The Early Paleolithic Go Da Site and the Bifacial Lithic Industries of Southeast Asia

The lithic industry of the stratified site Go Da in Central Vietnam is described, and its place among the contemporaneous Early Paleolithic sites of East and Southeast Asia is determined. Results of a morphological technotypological analysis of the Go Da assemblage are provided. Go Da is attributed to the An Khe-type sites situated in the eponymous area of Vietnam. Cores and tools were made from pebbles, less often from fl akes. Primary reduction focused on simple pebble cores with natural striking-platforms, whereas radial cores were less common. Predom inant among the tools are picks, scrapers of various modifi cations, choppers, and chopping tools, as well as denticulate and notched tools; also, bifaces occur. These tools belong to a single homogeneous industry, showing common features in primary reduction, preparation, and design of key artifacts. On the basis of analysis of the stratigraphic sequence of Go Da and the absolute date of 806 ± 22 ka BP, generated by the potassium-argon analysis of tektites, it is proposed that the site is older than other dated locations with the An Khe industry. Apparently, it resulted from a convergent evolution of the pebble-fl ake industry introduced by the fi rst wave of Homo erectus from Africa. Go Da and other An Khe sites likely belong to a vast habitation zone of Southeast Asian hominins with technologically and typologically similar industries dating to the boundary between the Lower and the Middle Pleistocene.

Green Technology Innovation, Globalization, and CO2 Emissions: Recent Insights from the OBOR Economies

This study explores the connection between technological innovation, globalization, and CO2 emissions by controlling the critical influence of information and communication technology (ICT) and economic growth in a panel of One Belt One Road (OBOR) countries from 1991 to 2019, utilizing advanced and robust econometric strategies (second generation). In addition, this study also uses an interaction variable (TI*GLOB) to check the interaction role of technological innovation on the linkage between globalization and CO2 emission, besides their direct effect on CO2 emissions in OBOR countries. The outcomes revealed that the linkage between technological innovation and CO2 emissions is negative, and statically significant in all the regions (e.g., OBOR, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, MENA, Europe, and Central Asia). Moreover, the results of globalization show a significant positive relationship with CO2 emissions in OBOR and South Asia region. Nevertheless, it significantly negatively affects environmental pollution in East and Southeast Asia, MENA, Europe, and Central Asia. The results of TI*GLOB indicate that, for the OBOR sample, East and Southeast Asia, and Central Asia, the moderation effects of technological innovation with globalization are significantly negatively associated with CO2 emissions. However, in MENA and Europe, the interaction effect is a significant positive. The coefficient of ICT for OBOR, Europe, and Central Asia are positive and statistically significant; however, for East, Southeast Asia, and MENA regions, these results are statistically negative. Furthermore, the findings are robust, according to various robustness checks that we have performed for checking the reliability of our main findings. The study establishes numerous polities and makes various recommendations, in light of relevant conclusions.

A semantic typology of location, existence, possession and copular verbs: areal patterns of polysemy in Mainland East and Southeast Asia

This study is based on a sample of 116 languages from the Mainland East and Southeast Asian linguistic area. Its first objective is to examine four distinct synchronic patterns of areal polysemy, created by the semantic domains of copular, locative, existential and possessive verbs and the constructions they form. As a consequence, its second objective is to model the diachronic change underlying four language types identified on this basis from the data. We argue that there are three grammaticalization pathways which motivate the four synchronic patterns: Type III languages are distinguished by the grammaticalization chain: (Postural verb) > (Dwell) > Locative > Existential > Possessive, while the other two types, Type II and Type IV, show an opposing pathway: (Grasp) > Possessive > Existential. Type I and Type II languages additionally reveal a recurrent polysemy between Locative and Copular verbs. On this basis, an implicational universal is adduced to the effect that no diachronic adjacency exists between locative and possessive constructions. Crucially, the intervening stage of an existential construction provides the necessary bridging context for possessive reanalysis in this first pathway, while possessive verbs are formally distinct from locatives in the second, bearing no diachronic relationship to them. The findings on the patterns of polysemy sharing reinforce the notion of a clear typological split between Tibeto-Burman languages on the one hand, and Sinitic, Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, and Austroasiatic on the other.

