 How much history is there in a grain of rice or in a bowl full of such grains? These kinds of bowls fill the stomachs of billions of people on a daily basis, making rice one of the most important food crops that we have. But when, where, how, and why did rice become one of the cornerstones of so many of our diets and societies? To understand how rice farming has changed the world, I look deep into the past. I investigate the early advent of agriculture on Taiwan over 4,000 years ago. That is the time when rice farming first moved to Taiwan from mainland, presumably leading to population growth and to the further dispersal of people together with their cultures, genes and languages from Taiwan to the Asia-Pacific, creating the world that we know today. However, the role of rice farming in this process is still quite poorly understood, and part of the reason is that rice, like all plants, dies, decays and usually disappears from the record. So how can we archaeologists attempt to understand ancient agriculture that lies far beyond the reach of our written and spoken records? On the screen here, you can see a rice plant. And over there, you can see what is called a phytolith, or a plant stone, magnified thousands of times its real size. And it is these microscopic particles that are a key through which I am trying to unlock ancient agriculture. And this is possible because when a plant grows, it draws up silicone from the soil and locks it within its cells and tissues. And as the plant decays, these hardened, silica particles are dispersed back into the environment where they can survive for thousands of years. In my lab, I have more than 20 kilos of soil imported from Taiwan. And from that, I'm using chemistry to extract these ancient plant stones in order then to compare them to the plant stones that I know exist in modern living plants. Thereby allowing me to reconstruct what people were eating and cultivating thousands of years ago. This is a long and still ongoing process. So while I might not be able to write the chapter on early rice quite yet, what I want to leave you with tonight is one request. The next time you are enjoying that bowl of rice, I would like to invite you to reflect for a moment on just how much history you in fact are consuming. And also what kinds of tiny traces you might be leaving behind for future generations to study in order to better understand how our choices, how our habits created the world that they inherited from us. Thank you.