Early Holocene rice cultivation integrated into marine adaptation in eastern China

Coastal regions play a significant role in human migration, population growth, and social interactions. However, the transition of subsistence strategies from foraging to farming at the onset of the Neolithic Age in such regions remains obscure. Here, we analysed microfossil data of phytoliths and diatoms and morphological and morphometric data of rice bulliform phytoliths at the Jingtoushan site in the lower Yangtze River to investigate the relationship between rice cultivation and marine exploitation during the early Holocene. Our research showed a delayed rice domestication process at the Jingtoushan site owing to environmental and social factors induced by sea level rise; this remained in the initial stages of domestication. Contrary to the previous notion that the shell middens of southern coastal China merely relied on marine adaptation without evidence of rice farming, our research suggests that rice cultivation was integrated into marine adaptation at the Jingtoushan site around 8000 cal. BP and subsequently dispersed to southeast China around 5000 cal. BP. Thus, the Jingtoushan site may not only serve as an ancestor of the Hemudu culture but also as a precursor to the Neolithic expansion of maritime Austronesian.