Time, diversification, and dispersal on the Australian continent

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-141
Author(s):  
Nicholas Evans
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Australian Family ◽  
Australian Continent ◽  
Time Diversification ◽  
Colonial Contact

Sahul, the ancient continent uniting Australia and New Guinea, is the only inhabited continent uniquely occupied by small-scale societies until colonial contact. And Australia (only separated from New Guinea for 10,000 years) is the only continent exclusively occupied by hunter-gatherers. This makes Sahul, and Australia, crucial for understanding how language has evolved through our deep human past. This chapter addresses three enigmas: first the discrepancy in deep linguistic diversity and typological disparity between the Australian and New Guinea hemi-continents (1 maximal clade in Australia, over 50 in New Guinea), second the apparent relatedness of all Australian indigenous languages despite continuous human occupation for 60,000 years with no external intrusions, and third the recent spread of the Pama-Nyungan branch of the Australian family over seven-eighths of the continent, most likely in the mid-Holocene?

scholarly journals MENEROPONG TIPOLOGI BAHASA-BAHASA DI PAPUA: SUATU TINJUAN SINGKAT

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Yusuf Willem Sawaki (SCOPUS ID: 18635502400)
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Language History ◽  
West Papua ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
Linguistic Groups ◽  
Bird's Head

Tanah Papua, both the Indonesia provinces of Papua and West Papua, is the most diverse linguistic region that has the highest number of indigenous languages in Indonesia. Out of 760s languages in Indonesia, Tanah Papua has about 270s languages. The diversity of languages are not only about the number of languages but also about the linguistic features. Languages is Tanah Papua are divided into two major groups, which are Austronesian and non-Austronesian (known as Papuan) languages. Both major linguistic groups contribute diverse linguistic features ranging from phonological system, word, phrase, clause and sentence structures, as well as diversity of semantic and pragmatic structures. The linguistic diversity is also determined by a contact language history in the region that has been occurred for centuries, especially in the regions of Jayapura and the Bird’s Head of New Guinea. Although the region is linguistically rich, not many linguistic reseach has been doing in the region. We therefore do not have a comprehensive understanding about languages in Papua yet. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief description about grammatical features of languages in Tanah Papua.

Addressing small-scale forestry informal markets through forest policy revision: A case study in Papua New Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 104109
Author(s):  
Micah G. Scudder ◽  
Jack Baynes ◽  
Grahame Applegate ◽  
John Herbohn
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Forest Policy ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Informal Markets

Late Quaternary change in the mountains of New Guinea

Antiquity ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 69 (265) ◽  
pp. 818-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Hope ◽  
Jack Golson
Keyword(s):  
Late Quaternary ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Mountainous Areas ◽  
The South ◽  
Environmental Sequence ◽  
The North ◽  
Australian Continent

At the south and north limits of our region are mountainous areas very different from the open arid spaces of the Australian continent between. In the north, the high country of New Guinea offers a complex and well-studied environmental sequence as the arena for early and puzzling human adaptations, precursor of the extraordinary societies of the island today.

scholarly journals Accurate age estimation in small-scale societies

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (31) ◽  
pp. 8205-8210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoan Diekmann ◽  
Daniel Smith ◽  
Pascale Gerbault ◽  
Mark Dyble ◽  
Abigail E. Page ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Bayesian Approach ◽  
Age Estimation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Monte Carlo Algorithm ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Ranking Order

Precise estimation of age is essential in evolutionary anthropology, especially to infer population age structures and understand the evolution of human life history diversity. However, in small-scale societies, such as hunter-gatherer populations, time is often not referred to in calendar years, and accurate age estimation remains a challenge. We address this issue by proposing a Bayesian approach that accounts for age uncertainty inherent to fieldwork data. We developed a Gibbs sampling Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that produces posterior distributions of ages for each individual, based on a ranking order of individuals from youngest to oldest and age ranges for each individual. We first validate our method on 65 Agta foragers from the Philippines with known ages, and show that our method generates age estimations that are superior to previously published regression-based approaches. We then use data on 587 Agta collected during recent fieldwork to demonstrate how multiple partial age ranks coming from multiple camps of hunter-gatherers can be integrated. Finally, we exemplify how the distributions generated by our method can be used to estimate important demographic parameters in small-scale societies: here, age-specific fertility patterns. Our flexible Bayesian approach will be especially useful to improve cross-cultural life history datasets for small-scale societies for which reliable age records are difficult to acquire.

scholarly journals Immigrant Parents’ Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Care Practices in the Finnish Multicultural Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Leena Lastikka ◽  
Lasse Lipponen
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Immigrant Families ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Immigrant Parents ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Cooperative Partnership ◽  
Education And Care

Although the number of immigrant families is increasing in Finland, the research on their perspectives on early childhood and care (ECEC) services is scarce. The objective of this small-scale case study was to increase the understanding of immigrant families’ perspectives on ECEC practices. Through the qualitative content analysis of interview-based data, four themes emerged as particularly important for working with immigrant families: (a) fostering dialogue and mutual understanding; (b) promoting cultural and linguistic diversity; (c) encouraging cooperative partnership; and (d) providing support and individualized attention. This study contributes to the development of more inclusive and supportive ECEC practices in order to better support families with immigrant backgrounds.

