Agricultural systems in Bangladesh
The first archaeobotanical results from Early Historic Wari-Bateshwar and Early Medieval Vikrampura
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7192574 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mizanur Rahman (0000-0003-4615-7866, University of Oxford), Cristina Cobo Castillo (0000-0001-6557-1881), Cristina Castillo (0000-0001-8491-3314, Museum of London Archaeology), C Murphy (0000-0003-1486-9439, Museum of London Archaeology), Sufi Mostafizur Rahman (0000-0003-3624-0519, Jahangirnagar University), D Q Fuller (0000-0002-4859-080X, Museum of London Archaeology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-37 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1866-9557 • E-ISSN: 1866-9565 |
| Publisher | Springer Nature (PUBLISHER • SG) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s12520-019-00991-5 |
| PMID | 32010407 |
| OpenAlex | W2999203649 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 42 |
The present paper reports the first systematic archaeobotanical evidence from Bangladesh together with direct AMS radiocarbon dates on crop remains. Macro-botanical remains were collected by flotation from two sites, Wari-Bateshwar (WB), an Early Historic archaeological site, dating mainly between 400 and 100 BC, with a later seventh century AD temple complex, and Raghurampura Vikrampura (RV), a Buddhist Monastery ( vihara ) located within the Vikrampura city site complex and dating to the eleventh and sixteenth centuries AD. Despite being a tropical country, with high rainfall and intensive soil processes, our work demonstrates that conventional archaeobotany, the collection of macro-remains through flotation, has much potential towards putting together a history of crops and agricultural systems in Bangladesh. The archaeobotanical assemblage collected from both sites indicates the predominance of rice agriculture, which would have been practiced in summer. Spikelet bases are of domesticated type rice, while grain metrics suggest the majority of rice was probably subspecies japonica. The presence of some wetland weeds suggests at least some of the rice was grown in wet (flooded) systems, but much of it may have been rainfed as inferred from the Southeast Asian weed Acmella paniculata . Other crops include winter cereals, barley and possible oat, and small numbers of summer millets ( Pennisetum glaucum , Sorghum bicolor , Setaria italica ), a wide diversity of summer and winter pulses (14 spp.), cotton, sesame and mustard seed. Pulse crops included many known from India. Thus, while most crops indicate diffusion of crops from India eastwards, the absence of indica rice could also indicate some diffusion from Southeast Asia. The later site RV also produced evidence of the rice bean ( Vigna umbellata ), a domesticate of mainland Southeast Asia. These data provide the first empirical evidence for reconstructing past agriculture in Bangladesh and for the role of connections to both India and mainland Southeast Asia in the development of crop diversity in the Ganges delta region
Agriculture · Agroforestry · Agronomy · Archaeology · Biology · Botany · Crop · Domestication · Foxtail · Geography · Paleoethnobotany · Phytolith · Pollen · Radiocarbon dating · Setaria · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Ecology
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| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |