Archeologists have found evidence that rice was an important the Yangtze Basin in the late Neolithic period. The Lower Yangtze River is densely distributed with Neolithic sites and is widely regarded as a core area where rice agriculture originated.
These cultural sequences comprise the Shangshan (11,000-8500 BP), Kuhuqiao (8000 7400 BP), Majiabang (7000-6000 BP), and Hemudu Culture (7000-5300 BP) during the early to middle Holocene.
The Neolithic site at Hemudu is the most significant when early rice cultivation is concerned. The Hemudu culture is the most significant Neolithic culture in southern China. The Hemudu culture flourished at south Hangzhou Bay in Yuyao city, Zhejiang Province, and was discovered in 1973.
The Hemudu culture is the most significant Neolithic culture and is identified by its distinct style of pile dwellings and rice remains in southern China, which are distributed primarily in the eastern coastal area and divided into two main periods with a remarkable interruption and dispersal around 6000 BP.
The Majiabang culture coexisted with the Hemudu culture for about two thousand years as two separate and distinct cultures, with cultural transmissions between them. Majiabang people cultivated rice.
Development of irrigation technology to construct flooded farms gave strong bases for stable rice-cultivating society, which in the end formulated the rise of ancient kingdoms of Yue and Wu in China in BC 6th -5th centuries. They were direct descendants of those people who had developed the unique rice cultivation from the era of Hemudu culture.
Domestication of rice in Yangtze Basin
