Anthropology.net

The 24th edition of this blog carnival is now up and running, and with well over a dozen articles contributed by a similar number of people, there’s a very good mix of material covering a wide variety of topics, so head on over to Paddy K’s, and check it out for yourself.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the 25th and 1st birthday edition of Four Stone Hearth is even now heading in this direction, and will be hosted on Remote Central on October 10th, and we’re hoping for a bumper beanfeast of an edition to celebrate the passing year, and to herald the next 25 editions of the coming year. On that note, I saw that there appear to be no hosts slated from October 24th onwards, and here’s a note from Martin at Aardvarchaeology, who has this to say…

“The next open hosting slot is on 24 October. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me. You don’t have to be an anthropologist, but bipedalism is encouraged.”

In the meantime, many thanks once again to Paddy K for hosting the current issue, and hope to see you all on October 10th.

A new Nature study will report on the earliest known evidence of rice paddies in China. We’re talking almost 8,000 years ago.

Cheng Zong of Durham University lead the excavation at the Kuahuqiao site in the Zhejiang province. After analyzing sediments of ancient swamp beds at the site the team found signs that the dirt was managed for rice growing. Specifically, the sediments showed that fire was used to clear scrub and modifications to the earth were made to prevent brackish water flooding. By about 7,550 years ago the sea level rose and broke the levies that held back water.

Here’s the kicker for anyone into rice domestication and the origins of agriculture, the team also unearthed unusually large rice pollen grains which indicates people at Kuahuqiao were beginning to domesticate a variety of rice. It is kinda uncertain whether or not the rice was really cultivated. But since these pollen grains have been found out of the normal range where seen wild rice grows, and found in areas where salt water damages fields and preventative measures had to be taken… then it’s pretty conclusive. If this is really the case, then it pushes back the date of rice domestication in Stone Age China almost 2,000 years!

Dorian Fuller of University College London has researched rice domestication before, specifically genetic diversity of rice. She commented on a National Geographic News article covering the new study on how,

“…the genetics of modern rice [show that it] has multiple origins from the wild gene pool right across southern China and northern and eastern India.”

Perhaps one of the centers of rice domestication was at Kuahuqiao?

In other China related archaeology news, the Fars News Agency reported on unearthing more of an ancient wall in the Golestan Province of Iran that stands second to the Great Wall of China in size. It is a 124-mile-long wall, the second longest such structure in Asia and was made in the 5th and 6th centuries to prevent the Ephthalites from pressing into Persia. It is call the Gorgan Wall.

I wish I had really nice photos or a scholarly article to point you too, but I’ll I got is this rather sparse press release and this really dated set of photos. I guess I could fire up Google Earth and scour the Golestan area for a large wall but I don’t have time right now. Maybe some other time?

P.S. Anyone else see Nature‘s new homepage? Very web 2.0!