Jarrod: the work  of Dorian Fuller and colleagues here at UCL Institute of Archaeology has been focussed on pinning down the chronology of Neolithic agriculture in South Asia, including rice, for the last couple of decaded. I suggest you look up his work.. The chronology of domesticated rice in the Gangetic valley dates to c. 2nd millennium BC, possibly earlier, and of course Indus Bronze age urbanism in the NW builds on a much much older history of domesticated agriculture, based on the 'winter wheat / barley crop package' from c. 8th millennium BC. 

Best wishes,

Julia Shaw

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Dear Jarrod and All,

two points:  The cultivation of rice in the Indus Civilization is old news. I have known this for some 10 years, from my colleague here at HARP, the Harvard Excavation project at Harappa. Will ask him (Richard Meadow)

As for rice: genetic studies, also some 10 yeras ago, have shown that cultivated Indian rice is a hybrid of Chinese (?Japonica?) and local Indian wild rice (Nivara), see publications by Yoichiro Sato, Chikyu..Inst., Kyoto.

The much hyped (also for early Iron) Lahuradeva in eastern UP., with its 6 rice grains, represents wild rice (Nivara)  ? as can be seen in their pytholiths. Cultivated rice enters the picture only around 2500-2000 BCE (from memory)

I will look up the data, over Thanksgiving.

Cheers,
Michael

> On Nov 21, 2016, at 7:58 AM, Jarrod Whitaker <whitakjl@wfu.edu> wrote:
>
> Some of you may be interested in this article on rice cultivation in the Indus Valley Civilization:
>
> http://phys.org/news/2016-11-rice-farming-india-older-thought.html

Rice farming in India much older than thought, used as 'summer crop' by Indus civilization phys.org Latest research on archaeological sites of the ancient Indus Civilisation, which stretched across what is now Pakistan and northwest India during the Bronze Age, has revealed that domesticated rice farming in South Asia began far earlier than previously believed, and may have developed in tandem with - rather than as a result of - rice domestication in China.

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> JW
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> Jarrod Whitaker, Ph.D.
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