Baodun Culture in the Context of the Emergence of Rice Cultivation in the Sichuan Basin

The Baodun culture, localized on the Chengdu Plain of the Sichuan Basin, is dated to the 3rd–early 2nd millennium BCЕ. The subject of this study is new data on the culture from the excavations of 2021–2023, which showed that the ancient people of Baodun practiced paddy rice cultivation, which apparently formed the basis of their diet in combination with millet cultivation. Gathering and hunting provided additional resources. The new data initiated a discussion related to the origin of the apparently non-local Baodun culture. It is possible that the Baodun culture developed around 4700–4500 BP based on migrations from the northwestern regions of modern Gansu and Qinghai, however, archaeobotanical conclusions for both millet and rice suggest a connection with other regions - in the southeast of China. The latest interdisciplinary research from 2021 – 2023 made it possible not only to describe the culture in general, its constituent elements and ongoing changes, but also to characterize the dynamics of the economic development of the ancient population of the Sichuan Basin. Based on the analysis of publications in Chinese, the author analyzes the main problems of the Baodun culture investigations - its origin, type of economy, initial points of migration, architectural tradition and the phenomenon of early fortified settlements in southwest China, the evolution of ceramics, which became the basis for the internal division of the culture into stages. It has been established that the settlements of the Baodun culture significantly outnumber any sites of earlier times. This population growth probably continued until all suitable lands were developed, the next stage was the intensification of subsistence farming methods, which ultimately led to the complication of the social structure of the ancient inhabitants of the Sichuan Basin approximately 700-500 years before the appearance of the Sanxingdui bronze culture.

Sichuan province, Neolithic, Baodun culture, ceramics, cultural connections, ancient agriculture, rice cultivation, fortified settlement, migrations, Baoduncun site