Featured: African rice archaeology

Dorian Fuller encourages the study of African rice.

Rice presents a fascinating opportunity to study parallel evolution in crop diversity, crop ecology and cultural traditions with the comparison of African O. glaberrima and Asian O. sativa. Sadly, at present the archaeobotany of most West African countries is a complete blank, and archaeobotany in Africa needs more researchers, but some exciting finds are coming out (see my blog for some recent examples). Asian rice has also attracted more historical linguistic research and discussion. Unravelling the cultural histories of African rice remains a good challenge to get to work on!

Well, what are you waiting for. Get to work!

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