The origins of multi-cropping agriculture in Southwestern China: Archaeobotanical insights from third to first millennium B.C. Yunnan.

ABSTRACT: Yunnan's location at the crossroad of temperate China, Northeast India and tropical mainland Southeast Asia makes it a pivotal area for the understanding of early cultural contacts and agricultural spread between these ecologically diverse regions. This paper evaluates current evidence relating to the emergence of the first agricultural systems in Yunnan. It also reviews previous theories on agricultural dispersal to Yunnan, including whether Austroasiatic speakers were responsible for the spread of rice from Yunnan to mainland Southeast Asia, and builds a new framework that allows to tie agricultural development in the region into broader patterns of early migration and exchange networks. Archaeobotanical remains attest to an initial spread of rice and millet from Central China into Yunna

SUBMITTER: Dal Martello R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9373101 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature