Early Evidence for Pig Domestication in the Coastal Lower Yangtze Region

WANG Jiajing

The coastal Lower Yangtze of south China, a key mainland region within the East Asian Indo-Pacific, represents one of the earliest centres of rice farming and is widely considered a source of Neolithic dispersals into Southeast Asia. This paper examines early human–pig interactions at Jingtoushan and Kuahuqiao (ca. 8,000 cal BP) through integrated dental metrics and microfossil analysis of pig dental calculus. Starch granules and phytoliths recovered from calculus indicate the consumption of cooked starchy foods, including rice, while parasite remains reveal ingestion of fecally contaminated materials, indicating close spatial and ecological integration with human settlements. The recovery of human whipworm (Trichuris trichiura) eggs from pig dental calculus represents the earliest archaeological evidence of this parasite in East Asia, highlighting the role of animal management in zoonotic disease transmission. Combined with dental metric data, these findings represent the earliest evidence for domestic pigs in the Lower Yangtze. This study demonstrates how multi-proxy archaeological approaches can illuminate the socio-ecological dimensions of domestication and the complex human–animal relationships that shaped early Neolithic societies in the Indo-Pacific.