Professor YUAN Jing and Dr. LU Peng participated in the International Conference in Japan

      From the 24th to 27th January 2011, Professor YUAN Jing and Dr. LU Peng participated in the Sino-Japan International Academic Conference titled “fishes and human among the water-land border: new methods to research the origin of the rice cultivation”, which be held in Lake Biwa Museum in Japan.

      The other Chinese scholars attended the conference including: Professor YUAN Jiarong from Hunan Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics, Professor HE Shunping from the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor ZHANG Juzhong from University of Science and Technology of China, Professor SUN Guoping from Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relic, Dr. LUO Yunbing from Hubei Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics. The Japanese scholars including: Professor Tsuneo Nakajima and Dr. YANG Ping from Lake Biwa Museum, Dr. Makibayashi from the Institute of Comprehensive Geographic Environmental Research, Professor Akira Matsui, Dr. Kikuchi and Dr. QIN Xiaoli from Nara National Institute for Cultural Properties, Professor Nakamura Shinichi from Kanazawa University, Dr. Nishitani from National Museum of Japanese History, Dr. Yoshiki Koyanagi from Cyber University.

      This academic conference can be divided into three parts: Part 1 focus on the origin of rice and fishes cultivation in the Neolithic time of China. Part 2 focus on the zoological, molecular biological and ethnological research on modern fishes. Part 3 focus on the exploitation and utilize of the resource of fishes in the sites or certain area of China.

      Professor YUAN Jing gave a speech titled “the origin of the domestic animals in ancient China and the development of zooarchaeological research in China”. The speech briefly introduce the development and the main achievements of the zooarchaeological research in China from three aspects, which include the criterion to judge the domestic animals from archaeological sites, the time and place of the origin of the main domestic animals in China etc.. Dr. LU Peng gave a speech titled “the discovery and research on the shell midden sites in China”. This speech displayed the main sites and research achievements from the aspects of the definition, history, distribution and character of shell midden sites in China.
      Through this academic conference, the Chinese and Japanese scholars exchanged the new achievements of the zooarchaeological research, especially the cultivation of rice and fishes, discussed the new method to research on the origin of fishes, and deepened the understanding on the relationship between the cultivation of fishes and the production of rice.