Commentary: what Lapita is and what Lapita isn't

Antiquity ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 63 (240) ◽  
pp. 623-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Terrell
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Early Settlement ◽  
Made In

The essays in this special section on early settlement in Island Southeast Asia may be puzzling to readers of Antiquity who are uninitiated to the ways and concerns of archaeologists working in the Pacific. Some of these authors appear almost reluctant to draw conclusions from the evidence they survey. Others champion their own interpretations unequivocally. What is going on here?It may be, as some say, that academics are by nature a quarrelsome lot. Even so, why is the Lapita cultural complex ‘ever a hot source of debate’ (Bellwood & Koon, above, p. 613)? The essays published here may lack the direct cantankerousness of face-to-face confronat international symposia and professional meetings, but they reinforce the suggestion made in Antiquity a year ago that archaeologists in the Pacific today have come to a crossroads where we often find ourselves talking past each other because we are no longer in general agreement on what is interesting about Pacific prehistory and why (Terrell 1988).

Early farming in Island Southeast Asia: an alternative hypothesis

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (335) ◽  
pp. 250-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Denham
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Mariana Islands ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Bismarck Archipelago ◽  
Early Farming

Several recent articles in Antiqui (Barker et al. 201 la; Hung et al. 2011; Spriggs 2011), discuss the validity of, and revise, portrayals of an Austronesian farming-language dispersal across Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) during the mid-Holocene (approximately 4000-3000 years ago) . In conventional portrayals of the Austronesian dispersal hypothesis (e.g. Bellwood 1984/85, 1997, 2002, 2005; Diamond 2001; Diamond & Bellwood 2003) , and its Neolithic variant (e.g. Spriggs 2003, 2007), farmer-voyagers migrated out of Taiwan approximately 4500-4000 cal BP to colonise ISEA from 4000 cal BP (Bellwood 2002) and the Mariana Islands and Palau by c. 3500-3400 cal BP (Hung et al. 201 1). The descendants of these voyagers subsequently established the Lapita Cultural Complex in the Bismarck Archipelago by c. 3470-3250 cal BP (Kirch 1997; Spriggs 1997) and became the foundational cultures across most of the Pacific from c. 3250-3100 cal BP (Kirch 2000; Addison & Matisoo-Smith 2010; dates for Lapita in Denham et al. 2012). A major problem with this historical metanarrative is the absence of substantial archaeological evidence for the contemporaneous spread of farming from Taiwan (Bulbeck 2008; Donohue & Denham 2010; Denham 2011 ).

The role of contact and language shift in the spread of Austronesian languages across Island Southeast Asia

2020 ◽  
pp. 167-194
Author(s):  
Mark Donohue ◽  
Tim Denham
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
South West ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
European Colonization

The spread of modern humans into and across Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific represents the earliest confirmed dispersal of humans across a marine environment, and involved numerous associated technologies that indicate sophisticated societies on the move. The later spread of ‘Austronesian’ over the region shows language replacement on a scale that is reminiscent of the period of state-sponsored European colonization, and yet the Austronesian languages present a typological profile that is more diverse than any other large language family. These facts require investigation. This chapter examines the separate, but intertwined, histories of the region. It shows that the dispersal of Austronesian languages, originating in Taiwan, should not be portrayed as a technological and demographic steamroller. This involves discussion of the nature of pre-Austronesian society and language in the south-west Pacific, and the degree to which it has and has not changed following ‘Austronesianization’.

scholarly journals European and Asian contribution to the genetic diversity of mainland South American chickens

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 191558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Herrera ◽  
Spiridoula Kraitsek ◽  
Jose A. Alcalde ◽  
Daniel Quiroz ◽  
Herman Revelo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
South America ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Control Region ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Mitochondrial Control Region ◽  
South American ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Pacific

Chickens ( Gallus gallus domesticus ) from the Americas have long been recognized as descendants of European chickens, transported by early Europeans since the fifteenth century. However, in recent years, a possible pre-Columbian introduction of chickens to South America by Polynesian seafarers has also been suggested. Here, we characterize the mitochondrial control region genetic diversity of modern chicken populations from South America and compare this to a worldwide dataset in order to investigate the potential maternal genetic origin of modern-day chicken populations in South America. The genetic analysis of newly generated chicken mitochondrial control region sequences from South America showed that the majority of chickens from the continent belong to mitochondrial haplogroup E. The rest belongs to haplogroups A, B and C, albeit at very low levels. Haplogroup D, a ubiquitous mitochondrial lineage in Island Southeast Asia and on Pacific Islands is not observed in continental South America. Modern-day mainland South American chickens are, therefore, closely allied with European and Asian chickens. Furthermore, we find high levels of genetic contributions from South Asian chickens to those in Europe and South America. Our findings demonstrate that modern-day genetic diversity of mainland South American chickens appear to have clear European and Asian contributions, and less so from Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Furthermore, there is also some indication that South Asia has more genetic contribution to European chickens than any other Asian chicken populations.

‘Lapita colonists leave boats unburned!’ The question of Lapita links with Island Southeast Asia

Antiquity ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 63 (240) ◽  
pp. 613-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bellwood ◽  
Peter Koon
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Source Zone ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
New Britain

‘Not another trendy and incomprehensible title,’ some will sigh. No, the title means what it states, albeit with metaphorical flourish. The Lapita cultural complex of Melanesia and western Polynesia, an entity beloved of a generation of Pacific prehistorians and ever a hot source of debate, can now be shown to have retained at least some links with contemporary populations far to the west of its known distribution. This is significant, not least because some scholars identify the immediate source zone for Lapita as having existed somewhere in the islands of Southeast Asia. At the same time, the obsidian quarried by Lapita artisans from Talasea on the Melanesian island of New Britain can be shown to have been among the most far-traded commodities of the Neolithic world.

Early setlement of Island Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific

Antiquity ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 63 (240) ◽  
pp. 547-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Spriggs ◽  
Christopher Chippindale
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
Tropical Islands ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Early Settlement ◽  
Bismarck Archipelago ◽  
The Western Pacific

It was a quarter of a century ago that ANTIQUITY first announced the ‘Pleistocene colonization of Australia’, when Mulvaney (1964) reported secure dates before 12,000 b.p. from Kenniff Cave, Queensland. The last three years alone have seen dates from New Guinea of around 40,000 b.p., early dates from the offshore islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, and dates from Australia itself that show a rapid colonization of both the arid central desert and cold, wet Tasmania – environments very different from the tropical islands of Southeast Asia, whence the first Australasian populations must surely have come. It is a record with great implications for early settlement elsewhere, most plainly of the American continents.

A 4000 year-old introduction of domestic pigs into the Philippine Archipelago: implications for understanding routes of human migration through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea

Antiquity ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 83 (321) ◽  
pp. 687-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Piper ◽  
Hsiao-chun Hung ◽  
Fredeliza Z. Campos ◽  
Peter Bellwood ◽  
Rey Santiago
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Domestic Pig ◽  
Domestic Pigs ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
New Research

New research into the Neolithic of Island Southeast Asia is broadening the old models and making them more diverse, more human – more like history: people and animals can move through the islands in a multitude of ways. The domestic pig is an important tracker of Neolithic people and practice into the Pacific, and the authors address the controversial matter of whether domestic pigs first reached the islands of Southeast Asia from China via Taiwan or from the neighbouring Vietnamese peninsula. The DNA trajectory read from modern pigs favours Vietnam, but the authors have found well stratified domestic pig in the Philippines dated to c. 4000 BP and associated with cultural material of Taiwan. Thus the perils of relying only on DNA – but are these alternative or additional stories?

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