What do we know about domestication in eastern Asia?

The body of data based on new work on genetics and DNA, plus a growing number of radiocarbon ages which are independent of dates based on cultural associations has broadened our knowledge of domestication in eastern Asia. Here we review the situation for several plant and animal species that were domesticated locally or imported to east Asia. Major centres of plant domestication in China have been in the Yellow and Yangtze river basins, and in Yunnan. For animals it appears that the Yellow River region, the area around Xi'an and the south-east have been important centres. Many adopted domesticates have entered China through the north-west and later through ports such as Canton (Guangzhou). It appears that while there are outliers to extended ranges of wild plants and animals, sometimes not securely dated, widespread deliberate movement of plants and animals outside their natural ranges coincided with reduced hunting and gathering around 5–4 kyr in the Longshan cultural period. The adoption of agriculture has resulted in large scale landscape transformation; forests and woodlands have been replaced by crop and grazing lands and this is evident in many late Holocene sedimentary records. This transformation continues and the patterns are changing as diets are shifting and much grain is now used to feed chicken and beef, and in addition this has placed increased pressure on water resources.