ABSTRACT
We have seen how important rice was as the basis of Yayoi civilization, enabling the development of a settled agricultural society and the production of a surplus to support larger political units with their courts and culture. We have also seen that the Yayoi rice tools such as the reaping knife, as well as the Yayoi rice cultivation practices, were like those of Java. It is now time to look at rice genetics to find out if here too there is a link between Java and Japan, since a genetic relationship is immensely stronger proof than similarities, even striking ones, in tools and practices. This requires providing some background on the long, complicated, and still inadequately researched history of cultivated rice (Oryza sativa).
