A complete revision to dating of early agriculture in the Lower Yangzte region of China is now underway as new methods for archaeobotanical analyses are being applied to trace the gradual evolution of domesticated rice from its wild ancestors, and the gradual shift from hunting-and-gathering to a reliance on cultivation. Since its discovery in the 1970s the Neolithic culture of Hemudu has been synonymous of developed rice agriculture in the Lower Yangzte valley. However, at the time it was excavated, systematic archaeobotanocal investigations were not carried out. Reassessment of published data has drawn into question whether this rice was fully domesticated, suggesting instead that domestication was a process that might have taken process that took 1000-2000 years or more during which people were manipoulating environments and planting rice. In this new hypothesis rice domesticated was only completed ca. 4000 BC in this region. This hypothesis has been tested, and largely supported by new archaeobotanical work at the nearby site of Tian Luo Shan (Early 5th Millennium BC), focused in particular on 1,126 preserved rice spikelet base remains. These data indicate that rice was perhaps 1/3 to nearly halfway through the domestication process in a population genetic sense. The broader assemblage suggests that rice cultivation was part of an economy focused on specialized nut collection with a focus on acorns and water chestnuts. We can now reconsturct aspects of collection patterns from,oak woodlands and from marshland environments, which was supplemented by the use/cultivation of rice in the marshes. The rather limited range of 32 species (with >28,000 specimens) suggests that these were specialized collectors rather than broad-spectrum foragers-- a contrast with early farmers from elsewhere, Southwest Asia for example. And find contexts on site indicate the extensive storage of nuts (and probably rice), indicating delayed return hunter-gatherers. In addition, fruit finds include wild peaces and seeds of persimmon (Diospyros). While the evidence for the process of rice cultivation can be seen to parallel Near Eastern evidence for the slow rise to dominance of domesticated cereal forms, the Chinese evidence for focused nut-collectors also suggests an important difference.