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.

‘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.

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.

Vietnamese Ceramic Trade to the Philippines in the Seventeenth Century

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Nguyen-Long
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Face ◽  
New Evidence

This paper examines the trade in ceramics from northern Vietnam into island Southeast Asia in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. It focuses on two issues: the question of typology of Vietnamese ceramics and the feasibility of these wares entering the southern Philippines during the years 1663–82. The compilation of an accurate typology has been inhibited by exceedingly brief descriptions in trade records, and the difficulty has been further compounded by the fact that although the Dutch East India Company (VOC) records show Vietnamese ceramics were imported into Batavia and dispersed to regional godowns, no material has yet been reported from either archaeological excavations or accidental finds in island Southeast Asia that can with certainty be ascribed to this era. Furthermore, items proposed in the ceramic literature as wares exported to Southeast Asia in the seventeenth century are, in the face of new evidence, no longer convincing. The typology put forward in this paper is based on VOC trade records and the contemporary literature. It broadly matches material from archaeological sites in Vietnam and in Japan that are from co-eval contexts. Previously untapped archaeological findings from Vietnam contribute a new dimension to this issue.

The Appreciation and Study of Qur’an Manuscripts from Southeast Asia: Past, Present, and Future

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-212
Author(s):  
Annabel Teh Gallop
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The West ◽  
Artistic Creativity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Arts

The focus of this paper is not on theological aspects of the Qur’an, or on the study of the Qur’anic sciences in Southeast Asia over the past centuries, but rather to attempt to trace the path of the appreciation of old copies of the Qur’an in Southeast Asia as part of the historical record of the Islamic heritage of the region.  In this light, Qur’an manuscripts are viewed as objects of material culture which can cast light on the societies which produced them, and as works of art which testify to the heights of artistic creativity in the region, for illuminated Qur’an manuscripts represent the pinnacle of achievements in the arts of the book in Southeast Asia. This historical record can be measured through a survey of how, where, when and by whom Qur’an manuscripts in Southeast Asia were collected, documented, studied and published, both in Southeast Asia itself and in the west.

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.

scholarly journals Phylogeny and ancient DNA of Sus provides insights into neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania

2007 ◽  
Vol 104 (12) ◽  
pp. 4834-4839 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Larson ◽  
T. Cucchi ◽  
M. Fujita ◽  
E. Matisoo-Smith ◽  
J. Robins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Neolithic Expansion

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.

The “Austronesian” Dispersal in Island Southeast Asia

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Denham
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Distance Decay ◽  
Global History ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Cultivation Practices

The dispersal of Austronesian-speaking farmer-voyagers from Taiwan into Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and out into the Pacific is one of the great metanarratives of global history. In this chapter, the major lines of multidisciplinary evidence for the “Austronesian” dispersal into ISEA are critically evaluated. Several key points emerge: usage of the term “Austronesian” should be restricted to languages and not be applied to genetic attributes or material culture; the dispersals of genes and Austronesian languages do not correspond within ISEA; and, there is limited evidence for the dispersal of farming across ISEA together with the spread of Austronesian languages from Taiwan. An alternative, multidirectional, distance-decay scenario is advanced for the spread of domesticated animals and plants, cultivation practices, and other material cultural items, in which the inhabitants of ISEA are active participants in the creation of their own history.

Slavery and the Trumpocene: It's Not the End of the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Claire Colebrook
Keyword(s):  
Living System ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Geological Period

There is something more catastrophic than the end of the world, especially when ‘world’ is understood as the horizon of meaning and expectation that has composed the West. If the Anthropocene is the geological period marking the point at which the earth as a living system has been altered by ‘anthropos,’ the Trumpocene marks the twenty-first-century recognition that the destruction of the planet has occurred by way of racial violence, slavery and annihilation. Rather than saving the world, recognizing the Trumpocene demands that we think about destroying the barbarism that has marked the earth.

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