The earliest claim for domesticated rice in Island Southeast Asia (4960–3565 cal BP) derives from a single grain embedded in a ceramic sherd from Gua Sireh Cave, Borneo. In a first assessment of spikelet-base assemblages within pottery sherds using quantitative microCT analysis, the authors found no additional rice remains within this sherd to support the early date of rice farming; analysis of a more recent Gua Sireh sherd (1990–830 cal BP), however, indicates that 70 per cent of spikelet bases are from domesticated rice. This technique offers a high degree of contextual and temporal resolution for approaching organic-tempered ceramics as well-preserved archaeobotanical assemblages.

The prime-mover for the arrival of the Neolithic in Island Southeast Asia is thought to be the expansion of rice farmers speaking an Austronesian language and coming from the north (see Spriggs, above). Much less is known of the indigenous hunter-gatherers and their interaction with the new farming communities. The mutually occupied area, in the definition of Peter Bellwood, was a ‘Friction Zone’, where two radically different cultures met. This paper emphasises how much land, and information, was lost when the rising sea drowned Sundaland, an area the size of India, and brings to bear archaeological and DNA evidence to emphasise the continuing role of hunter-gatherers in the later prehistory of Southeast Asia.

A newly discovered site at Shangshan in the Lower Yangzi River region has revealed the oldest open-air sedentary village and domesticated rice in south China.

Rice, Oryza sativa L., is one of the most important cereal crops in the world, and its emergence as a domesticated subsistence plant drives much of the interest and research in archaeology in South and East Asia. The homeland of domesticated rice has been proposed as:

1 a specific area, such as India (Vavilov 1926; Ramiah & Ghose 1951), South China (Ding 1957), Southeast Asia (Spencer 1963) and the Yangtze valley in China (Yan 1982; 1989)

2 a biogeographic region, such as the so-called ‘belt region’ with a great diversity of Oryza species (Chang 1976), or

3 an ecological zone, such as coastal swamp habitats (Higham 1995).

The Liyang plain, located in the northwest of Hunan province, is part of the plain on the north of Dongting Lake. It is situated at longitude 111°22′30″E to 111°51′30″E, and latitude 29°35′31″N to 29°47′30″N. It is made up of the Li River, its tributaries and the alluvial plain, and occupies about 600 sq. km in area (FIGURE 1).

The plain is saucer-shaped and surrounded by small hills on three sides, joined at the eastern part to the plain north of Dongting Lake. The area is a classic ‘plate-basin’ structure. Inside its boundaries, the land is broad and flat, with small streams winding in different directions, and lakes and ponds dotting the landscape. It is 32–45 m above sea level, with an incline of 2° to 3°.