Early Holocene exploitation of taro and yam among southern East Asian hunter-gatherers

Increases in population size are associated with the adoption of Neolithic agricultural practices in many areas of the world, but rapid population growth within the Dingsishan cultural group of southern China pre-dated the arrival of rice and millet farming in this area. In this article, the authors identify starch grains from taros (Colocasia) and yams (Dioscorea) in dental calculus and on food-processing tools from the Dingsishan sites of Huiyaotian and Liyupo (c. 9030-6741 BP). They conclude that the harvesting and processing of these dietary staples supported an Early Holocene population increase in southern East Asia, before the spread of rice and millet farming. Keywords: Southern China, Early Holocene, Dingsishan, microfossil analysis, dental calculus, starch grains, taro
Introduction Around 10 000 BP, the first open settlements emerged on terraces along the Yongjiang River in southern Guangxi in southern China (Fu 2002; Zhang & Hung 2010, 2012; Hung […]