scholarly journals Biodiversity Inventory and Distribution of Metriorrhynchina Net-Winged Beetles (Coleoptera: Lycidae), with the Identification of Generic Ranges

Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 710
Author(s):  
Ladislav Bocak ◽  
Michal Motyka ◽  
Dominik Kusy ◽  
Renata Bilkova
Keyword(s):  
Solomon Islands ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Species Level ◽  
Valid Species ◽  
Distribution Data ◽  
Generic Level ◽  
Biodiversity Inventory ◽  
Australian Continent ◽  
Northern Edge

We reviewed the species-level classification of Metriorrhynchina net-winged beetles to make the group accessible for further studies. Altogether, 876 valid species are listed in a checklist along with known synonyms, combinations, and distribution data. The compilation of geographic distribution showed that Metriorrhynchina is distributed mainly in the Australian region with very high diversity in the islands at the northern edge of the Australian craton, i.e., in the Moluccas and New Guinea (54 and 423 spp. respectively). The neighboring northern part of the Australian continent houses a majority of known Australian species (112 spp.) and the diversity of net-winged beetles gradually decreases to the south (43 spp.). The fauna of Sulawesi is highly endemic at the generic level (4 of 10 genera, 67 of 84 spp.). Less Metriorrhynchina occur in the Solomon Islands and Oceania (in total 22 spp.). The Oriental Metriorrhynchina fauna consists of a few genera and a limited number of species, and most of these are known from the Philippines (51 of 94 Oriental spp.). We identified a high species level turn-over between all neighboring landmasses. The genus-level endemism is high in Sulawesi (4 genera) and New Guinea (11 genera), but only a single genus is endemic to Australia. During the compilation of the checklist, we identified some homonyms, and we propose the following replacement names and a new synonym: Metriorrhynchus pseudobasalis, nom. nov. for M. basalis Lea, 1921 nec M. basalis Bourgeois, 1911; Metriorrhynchus pseudofunestus, nom. nov. for M. funestus Lea, 1921 nec M. funestus (Guérin-Méneville, 1838), Trichalus pseudoternatensis, nom. nov. for T. ternatensis Kleine, 1930 nec T. ternatensis Bourgeois, 1900, Procautires subparallelus, nom. nov. for P. parallelus (Pic, 1926) nec P. parallelus (Bourgeois, 1883), and Cautires pseudocorporaali, nom. nov. for C. corporaali (Pic, 1921: 12), (formerly Odontocerus and Cladophorus) nec C. corporaali (Pic, 1921) (formerly Bulenides, later Cautires). Diatrichalus biroi Kleine, 1943, syn. nov. is proposed as a junior subjective synonym of D. subarcuatithorax (Pic, 1926). Altogether, 161 new combinations are proposed, and 47 species earlier placed in Xylobanus Waterhouse, 1879 transferred from Cautirina to Metriorrhynchina incertae sedis. The study clarifies the taxonomy of Metriorrhynchini and should serve as a restarting point for further taxonomic, evolutionary, and biogeographic studies.

scholarly journals Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manvir Singh ◽  
Luke Glowacki
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Human History ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Social Variation

Many researchers assume that until 10-12,000 years ago, humans lived in small, mobile, relatively egalitarian bands composed mostly of kin. This “nomadic-egalitarian model” informs evolutionary explanations of behavior and our understanding of how contemporary societies differ from those of our evolutionary past. Here, we synthesize research challenging this model and propose an alternative, the diverse histories model, to replace it. We outline the limitations of using recent foragers as models of Late Pleistocene societies and the considerable social variation among foragers commonly considered small-scale, mobile, and egalitarian. We review ethnographic and archaeological findings covering 34 world regions showing that non-agricultural peoples often live in groups that are more sedentary, unequal, large, politically stratified, and capable of large-scale cooperation and resource management than is normally assumed. These characteristics are not restricted to extant Holocene hunter-gatherers but, as suggested by archaeological findings from 27 Middle Stone Age sites, likely characterized societies throughout the Late Pleistocene (until c. 130 ka), if not earlier. These findings have implications for how we understand human psychological adaptations and the broad trajectory of human history.

The Eastern Ports

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Erikson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
Commercial Networks ◽  
Political Structures

This chapter argues that the English Company was most successful in ports with a large local merchant class already adept at overseas trade. The captains were able to engage in trade because of preexisting financial and commercial networks that were willing and able to accommodate a large influx of small-scale commercial actors (factors, captains, officers, and seamen), as well as the larger interests of the Company itself. Overviews of foreign trade institutions, regulations, and practices at eight different ports of call—Batticaloa, Madras, New Guinea, Madagascar, Bantam (Banten), Whampoa (Huangpu, port of Guangzhou), Goa, and Batavia (Jakarta)—demonstrate this point. Each presents a window into the complex social and political structures of eighteenth-century Asian trading ports.

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