A northern Chinese origin of Austronesian agriculture: new evidence on traditional Formosan cereals (original) (raw)
Related papers
2022 Early Austronesians Cultivated Rice and Millet Together: Tracing Taiwan's First Neolithic Crops
Frontiers in Plant Science, 2022
This study presents the first directly dated physical evidence of crop remains from the Early Neolithic archaeological layers in Taiwan. Systematic sampling and analysis of macro-plant remains suggested that Neolithic farmers at the Zhiwuyuan (Botanical Garden) site in Taipei, northern Taiwan, had cultivated rice and foxtail millet together at least 4,500 years ago. A more comprehensive review of all related radiocarbon dates suggests that agriculture emerged in Taiwan around 4,800-4,600 cal. BP, instead of the previous claim of 5,000 cal. BP. According to the rice grain metrics from three study sites of Zhiwuyuan, Dalongdong, and Anhe, the rice cultivated in northern and western-central Taiwan was mainly a short-grained type of the japonica subspecies, similar to the discoveries from the southeast coast of mainland China and the middle Yangtze valley. These new findings support the hypothesis that the southeast coast of mainland China was the origin of proto-Austronesian people who brought their crops and other cultural traditions across the Taiwan Strait 4,800 years ago and eventually farther into Island Southeast Asia.
2014 Foragers, fishers and farmers: origins of the Taiwanese Neolithic
Antiquity, 2014
The Neolithic of Taiwan represents the first stage in the expansion of Austronesianspeaking peoples through the Pacific. Settlement and burial evidence from the Tapenkeng (TKP) or Dabenkeng culture demonstrates the development of the early Taiwanese Neolithic over a period of almost 2000 years, from its origin in the pre-TPK of the Pearl River Delta and south-eastern coastal China. The first TPK communities of Taiwan pursued a mixed coastal foraging and horticultural lifestyle, but by the late TPK rice and millet farming were practised with extensive villages and large settlements. The broad-spectrum subsistence diversity of the Taiwanese Neolithic was an important factor in facilitating the subsequent expansion of Austronesian-speaking peoples to the Philippines and beyond. Keywords: Taiwan, Austronesian dispersal, Tapenkeng (Dabenkeng), broad-spectrum foraging, rice farming, human migration Online supplementary material is provided at http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/hung342
Foragers, Fishers and Farmers: Origins of the Taiwan Neolithic
2014
Taiwan Beijing 0 km 2000 N The Neolithic of Taiwan represents the first stage in the expansion of Austronesianspeaking peoples through the Pacific. Settlement and burial evidence from the Tapenkeng (TKP) or Dabenkeng culture demonstrates the development of the early Taiwanese Neolithic over a period of almost 2000 years, from its origin in the pre-TPK of the Pearl River Delta and south-eastern coastal China. The first TPK communities of Taiwan pursued a mixed coastal foraging and horticultural lifestyle, but by the late TPK rice and millet farming were practised with extensive villages and large settlements. The broad-spectrum subsistence diversity of the Taiwanese Neolithic was an important factor in facilitating the subsequent expansion of Austronesian-speaking peoples to the Philippines and beyond.
Early Austronesians: Into and Out Of Taiwan
The American Journal of Human Genetics, 2014
A Taiwan origin for the expansion of the Austronesian languages and their speakers is well supported by linguistic and archaeological evidence. However, human genetic evidence is more controversial. Until now, there had been no ancient skeletal evidence of a potential Austronesian-speaking ancestor prior to the Taiwan Neolithic~6,000 years ago, and genetic studies have largely ignored the role of genetic diversity within Taiwan as well as the origins of Formosans. We address these issues via analysis of a complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequence of an~8,000-year-old skeleton from Liang Island (located between China and Taiwan) and 550 mtDNA genome sequences from 8 aboriginal (highland) Formosan and 4 other Taiwanese groups. We show that the Liangdao Man mtDNA sequence is closest to Formosans, provides a link to southern China, and has the most ancestral haplogroup E sequence found among extant Austronesian speakers. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis allows us to reconstruct a history of early Austronesians arriving in Taiwan in the north~6,000 years ago, spreading rapidly to the south, and leaving Taiwan~4,000 years ago to spread throughout Island Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Oceania.
Rice, 2011
Taiwan's aboriginal peoples are thought to be related to ancestral Austronesian-speaking peoples. Currently, Taiwan has 14 officially acknowledged aboriginal tribes. The major crops currently farmed in aboriginal areas are rice (Oryza sativa) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica). Archeologists recently excavated the remains of several early cultures in Taiwan. The most plentiful plant remains were carbonated rice and foxtail millet grains. The earliest 14 C date of these excavation sites is ∼5,000 BP . These settlements may be those of the earliest ancestral Austronesian speakers in Taiwan. Rice domestication is a complex story. In this study, we identified the functional nucleotide polymorphisms of 16 domesticationrelated genes using 60 landraces collected from aboriginal Taiwanese villages about 100 years ago. We also screened the phenotypes of these landraces. By integrating phenoand genotypic data, together with data from archeologists and linguists, we may be able to better understand the history of rice cultivation in Taiwan and nearby areas.
