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Agricultural origins and habitats - the Sato project
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Location map for Eurasia, created for English Wikipedia by Morwen (Wiki Media Commons, 31.12.04) |
The Sato Project is a multidisciplinary investigation of economic plants, agricultural systems and genetic erosion in Eurasia and adjacent regions. The project is concerned with the distribution of agricultural plant species in natural and man-made habitats, the creation new plant habitats in the past and present, and the relationships between human communities and useful-plant populations.
Humans have domesticated and cultivated an enormous range of plants, yet despite our familiarity with them, we do not know exactly when, where, how or why most plants were first cultivated and domesticated. Plant domestication, dispersal, and genetic erosion will be explored using the techniques of DNA archaeology among others.
Most of the staple crops that came into cultivation in temperate and continental regions are annuals and are seed propagated, while those of equatorial and island regions are perennials and vegetatively propagated.
The different systems of propagation reflect inherent qualities of the plants domesticated, and these as well as human selection have been important for domestication and the creation of man-made habitats. In order to understand the biological and cultural aspects of agriculture, we will investigate the evolution and domestication of cultivated plants in relation to natural and man-made habitats.
A Project Blog Site (PBS) has been created to provide a flexible medium for project-related announcements, reports by project members, and feedback from project associates and the international public.
Leader:
Professor Yo-ichiro Sato, Research Institute for Humanities and Nature (RIHN), Kyoto, Japan.
Affiliated researchers (core members):
FUKUNAGA, Kenji (International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto)
KADOWAKI, Ko-ichi (National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, Tsukuba)
KATO, Kenji (Okayama University, Okayama)
MATTHEWS, Peter J. (National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka)
MUGUMURA, Yumi (Tohoku Art and Technical University)
NAKAMURA, Ikuo (Chiba University)
SHINODA, Kenichi (National Science Museum)
YANG, Hai-Yin (Shizuoka University)
Project period: six years (2004-2009)
Current projects (2004): under discussion, but including research on rice progenitor species, wildtype taro populations in Asia and the Pacific, archaeology, ancient DNA analysis, and more.
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto
Founded 1st April, 2001
Address: 335 Takashima-cho, Marutamachi-dori Kawaramachi nishi-iru, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto 602-0878, Japan
Tel. +81-75-229-6111. Fax +81-75-229-6150
Purpose: Integrated scientific research on the global environment.
Main Activities: (1) Problems and decision-making processes in global environmental science and development. (2) Individually-led cooperative research projects (research incubation).
Director-General: Toshitaka Hidaka
Number of research staff: 44
