| Abstract: |
In East Asia similar late-Pleistocenic adaptive processes prompted groups of hunter-gathers to make baked clay containers to process certain dietary components, including nutritious wild cereals (e.g., rice and millet). In the long run (~8000–4000 BC) human manipulation changed the natural morphology and characters of these cereals (domestication). The southward dispersal of rice out of its mid-low Yangtze domestication center (~5000–4500 BC) was associated with ceramic vessels decorated with a characteristic “incising and impressing” technique. The finding of actual rice grains and of this “I&I” technique archaeologically marks the dispersal of rice-growers and highlights the interactive processes between the incomers and the hunter-gatherers of subtropical modern South China adapted to its diverse ecosystems. From southern China (~2200–2000 BC) locally interbred agriculturists dispersed toward the plains of Mainland Southeast Asia facing local Early Neolithic nonagriculturists, new landscapes, and environments. As for millet in Neolithic Southeast Asia, some assumption has been proposed, but the data are too sparse and more research is required, with a degree of flexibility in considering whether a homogeneous, worldwide, all-inclusive “Neolithic package,” comprehensively consisting of fixed technological and ideological innovations, ever existed.
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