New Light on Taiwan's Prehistory
1980
XPLANATIONS FOR THE cultural diversity found both ethnographically and archaeologically on Taiwan have been one of the key issues for anthropologists studying the island for the last 70 years (Chang 1969; Triestman 1972). Linguistically, three major groups with 16 subgroups have been delineated (Ferrell 1969: 69). Ethnologists have divided the peoples of the island into at least eight tribes according to marriage systems, house types, origin myths, and the presence or absence of traditions like tattooing or wood carving (Chen 1968; Hsieh 1964). Archaeologically, we see at least three spatially distinct areas in the north, the central and southern area, and the east coast. Temporally, we have possible Palaeolithic remains from the Chang-pin sea caves on the east coast (Sung 1969) and several Neolithic cultures on the west coast. Archaeological work was begun by the Japanese as early as 1896. Although several sites were located in the next 47 years, it was not until 1943 that the first stratified site was excavated at Ch'iang-t'ou in the northern part of the island (outside Taipei) by Kanaseki and Kokubu (1953). Since the end of World War II and the reestablishment of Chinese control over the island, more fieldwork has been carried out. Most of the major work has been carried out by the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, National Taiwan University, county historical commissions, and the Academia Sinica. In this paper we will look at three explanations for the ethnographic and archaeological diversity of Taiwan: first, the Chinese historians' view; second, K. C. Chang's case for cultural continuity with the Asia mainland; and third, Judith Treistman's suggestion that differences are due to different ecological adaptations. Results from the author's 1972-73 fieldwork will then be used to shed light on the explanations.
Spatial-Temporal Framework for the Prehistoric Cultures of Taiwan (5600–1800 BP)
New Frontiers in the Neolithic Archaeology of Taiwan (5600–1800 BP), 2019
This book considers the prehistory of Taiwan from a maritime perspective, and positions Taiwan as a key cultural link between the Asian continent and islands in the Pacific over many millennia. Through a synthesis of the latest archaeological discoveries and researches in Taiwan, and based on an understanding accumulated over many years of work, the author has reconstructed a comprehensive framework for cultural sequences that matches Taiwan’s prehistory based on an understanding of its archaeological cultures and those of surrounding areas. Through a comparison of earlier and later archaeological cultures, the author encapsulates both the inheritance of local cultural features and the appearance of new elements, places these new elements in an interactive network with the Asian continent and islands in the Asia-Pacific region so as to examine their origins and their maritime cultural contacts. With Taiwan as its regional focus, this study reveals both cultural contents and their temporal and spatial changes, as well as the maritime exchanges and interactions that took place during prehistory. This volume, researching matters of Taiwan’s archaeology from a maritime perspective, undertakes a unified and integrated reconstruction, and considers the diverse, plural, and bilateral maritime interactions of prehistoric Taiwan.
Located in the key junction between mainland China and Island Southeast Asia, Taiwan is of great significance for our understanding of the southeastward dispersal of rice agriculture in the prehistoric period. Until now, quite limited archaeobotanical work has been done in this region. In eastern Taiwan, no archaeological evidence of rice agriculture has been obtained, probably owing to the poor preservation conditions for plant macroremains. Here, we report a new discovery of 4200-year-old domesticated rice remains at the Chaolaiqiao site, which for the first time in detail demonstrates the ancient practice of rice agriculture in this area. Based on a combination of factors that include a rice-based plant subsistence strategy, the mid-Holocene limits to available farmland and the fast-growing Taiwan Neolithic population from settlement pattern data, we infer that this contradiction in eastern Taiwan between land-dependent agriculture and limited suitable farmland encouraged a population movement out of Taiwan during the Middle Neolithic period.
Millets and rice were important for the demographic history of China. This review draws on current archaeobotanical evidence for rice and millets across China, Korea, eastern Russia, Taiwan, Mainland southeast Asia, and Japan, taking a critical approach to dating evidence, evidence for cultivation, and morphological domestication. There is no evidence to suggest that millets and rice were domesticated simultaneously within a single region. Instead, 5 regions of north China are candidates for independent early cultivation of millets that led to domestication, and 3 regions of the Yangtze basin are candidates for separate rice domestication trajectories. The integration of rice and millet into a single agricultural system took place ca. 4000 bc, and after this the spread of agricultural systems and population growth are in evidence. The most striking evidence for agricultural dispersal and population growth took place between 3000 and 2500 bc, which has implications for major language dispersals. Keywords East Asian agriculture – millet – rice – archaeobotany – domestication – agricultural dispersal