Antiquity Vol 82 Issue 315 March 2008 Following articles by
Jiang & Liu on new evidence for the origins of sedentism and
rice domestication in the Lower Yangzi (or Yangtze) region in
China in 2006 (Antiquity 80: 355-61) and by Fuller, Harvey & Qin
placing rice domestication in the fifth millennium BC in 2007
(Antiquity 81: 316-31), the debate has moved on to the Project
Gallery, with a response by Liu et al. in 2007
(http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/liu1/index.html). Here Dorian
Fuller and colleagues continue the discussion. We are heartened
to see some constructive debate on the study of early rice in
China. Liu et al. (2007
http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/liu1/index.html) have replied to
our recent reconsideration of Lower Yangtze rice domestication,
but they seem to have conceded our essential points, which were
that wild rice was used in prehistoric China, domestication was
a long-drawn out process which may have happened in parallel in
more than one region, and available evidence from Chinese
archaeobotan