scholarly journals Faces in the Stone: Further Finds of Anthropomorphic Engravings Suggest a Discrete Artistic Tradition Flourished in Timor-Leste in the Terminal Pleistocene

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sue O'Connor ◽  
Nuno Vasco Oliveira ◽  
Christopher D. Standish ◽  
Marcos García-Diez ◽  
Shimona Kealy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Population Expansion ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Terminal Pleistocene ◽  
Artistic Tradition ◽  
Rock Shelters

Engraving sites are rare in mainland and Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) where painted art dominates the prehistoric artistic record. Here we report two new engraving sites from the Tutuala region of Timor-Leste comprising mostly humanoid forms carved into speleothem columns in rock-shelters. Engraved face motifs have previously been reported from Lene Hara Cave in this same region, and one was dated to the Pleistocene–Holocene transition using the Uranium–Thorium method. We discuss the engravings in relation to changes in technology and material culture that took place in the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological records in this region of Timor as well as neighbouring islands. We suggest that the engravings may have been produced as markers of territorial and social identity within the context of population expansion and greater inter-group contacts at this time.

Reconnecting Genes, Languages and Material Culture in Island Southeast Asia: Aphorisms on Geography and History

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Denham ◽  
Mark Donohue
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Human Genetics ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Multidisciplinary Data ◽  
History Of

The Holocene history of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) is dominated by the ‘Out-of-Taiwan’ hypothesis and derivatives, such as the spread of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic. According to these ideas, approximately 4500–4000 years ago, farmer-voyagers from Taiwan migrated southward into ISEA to subsequently acculturate, assimilate or displace pre-existing inhabitants. These processes are considered to have produced a consilience between human genetics, Austronesian languages and the archaeological record within ISEA, although recurrent critiques have questioned these putative correspondences. These critiques have proposed that each line of evidence should be independently evaluated and considered, rather than assumed to correspond. In this paper, the authors advocate a fuller engagement with and a deeper understanding of the spatial and temporal processes that structure archaeological, genetic and linguistic distributions within Island Southeast Asia. Geography and history are often marginalized in discussions of the Holocene history of ISEA, yet both are fundamental to the interpretation and reconciliation of multidisciplinary data within the region. These themes are discussed using aphorisms that are designed to be illustrative, namely to promote thought and reflection, rather than to be comprehensive.

Archaeological Investigations at two Lesotho Rock-shelters: Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene Assemblages from Ha Makotoko and Ntloana Tsoana

1993 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 39-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Regional Scale ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Terminal Pleistocene ◽  
Strong Contrast ◽  
Rock Shelters

Results of the excavation of two rock-shelters in the Phuthiatsana-ea-Thaba Bosiu Basin of western Lesotho, southern Africa are reported. Later Stone Age occupation at both sites was principally a feature of the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. Analysis of the artefact assemblages shows that, while all in situ occurrences belong to the Oakhurst Industrial Complex, significant differences are apparent between those pre- and post-dating 7500 BC. A shift towards hunting smaller bovids and changes in site occupation at the regional scale are also evident at this time. Differences between the archaeological signatures at the two sites are discussed in the light of recent models of seasonal aggregation and dispersal. Comparisons are drawn with the archaeological record of neighbouring parts of South Africa and a strong contrast is suggested between terminal Pleistocene! early Holocene settlement strategies and those of the recent Holocene within the research area.

scholarly journals Ancient genomes from the last three millennia support multiple human dispersals into Wallacea

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Oliveira ◽  
Kathrin Nägele ◽  
Selina Carlhoff ◽  
Irina Pugach ◽  
Toetik Koesbardiati ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The North ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Time Estimates ◽  
Continental Shelves ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Genome Wide Data

