126-1 Phytolith Evidence for Rice Cultivation in the Iron Age by Mobile Scythian Herders in Kazakhstan

Session: Geoarchaeology of Sites to Landscapes: Current Research on Long-Term Water and Soil Management and Maladaptation, Part II

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Abstract:

The cultivation of rice in wet paddy soils played a crucial role in the development of civilizations and their ecosystems in East and South Asia. Many researchers believe that rice agriculture was only practiced by settled farming communities, and not by the mobile herders of Central Asia. However, our phytolith research shows that mobile Scythian herders in Iron Age Kazakhstan produced rice in the foothills of the Tien Shen mountains of eastern Kazakhstan. We know that this rice was produced locally, rather than traded in due to the phytolith evidence for non-edible shoots and leaves of the rice plants as well as the grain. The landforms, soils, and Continental climate of this region generally are not prime localities for cultivating rice crops. The question of interest is how did these nomadic herders cultivate this rice? Did they utilize the well-drained upland soils or find microenvironments for wet paddy fields? To answer that question, we examined phytolith samples from the site of Tuzusai (eighth century BCE to third century CE) to reveal the method by which the nomadic Sythian tribes cultivated rice. We examined the ratio of “unfixed” to “fixed” cells to determine if they were cultivating rice in paddy fields or were relying on rainfall farming. A high concentration of fixed cells indicates that the rice was most likely cultivated using dryland farming methods, while a high concentration of unfixed cells reveal they were cultivating rice in irrigated paddy fields.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-6405

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