Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Beijing, 100029, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 19;8(1):10932. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-29172-5.
The rice arable system is of importance to both society and the environment. The emergence of rice paddies was a crucial step in the transition from pre-domestic cultivation to systematic land use and management. However, many aspects of the formation of rice farming systems remain unclear. An important reason is the lack of reliable methods for identifying early rice paddies. One possible means of remedying this knowledge deficit is through analysis of phytolith assemblages, which are closely related to their parent plant communities. In this study, phytolith assemblages from 27 surface soil samples from wild rice fields, 91 surface soil samples from modern rice paddies, and 50 soil samples from non-rice fields were analysed to establish a discriminant function. This discriminant function enabled classification of 89.3% of the samples into appropriate groups. Further, the results suggested that phytolith assemblages can be used to identify rice fields and differentiate between wild rice fields and domesticated rice fields. The method was demonstrated to be an effective way of utilising the large amounts of unidentifiable phytoliths discovered at archaeological sites to provide a modern analogue that may be a valuable key to unlocking the past.
水稻耕地系统对社会和环境都很重要。稻田的出现是从原始农耕向系统土地利用和管理转变的关键一步。然而，水稻种植系统的形成仍有许多方面不明确。一个重要的原因是缺乏可靠的方法来识别早期的稻田。弥补这一知识缺陷的一种可能方法是通过分析植硅体组合，因为它们与它们的母植物群落密切相关。在这项研究中，对 27 个野生稻田的表层土壤样本、91 个现代稻田的表层土壤样本和 50 个非稻田的土壤样本中的植硅体组合进行了分析，以建立判别函数。该判别函数使 89.3%的样本能够被正确地归类到相应的组中。此外，研究结果表明，植硅体组合可以用来识别稻田，并区分野生稻田和驯化稻田。该方法被证明是一种利用考古遗址中发现的大量无法识别的植硅体的有效方法，可以为过去提供一个现代的类似物，这可能是解开过去的宝贵关键。
