Rainforest Foraging and Farming in Island Southeast Asia

Rainforest Foraging and Farming in Island Southeast Asia
Author: Graeme Barker
Publisher: McDonald Institute Monographs
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781902937540

The cathedral-like Niah Caves of Sarawak (Borneo) have iconic status in the archaeology of Southeast Asia, because the excavations by Tom and Barbara Harrisson in the 1950s and 1960s revealed the longest sequence of human occupation in the region, from (we now know) 50,000 years ago to the recent past. This book is the first of two volumes describing the results of new work in the caves by a multi-disciplinary team of archaeologists and geographers aimed at clarifying the many questions raised by the earlier work. This first volume is a closely integrated account of how the old and new work combines to provide profound new insights into the prehistory of the region: the strategies developed by our species to live in rainforest from the time of first arrival; how rainforest foragers engaged in forms of 'vegeculture' thousands of years before rice farming; and how rice farming represented profound transformations in the social (and spiritual?) lives of rainforest dwellers far more than being the dietary staple that it is today.

First Islanders

First Islanders
Author: Peter Bellwood
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2017-04-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1119251540

Incorporating research findings over the last twenty years, First Islanders examines the human prehistory of Island Southeast Asia. This fascinating story is explored from a broad swathe of multidisciplinary perspectives and pays close attention to migration in the period dating from 1.5 million years ago to the development of Indic kingdoms late in the first millennium CE.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia

The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia
Author: C.F.W. Higham
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 921
Release: 2022-01-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0197564275

Southeast Asia ranks among the most significant regions in the world for tracing the prehistory of human endeavor over a period in excess of two million years. It lies in the direct path of successive migrations from the African homeland that saw settlement by hominin populations such as Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. The first Anatomically Modern Humans, following a coastal route, reached the region at least 60,000 years ago to establish a hunter gatherer tradition that survives to this day in remote forests. From about 2000 BC, human settlement of Southeast Asia was deeply affected by successive innovations that took place to the north and west, such as rice and millet farming. A millennium later, knowledge of bronze casting penetrated along the same pathways. Copper mines were identified and exploited, and metals were exchanged over hundreds of kilometers. In the Mekong Delta and elsewhere, these developments led to early states of the region, which benefitted from an agricultural revolution involving permanent ploughed rice fields. These developments illuminate how the great early kingdoms of Angkor, Champa, and Funan came to be, a vital stage in understanding the roots of the present nation states of Southeast Asia. Assembling the most current research across a variety of disciplines--from anthropology and archaeology to history, art history, and linguistics--The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia will present an invaluable resource to experienced researchers and those approaching the topic for the first time.

The Routledge Handbook of Bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands

The Routledge Handbook of Bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands
Author: Marc Oxenham
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1000
Release: 2015-11-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131753400X

In recent years the bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands has seen enormous progress. This new and exciting research is synthesised, contextualised and expanded upon in The Routledge Handbook of Bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. The volume is divided into two broad sections, one dealing with mainland and island Southeast Asia, and a second section dealing with the Pacific islands. A multi-scalar approach is employed to the bio-social dimensions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands with contributions alternating between region and/or site specific scales of operation to the individual or personal scale. The more personal level of osteobiographies enriches the understanding of the lived experience in past communities. Including a number of contributions from sub-disciplinary approaches tangential to bioarchaeology the book provides a broad theoretical and methodological approach. Providing new information on the globally relevant topics of farming, population mobility, subsistence and health, no other volume provides such a range of coverage on these important themes.

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory
Author: Philip J. Piper
Publisher: ANU Press
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2017-03-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1760460958

‘This volume brings together a diversity of international scholars, unified in the theme of expanding scientific knowledge about humanity’s past in the Asia-Pacific region. The contents in total encompass a deep time range, concerning the origins and dispersals of anatomically modern humans, the lifestyles of Pleistocene and early Holocene Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, the emergence of Neolithic farming communities, and the development of Iron Age societies. These core enduring issues continue to be explored throughout the vast region covered here, accordingly with a richness of results as shown by the authors. Befitting of the grand scope of this volume, the individual contributions articulate perspectives from multiple study areas and lines of evidence. Many of the chapters showcase new primary field data from archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. Equally important, other chapters provide updated regional summaries of research in archaeology, linguistics, and human biology from East Asia through to the Western Pacific.’ Mike T. Carson Associate Professor of Archaeology Micronesian Area Research Center University of Guam

Human Adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic

Human Adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic
Author: Ryan J. Rabett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2012-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107018293

This book examines the first human colonization of Asia and particularly the tropical environments of Southeast Asia during the Upper Pleistocene. In studying the unique character of the Asian archaeological record, it reassesses long-accepted propositions about the development of human 'modernity.' Ryan J. Rabett reveals an evolutionary relationship between colonization, the challenges encountered during this process - especially in relation to climatic and environmental change - and the forms of behaviour that emerged. This book argues that human modernity is not something achieved in the remote past in one part of the world, but rather is a diverse, flexible, responsive, and ongoing process of adaptation.

