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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Archaeol.
Sec. Archaeological Isotope Analysis
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fearc.2024.1488754
This article is part of the Research Topic Stable Isotope Analysis of Archaeobotanical Remains View all 8 articles

Rice Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Values as Potential Indicators of Watering and Manuring Regimes

Provisionally accepted
Rubi Wu Rubi Wu 1*Eric J. Belfield Eric J. Belfield 2Yu Dong Yu Dong 3Shangzong Feng Shangzong Feng 4Xiangdong Fu Xiangdong Fu 5Nicholas P. Harberd Nicholas P. Harberd 2Fan Yang Fan Yang 6Michael Charles Michael Charles 1Amy Bogaard Amy Bogaard 1
  • 1 School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
  • 2 Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, United Kingdom
  • 3 Institute of Cultural Heritage, Shandong University, Qingdao, China
  • 4 Agricultural Technology Centre, Linyi Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Linyi, China
  • 5 Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • 6 Archaeology Lab and Preservation Research Institute, China National Centre for Archaeology, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important cereal crop across East, South and Southeast Asia, from prehistory to today, and grows in a range of ecological conditions, from rainfed upland to deep water. Previous research on early rice in the Lower Yangtze River basin (LYRB) suggested shifts back and forth over time between wet and dry field conditions, and some application of animal dung and/or human faeces as fertiliser. In this study, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis was conducted on grains from rice of heritage landraces and modern varieties grown in a glasshouse pot experiment with three watering levels and two manuring levels, and from recent rice fields in China and South Korea including paddy and dry conditions, and with variable manuring histories. The pot experiment results indicate that there is a negative correlation between the δ 13 C values and watering levels in one heritage accession and three modern accessions; in the remaining two heritage accessions and one modern accession, a similar trend in δ 13 C values is observed between watering levels. The rice field results show that, similarly, the δ 13 C values of rice from paddy fields were significantly lower than those from dry fields. The results from the pot experiment also indicated that both watering and manuring tend to increase the δ 15 N values of rice grains, while the field samples show that intensive manuring in initial growing seasons does not have a consistent effect on rice δ 15 N values. Overall, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values of rice grains appear to be useful indicators of water status, with potential in combination to disentangle watering and manuring practices.

    Keywords: stable isotope analysis, rice farming, Watering regimes, manuring regimes, Lower Yangtze River basin

    Received: 30 Aug 2024; Accepted: 16 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wu, Belfield, Dong, Feng, Fu, Harberd, Yang, Charles and Bogaard. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rubi Wu, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

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