Rice farming, fishing and the Neolithic expansion into Southeast Asia

The prehistoric sequence in the Yangtze River region involved a transition from opportunistic fishing to fish farming by the 5th millennium BCE, followed by the expansion of rice farmers into Southeast Asia during the 3rd millennium BCE by a maritime and river routes. The proto Austroasiatic language has many words for fishing, but archaeological documentation of its importance has been largely overlooked in favour of rice and raising domestic animals. Surviving evidence reveals that, while population growth resulting from rice farming stimulated demographic expansion, fishing was of fundamental importance in sustaining the first farmers in coastal and inland Southeast Asia, and was significantly more important as a reliable source of sustenance than domestic pigs, cattle and dogs. However, there is no evidence for possible fish farming in Southeast Asia until a climatic deterioration in the early 1st millennium CE stimulated the construction of moat reservoirs and irrigated rice fields that as in the Yangtze sites, could have contained farmed fish. • A first consideration of the role of fishing in enabling the Neolithic expansion of rice farmers from the Yangtze region into Southeast Asia. • The importance of recovery techniques such as flotation and fine screening in documenting the importance of fish in the diet. • The difficulties of rice farming in a coastal habitat. • The relationship between rice cultivation and fish farming. • The range of marine and riverine resources in the diet of early farmers.