AUSTRONESIAN DIASPORA

AUSTRONESIAN DIASPORA
Author: Bagyo Prasetyo
Publisher: UGM PRESS
Total Pages: 602
Release: 2021-01-28
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 6023862020

This book is a proceeding from a number of papers presented in The International Symposium on Austronesian Diaspora on 18th to 23rd July 2016 at Nusa Dua, Bali, which was held by The National Research Centre of Archaeology in cooperation with The Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums. The symposium is the second event with regard to the Austronesian studies since the first symposium held eleven years ago by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences in cooperation with the International Centre for Prehistoric and Austronesia Study (ICPAS) in Solo on 28th June to 1st July 2005 with a theme of “the Dispersal of the Austronesian and the Ethno-geneses of People in the Indonesia Archipelago’’ that was attended by experts from eleven countries. The studies on Austronesia are very interesting to discuss because Austronesia is a language family, which covers about 1200 languages spoken by populations that inhabit more than half the globe, from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island (Pacific Area) in the east and from Taiwan-Micronesia in the north to New Zealand in the south. Austronesia is a language family, which dispersed before the Western colonization in many places in the world. The Austronesian dispersal in very vast islands area is a huge phenomenon in the history of humankind. Groups of Austronesian-speaking people had emerged in ca. 7000- 6000 BP in Taiwan before they migrated in 5000 BP to many places in the world, bringing with them the Neolithic Culture, characterized by sedentary, agricultural societies with animal domestication. The Austronesian-speaking people are distinguished by Southern Mongoloid Race, which had the ability to adapt to various types of natural environment that enabled them to develop through space and time. The varied geographic environment where they lived, as well as intensive interactions with the outside world, had created cultural diversities. The population of the Austronesian speakers is more than 380 million people and the Indonesian Archipelago is where most of them develop. Indonesia also holds a key position in understanding the Austronesians. For this reason, the Austronesian studies are crucial in the attempt to understand the Indonesian societies in relation to their current cultural roots, history, and ethno-genesis. This book discusses six sessions in the symposium. The first session is the prologue; the second is the keynote paper, which is Austronesia: an overview; the third is Diaspora and Inter-regional Connection; the fourth is Regional highlight; the fifth is Harimau Cave: Research Progress; while the sixth session is the epilogue, which is a synthesis of 37 papers. We hope that this book will inspire more researchers to study Austronesia, a field of never ending research in Indonesia.

Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia

Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia
Author: Yousuke Kaifu
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 1019
Release: 2015-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1623492777

Despite the obvious geographic importance of eastern Asia in human migration, its discussion in the context of the emergence and dispersal of modern humans has been rare. Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia focuses long-overdue scholarly attention on this under-studied area of the world. Arising from a 2011 symposium sponsored by the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, this book gathers the work of archaeologists from the Pacific Rim of Asia, Australia, and North America, to address the relative lack of attention given to the emergence of modern human behavior as manifested in Asia during the worldwide dispersal from Africa.

The Archaeology of Portable Art

The Archaeology of Portable Art
Author: Michelle Langley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2018-04-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315299097

The development of complex cultural behaviour in our own species is perhaps the most significant research issue in modern archaeology. Until recently, it was believed that our capacity for language and art only developed after some of our ancestors reached Europe around 40,000 years ago. Archaeological discoveries in Africa now show that modern humans were practicing symbolic behaviours prior to their dispersal from that continent, and more recent discoveries in Indonesia and Australia are once again challenging ideas about human cultural development. Despite these significant discoveries and exciting potentials, there is a curious absence of published information about Asia-Pacific region, and consequently, global narratives of our most celebrated cognitive accomplishment — art — has consistently underrepresented the contribution of Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. This volume provides the first outline of what this region has to offer to the world of art in archaeology. Readers undertaking tertiary archaeology courses interested in the art of the Asia-Pacific region or human behavioural evolution, along with anyone who is fascinated by the development of our modern ability to decorate ourselves and our world, should find this book a good addition to their library.

The Prehistory of Human Migration

The Prehistory of Human Migration
Author: Rintaro Ono
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2024-07-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1803553669

The Prehistory of Human Migration - Human Expansion, Resource Use, and Mortuary Practice in Maritime Asia presents the current state of archaeological research on the migration and expansion of the first modern humans (Homo sapiens) into the maritime regions of Asia and Oceania. This area, which stretches geographically from the North and Southeast Asian mainland through the archipelagos of Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia all the way to Oceania, has provided us with numerous new insights and discoveries based on data from archaeological and bioanthropological research, thus revealing the cognitive abilities as well as the behavioural adaptations and technological innovations of these early islanders and seafarers that led to the successful colonization of this unique island world. In seven chapters devoted to the themes ‘Modern Human Migration to Maritime Asia and Oceania’, ‘Modern Human Migration, Technology and Resource Use in Maritime Asia’, and ‘Modern Human Migration and Mortuary Practices in Maritime Asia’, leading archaeologists present their research in Wallacea, the Ryukyu Islands (East Asia), and the coastal regions of Northeast and Northeast Asia, and discuss their findings on early modern human migration to Maritime Asia, the utilization of its diverse resources, and the belief systems of these early islanders during the Late Pleistocene.