Dry, rainfed or irrigated? Reevaluating the role and development of rice agriculture in Iron Age-Early Historic South India using archaeobotanical approaches

Abstract

Domestic rice agriculture had spread across the mainland Indian subcontinent by c.500 BC. The initial spread of rice outside the core zone of the central Gangetic Plains is thought to have been limited by climatic constraints, particularly seasonal rainfall levels, and so the later spread of rice into the dry regions of South India is largely supposed to have relied on irrigation. This has been associated with the development of ritual water features in the Iron Age (c.1000–500 BC), and to the subsequent development of tanks (reservoirs) during the period of Early Historic state development (c.500 BC–500 AD). The identification of early irrigation systems within South Asia has largely relied on early historical texts, and not on direct archaeological evidence. This initial investigation attempts to identify irrigated rice cultivation in the Indian subcontinent by directly examining rice crop remains (phytolith and macrobotanical data) from four sites. The evidence presented here shows that, contrary to accepted narratives, rice agriculture in the Iron Age-Early Historic South India may not have been supported by irrigated paddy fields, but may have relied on seasonal rainfall as elsewhere in the subcontinent. More caution is urged, therefore, when using terms related to ‘irrigation’ and ‘agricultural intensification’ in discussions of the Iron Age and Early Historic South Asia and the related developments of urbanism and state polities.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s12520-019-00795-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Two-season agriculture and irrigated rice during the Dian: radiocarbon dates and archaeobotanical remains from Dayingzhuang, Yunnan, Southwest China

“…While the precise distinction between wet and dry rice in terms of this ratio may be open to some discussion, it is clear that low values indicate dry (rainfed rice). Based on recent Indian work Kingwell-Banham ( 2019a , b ) took as a dry ecology a sensitive: fixed ratio values < 1.5, whereas Fuller et al ( 2016 ): Fig. 5 ) took ratios < 1 as definitely dry, with wet ratios perhaps as low as 1.25, and semi-wet ratio between 0.9 and 1.2.…”

“…5 ) took ratios < 1 as definitely dry, with wet ratios perhaps as low as 1.25, and semi-wet ratio between 0.9 and 1.2. Kingwell-Banham ( 2019a , b ) also inferred that values > 3 indicate systematic irrigation, whereas intermediate values (1.5–3) are wet ecologies but not necessarily irrigated. We expect transplanted rice systems to fall in the irrigated range.…”

Transitions in Productivity: Rice Intensification from Domestication to Urbanisation

“…The historical patterns of most of Southeast Asia were based on the availability of large populations that provided labour for highly productive wet rice, with less productive forms of agriculture in the hills providing an anarchic refuge from state power (Scott 2009). Although it is beyond the scope of this article, we see similar transitions to more wet rice production linked to increasing population density, urbanisation and social complexity in many parts of ancient India (see Shaw et al 2007;Fuller and Qin 2009;Kingwell-Banham 2019).…”

Environmentalism as Religio-Medical ‘Worldview': New Synergies Between the Palaeoenvironmental Humanities, Ecological Public Health, and Climate-Change Activism

“…For South Asia, my own research region, any serious consideration in such discourse of how posited changes in food production impacted upon and were digested by religio-philosophical traditions or by groups concerned with human health and wellbeing is notably absent, while archaeobotanical accounts of later agrarian shifts such as the spread of rice during the early-historical period, engage with religion, ritual and ethical concerns only in the most superficial and generalized way. Ritual is commonly treated as a discrete set of practices and theologies operating at the margins of society and disconnected in a polarized fashion from economic and technological spheres, as illustrated by recent discussions of whether rice in South India was being cultivated as an economic or 'symbolic' crop (Kingwell-Banham 2019).…”