Rice or millets: early farming strategies in prehistoric central Thailand
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Rice or millets: early farming strategies in prehistoric central Thailand Steve Weber & Heather Lehman & Timothy Barela & Sean Hawks & David Harriman
Received: 9 January 2010 / Accepted: 30 March 2010 / Published online: 27 April 2010 # Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract Ancient seeds from archaeological sites can provide clues that are crucial for understanding and characterizing subsistence strategies. This in turn contributes to our understanding of, and explanations for, the relationship between socioeconomic systems and organization of craft production. This article will examine the relationship between rice and millets at three prehistoric sites from a regional copper-producing center in central Thailand to provide new insights into the subsistence strategy of these communities and to better understand the relationship between these crops and their introduction and use in Southeast Asia.
crops at three prehistoric sites in the Khao Wong Prachan (KWP) Valley in central Thailand, known to be the regional center of copper production (Figs. 1 and 2). Based on current interpretations, occupations in Non Pa Wai (NPW), Nil Kham Haeng (NKH), and Non Mak La (NML) span the critical period from the second millennium BCE to the later centuries of the first millennium CE and contain wellpreserved grains of rice and millets.
Keywords Agriculture . Setaria italica . Foxtail millet . Archaeobotany . Archaeometallurgy . Japonica . Southeast Asia
While a variety of foods were in use during the period in question, this article focuses on just two crops: millets and rice. Millets in prehistory are not well understood, are less studied, and, unlike rice, include a variety of genera. They are a heterogeneous group of forage grasses known for their small “coarse” grains (Weber and Fuller 2008). They have been recovered from archaeological sites worldwide, yet rarely have they been found in large quantities or perceived as a primary food source. While there is little current evidence for their use in prehistoric Southeast Asia, they were regularly cultivated in historical times and can easily be seen growing in fields today. In fact, all nine of the common millet genera—Brachiaria, Digitaria, Echinochloa, Eleusine, Panicum, Paspalum, Pennisetum, Setaria, and Sorghum—are in use today in the region. Among these, only Setaria and Panicum grains have been recovered in Southeast Asian archaeological records in significant number. One millet is of particular interest in this article: Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv. or foxtail millet. It was recovered in large numbers from all three sites. Like rice, it has its origin in eastern Asia, and it is one of the few millets that not only has a long history of use but also is used as a primary food crop throughout this region.
Introduction Subsistence strategies based on the use of millets and rice are well documented in modern Southeast Asia. However, based on archaeological evidence, these plants were first introduced into this region as domesticated crops no earlier than 2,500 BCE
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