Previous research indicates that the human genetic diversity found in Wallacea - islands in present-day Eastern Indonesia and Timor-Leste that were never part of the Sunda or Sahul continental shelves - has been shaped by complex interactions between migrating Austronesian farmers and indigenous hunter-gatherer communities. Here, we provide new insights into this region's demographic history based on genome-wide data from 16 ancient individuals (2600-250 yrs BP) from islands of the North Moluccas, Sulawesi, and East Nusa Tenggara. While the ancestry of individuals from the northern islands fit earlier views of contact between groups related to the Austronesian expansion and the first colonization of Sahul, the ancestry of individuals from the southern islands revealed additional contributions from Mainland Southeast Asia, which seems to predate the Austronesian admixture in the region. Admixture time estimates for the oldest individuals of Wallacea are closer to archaeological estimates for the Austronesian arrival into the region than are admixture time estimates for present-day groups. The decreasing trend in admixture times exhibited by younger individuals supports a scenario of multiple or continuous admixture involving Papuan- and Asian-related groups. Our results clarify previously debated times of admixture and suggest that the Neolithic dispersals into Island Southeast Asia are associated with the spread of multiple genetic ancestries.

Fataluku

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-425
Author(s):  
Tyler M. Heston ◽  
Stephanie Locke
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
East Timor ◽  
The West ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
West Timor ◽  
Eastern Half

Fataluku ([fataluku], ISO 639-3: ddg) is a language spoken by approximately 37,000 people on the eastern end of Timor-Leste (Lewis, Simons & Fennig 2016). Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, is an independent nation that occupies the eastern half of the island of Timor in island Southeast Asia, which it shares politically with Indonesia in the west. Timor is located north of Australia, between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Bali in the west and New Guinea in the east.

Dong Son drums from Timor-Leste: prehistoric bronze artefacts in Island Southeast Asia

Antiquity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (367) ◽  
pp. 163-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Vasco Oliveira ◽  
Sue O'Connor ◽  
Peter Bellwood
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Image Position

Abstract

scholarly journals The first quantitative assessment of radiocarbon chronologies for initial pottery in Island Southeast Asia supports multi-directional Neolithic dispersal

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0251407
Author(s):  
Ethan E. Cochrane ◽  
Timothy M. Rieth ◽  
Darby Filimoehala
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Demographic Expansion ◽  
The West ◽  
Environmental Diversity ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Work Supports ◽  
Neolithic Expansion

Neolithization, or the Holocene demographic expansion of farming populations, accounts for significant changes in human and animal biology, artifacts, languages, and cultures across the earth. For Island Southeast Asia, the orthodox Out of Taiwan hypothesis proposes that Neolithic expansion originated from Taiwan with populations moving south into Island Southeast Asia, while the Western Route Migration hypothesis suggests the earliest farming populations entered from Mainland Southeast Asia in the west. These hypotheses are also linked to competing explanations of the Austronesian expansion, one of the most significant population dispersals in the ancient world that influenced human and environmental diversity from Madagascar to Easter Island and Hawai‘i to New Zealand. The fundamental archaeological test of the Out of Taiwan and Western Route Migration hypotheses is the geographic and chronological distribution of initial pottery assemblages, but these data have never been quantitatively analyzed. Using radiocarbon determinations from 20 archaeological sites, we present a Bayesian chronological analysis of initial pottery deposition in Island Southeast Asia and western Near Oceania. Both site-scale and island-scale Bayesian models were produced in Oxcal using radiocarbon determinations that are most confidently associated with selected target events. Our results indicate multi-directional Neolithic dispersal in Island Southeast Asia, with the earliest pottery contemporaneously deposited in western Borneo and the northern Philippines. This work supports emerging research that identifies separate processes of biological, linguistic, and material culture change in Island Southeast Asia.

Ideology, Ritual Performance and Its Manifestations in the Rock Art of Timor-Leste and Kisar Island, Island Southeast Asia

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue O'Connor ◽  
Mahirta ◽  
Daud Tanudirjo ◽  
Marlon Ririmasse ◽  
Muhammad Husni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Symbolic System ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Neighbouring Island ◽  
Metal Age ◽  
The Western Pacific

Painted rock art occurs throughout the islands of the Western Pacific and has previously been argued to have motif and design elements in common, indicating that it was created within the context of a shared symbolic system. Here we report five new painted rock-art sites from Kisar Island in eastern Indonesia and investigate the commonalities between this art and the painted art corpus in Timor-Leste, the independent nation that forms the eastern part of the neighbouring island of Timor. We examine the motifs in the Kisar art and suggest that, rather than being Neolithic in age, some of the figurative motifs more likely have a Metal Age origin, which in this region places them within the last 2500 years.

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