Biological evolutionary insights into the origins of agriculture

The domestication of plants and animals was a unique evolutionary process influenced by human behavior. In the early stage of domestication, the morphological and genetic characteristics of plants and animals still exhibited wild traits, making the concept of the “earliest” crops and domestic animals relative. Human behavior, acting as an unconscious selection mechanism, influenced the process and rate of domestication, making it a crucial factor in identifying domestication. Archaeological evidence of early cultivation and a sedentary lifestyle indicates that the domestication of rice and the origin of rice agriculture in China spanned four to five thousand years, with significant advancements occurring approximately every two thousand years. The origin of rice agriculture began around 10,000 years ago, entered a critical stage around 8000 years ago, and was completed around 6000 years ago. After this period, farming replaced gathering and hunting as the core of the subsistence economy, leading to the establishment of agricultural societies where agricultural production became the driving economic force

Agriculture · Archaeology · Biology · China · Domestication · Geography · Subsistence agriculture · GABA and Rice Research · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Ecology

• Study on the spatial and temporal distribution of Shell Midden sites in China and their relationship with climate and environment

  Open Access•Pan Guo, Rudi Shi et al.•Quaternary International•2025

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• Beyond rice

  Open Access•Jie Tian, Moran Li et al.•Vegetation History and…•2026

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• The Domestication Process and Domestication Rate in Rice

  Open Access•D Q Fuller, Ling Qin et al.•Science•2009

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• New evidence for the origins of sedentism and rice domestication in the Lower Yangzi River, China

  Open Access•Leping Jiang, Li Liu•Antiquity•2006

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• The Middle Yangtze region in China is one place where rice was domesticated

  Open Access•Zhao Zhijun•Antiquity•1998

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• Presumed domestication? Evidence for wild rice cultivation and domestication in the fifth millennium BC of the Lower Yangtze region

  Open Access•D Q Fuller, Emma Harvey et al.•Antiquity•2007

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• New Archaeobotanic Data for the Study of the Origins of Agriculture in China

  Zhijun Zhao•Current Anthropology•2011

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