivation in the ancient Japan at the end of Jomon era and the beginnings of Yayoi era in the northern part of Kyushu island of Japan as reported by Ando, K(1951). Ando stated about the first rice production at the ancient times in Japan as follows ; (1) cultivated rice was considered to originate not only from India but also from both South China and Indochina , and rice cultivation might have started in both countries of India and South China independently, (2) rice cultivation in ancient Japan might have been begun by the peoples immigrated from the southern foreign countries who cultivated rice and mainly ate rice every day in the southern regions of the Yangtze in China, and the rice cultivars might have belonged to the sub-species Japonica or Ko which were widely cultivated in the area, (3) the times that rice had been brought into Japa … More n is considered in about the first century B. C. or the Yayoi era and the rice cultivation might have been begun at the riversides or the places where were flat and wet.Carbonized rice grains excavated in the eight remains of ancient rice cultivation at the Neolithic Age in China and in the remains of ancient Japan from the end of the Joomon era and through the Yayoi era or the times from the fifth century B. C. to the third century A. D. were measured through the scaled photographs. The traits measured were grain length, width and thickness and the ratio of length to width as the grain shape index, and the products of length, width and thickness as the grain volume index or grain maturity were calculated. The results showed that the ancient rice cultivars cultivated in Japan were derived from two groups which were considered to be originated from two different locations in China. And the morphological analysis of rice plant opals sampled from the ancient remains in China presented the evidences that Japonica rice cultivars were cultivated around the regions of the lower reaches of Yangtze at the Neolithic Age in China. Less