Progress of rice bulliform phytolith research on wild–domesticated characteristics

In recent years, phytolith analysis has been widely used in archaeological research, providing new method and key evidence on the study of agriculture origin around the world. Among the studies on rice agriculture origin, rice bulliform phytolith plays an important role in the discovery and identification of rice remains. The key to study agriculture origin is to discover archaeological plant remains and accurately identify their wild–domesticated characteristics. This paper introduces the re-search history from qualitative to quantitative on the identification of rice bulliform phytoliths, focuses on the new progress of fish-scale decoration research in rice bulliform phytoliths from topsoil of modern wild rice growing areas, domesticated paddy fields, and dry paddy fields, clarified the criteria for individual phytolith identification, selection, and fish-scale decora-tion counting. On this basis, the possible causes and mechanism of the difference in fish-scale decorations between wild and domesticated rice bulliform phytolith are discussed. It is hoped that through the summary and discussion of this paper, phy-tolith analysis can be more accurately and widely used in the study of crop origin and spread.

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