Was there once a Zone of Vegeculture Linking Melanesia with Northeast India?

The ancient vegecultural systems of Melanesia and the rice-dominated agriculture of mainland and island SE Asia presently appear to be worlds apart. In particular, models of the Neolithic on the mainland are dominated by our understanding of the dates for the appearance of rice in the archaeological record (Higham et al., 2011). But new research in Arunachal Pradesh and Borneo is beginning to challenge this understanding. It now appears that, apart from the pseudo-grain Job's tears, all types of cereal agriculture in NE India are relatively recent, as are domestic animals other than the semi-wild mithun. The basis of subsistence for many societies was the yams and aroids as well as bananas, sugar-cane, sago and the cabbage of tree-ferns. A key part of the management of the environment was the exploitation of bamboos and rattans, many of which have anthropic distributions. In addition, foraging continues to play a major role in subsistence. The use of sago is particularly striking, since it remains dominant in parts of lowland New Guinea and is still an important staple for some populations in Eastern Indonesia (Ellen 2004) and Borneo (Barker et al ., 2011). Despite a single find of early rice in Borneo, such cereals are broadly of recent introduction.