Coast to Coast: The Spread of Cereal Cultivation in the Taiwan Strait Region before 3500 BP

Abstract

The expansion of cereal cultivation is a major area of debate in the archaeology of the Holocene (e.g., Fuller and Lucas 2017). Indeed, the adoption of cultivation arguably represents a significant shift that fed cultural, demographic, and environmental transformations throughout the Asia-Pacific region. However, based on studies of the Taiwan Strait region, this chapter argues that the introduction of cultivated cereals did not immediately or uniformly replace pre-existing subsistence practices. Rather, this shift appears to have taken place in various forms over time according to changing environmental conditions in the Taiwan Strait. This chapter traces connections between environmental and subsistence changes and identifies present gaps in the knowledge about plant use in the region until ca. 3500 BP. By that date the Neolithic period in Fujian had come to an end and cereal cultivation was an established (if not necessarily a dominant) subsistence strategy on either side of the Strait. Show more