A Journey to the West: The Ancient Dispersal of Rice Out of East Asia.
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Authors
Stark, Sören
Zhou, Xinying
Fuks, Daniel
Tang, Li
Mir-Makhamad, Basira
Bjørn, Rasmus
Jiang, Hongen
Olivieri, Luca M
Begmatov, Alisher
Boivin, Nicole
Publication Date
2021-09-25ISSN
1939-8425
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Spengler, R. N., Stark, S., Zhou, X., Fuks, D., Tang, L., Mir-Makhamad, B., Bjørn, R., et al. (2021). A Journey to the West: The Ancient Dispersal of Rice Out of East Asia.. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12284-021-00518-4
Description
Funder: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Abstract
Rice is one of the most culturally valued and widely grown crops in the world today, and extensive research over the past decade has clarified much of the narrative of its domestication and early spread across East and South Asia. However, the timing and routes of its dispersal into West Asia and Europe, through which rice eventually became an important ingredient in global cuisines, has remained less clear. In this article, we discuss the piecemeal, but growing, archaeobotanical data for rice in West Asia. We also integrate written sources, linguistic data, and ethnohistoric analogies, in order to better understand the adoption of rice outside its regions of origin. The human-mediated westward spread of rice proceeded gradually, while its social standing and culinary uses repeatedly changing over time and place. Rice was present in West Asia and Europe by the tail end of the first millennium BC, but did not become a significant crop in West Asia until the past few centuries. Complementary historical, linguistic, and archaeobotanical data illustrate two separate and roughly contemporaneous routes of westward dispersal, one along the South Asian coast and the other through Silk Road trade. By better understanding the adoption of this water-demanding crop in the arid regions of West Asia, we explore an important chapter in human adaptation and agricultural decision making.
Keywords
Rice, Agricultural Intensification, Archaeobotany, West Asia, Paddy Farming, Crop Exchange
Sponsorship
National Natural Science Foundation of China-Yunnan Joint Fund (NSFC (41672171))
European Research Council (851102, 851102, FEDD)
Identifiers
PMC8464642, 34564763
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12284-021-00518-4
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/329993
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