In fact, among the world's major grain crops, rice is the only plant that is harvested almost solely for human consumption. Yet despite its world wide significance, we know relatively little about how or where rice was first domesticated. It was originally indigenous to the tropics.
Rice is an annual grass that shares many characteristics with wheat, barley, oats, and rye.
The rice plant belongs to the genus Oryza. Oryza contains two cultivated species, the Asian Oryza sativa and the West African Oryza glaberrima. Asia seems to have been the focus for early experimentation and cultivation of O. sativa. The settlement contains houses raised on wooden piles above a lakeshore. Remains of bottle gourds, water chestnuts, and sour jujubes were recovered, as were acorns and other nuts .