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Ref ID: 36865
Ref Type: Journal Article
Authors: Fuller, Dorian Q.
Weisskopf, Alison
Title: The early rice project: from domestication to global warming
Date: 2011
Source: Archaeology International
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ai.1314
Abstract: The Early Rice Project, at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, is clarifying the origins of Asian rice agriculture. In the Lower Yangtze region of China, we have found the tipping point when domesticated forms first outnumber wild types c.4600 BC. Investigations of assorted weed flora are also revealing how the cultivation of rice changed over time, with early cultivation in small, irregular, dug-out paddy fields in the Lower Yangtze from c.4000 BC, providing a means for the careful control of water conditions. We also work on early rice cultivation in Thailand and India. By better characterising how rice was cultivated across its entire range, we aim to model the ancient output of atmospheric methane from wet rice fields, as this was a potential contributor to the long story of human-caused global warming.
Volume: 13
Page Start: 44
Page End: 51