Abstract
The Neolithic transition, i.e., the shift from hunting and gathering into farming, had a major impact in many aspects of human societies, from economics to demography and from health to ideology. There are two main models of Neolithic spread. The demic model assumes that the Neolithic spread mainly due to the diffusion of farming populations, whereas the cultural model considers that it was essentially due to transmission of cultural traits (domesticates and knowledge) from farmers to hunter-gatherers (without substantial diffusion of farmers themselves). Here we estimate the spread rate of the Neolithic transition in eastern and southeastern Asia, using Early Neolithic dates of 201 archaeological sites with domesticated rice (Oryza sativa). We show that domesticated rice, a staple Neolithic crop in eastern and southeastern Asia, spread at a rate of 0.72–0.92 km/yr (95% confidence level). Comparing these results to the predictions of a demic-cultural model implies that demic diffusion explains more than 76% of the spread observed rate, whereas cultural diffusion played a secondary role.
Highlights
In eastern, southeastern and southern Asia, rice is a staple cereal and its cultivation began about 80006000 yr BC, with fixation of domestication traits closer to 4000 yr BC (Fuller, 2011)
A difference with other Neolithic transitions is that rice was the main staple cereal that transformed most of this huge region from a land of hunter-gatherers into a continent of farmers
Computing the local slope and orientation of the interpolated surface at different locations, we find out the vectors giving the spread directions of the wave of advance of domesticated rice, which we represent on the map as arrows
Summary
Southeastern and southern Asia, rice is a staple cereal and its cultivation began (probably in several regions) about 80006000 yr BC, with fixation of domestication traits (non-shattering spikelet bases, large grain sizes, etc.) closer to 4000 yr BC (Fuller, 2011). At the latter time, rice field systems were established in the lower and middle Yangtze river basins (China), from where domesticated rice spread to the whole area. As we shall discuss (Sec. 4), ancient human genetic data (Lipson et al, 2018; McColl et al, 2018) are not yet numerous enough to provide an independent, quantitative answer to this question
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