Stable Support for Democracy in East and Southeast Asia? Examining Citizens’ Trust in Democratic Institutions

Recent democratic regressions and crises suggest democracy is at risk across East and Southeast Asia. One of the factors that can determine democratic stability are citizens’ attitudes. While previous research has concentrated on support for democracy-in-principle, this contribution argues that it is political trust, i.e. support for democracy-in-practice, which is crucial for democratic stability. For democracies to be stable, political trust should be high as well as rooted in long-term factors like liberal democratic value orientations or social trust to protect it from short-term fluctuations following economic crises or political scandals. This contribution therefore examines not only the current levels and development of political trust but also whether it is influenced more by long-term factors (liberal democratic value orientations, social trust) or short-term factors (economic performance evaluations, incumbent support). The empirical analysis shows political trust in five East and Southeast Asian democracies (Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, South Korea, Taiwan) to be mostly mediocre and primarily dependent on economic performance evaluations and incumbent support. Among the five democracies, citizens in Japan appear most resilient to democratic regressions; on the other hand, Taiwanese democracy seems least equipped to master future crises.

The Ideological Background of Japanese Expansionism, C. 1900

This paper examines the ideologies informing the expansion of Japanese rule at c. 1900. The core feature discussed is the idea of tenka (天下; literally translated: all under heaven), constituting the group of ruled in terms of a universalist indigenat (kokumin 国民), which allowed its expansion beyond the Japanese archipelago at government discretion. The concept of the universalist indigenat, having been tied to the Confucian perception of the world as a well-ordered and change-absorbing entity, conflicted with the European concept of the nation as a particularistically conceived type of group, tied to the perception of the world as a dynamic and largely unruly entity. During the latter third of the nineteenth and the early years of the twentieth century, some Japanese intellectuals came to appreciate the dynamism enshrined in the European perception of the world and worked it into established universalism. The fusion produced a powerful ideology of colonial expansion targeted primarily at East and Southeast Asia as well as the South Pacific. By contrast, European military strategists and political theorists, unaware of the Japanese strategic conceptions, expected that solely Russia formed the target of Japanese military expansion.

Phylogenetic relationships of xenodermid snakes (Squamata: Serpentes: Xenodermidae), with the description of a new genus

Xenodermidae is a generally poorly known lineage of caenophidian snakes found in South, East and Southeast Asia. We report molecular phylogenetic analyses for a multilocus data set comprising all five currently recognised genera and including new mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequence data for the recently described Stoliczkia vanhnuailianai. Our phylogenetic results provide very strong support for the non-monophyly of Stoliczkia, as presently constituted, with S. borneensis being more closely related to Xenodermus than to the Northeast Indian S. vanhnuailianai. Based on phylogenetic relationships and morphological distinctiveness, we transfer Stoliczkia borneensis to a new monotypic genus endemic to Borneo, Paraxenodermusgen. nov. We also present new morphological data for P. borneensis.

A high-resolution genome of an euryhaline and eurythermal rhinogoby (Rhinogobius similis Gill 1895)

Rhinogobius similis is distributed in East and Southeast Asia. It is an amphidromous species found mostly in freshwater and sometimes brackish waters. We have obtained a high-resolution assembly of the R. similis genome using nanopore sequencing, high throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) and transcriptomic data. The assembled genome was 890.10 Mb in size and 40.15% in GC content. Including 1,373 contigs with contig N50 is 1.54 Mb, and scaffold N50 is 41.51 Mb. All of the 1,373 contigs were anchored on 22 pairs of chromosomes. The BUSCO evaluation score was 93.02% indicating high quality of genome assembly. The repeat sequences accounted for 34.92% of the whole genome, with Retroelements (30.13%), DNA transposons (1.64%), simple repeats (2.34%) and etc. A total of 31,089 protein-coding genes were predicted in the genome and functionally annotated using Maker, of those genes, 26,893 (86.50%) were found in InterProScan5. There were 1,910 gene families expanded in R. similis, 1,171 gene families contracted and 170 gene families rapidly evolving. We have compared one rapidly change gene family (PF05970) commonly found in four species (Boleophthalmus pectinirostris, Neogobius melanostomus, Periophthalmus magnuspinnatus and R. similis), which was found probably related to the lifespan of those species. During 400 Ka-10 Ka, the period of the Guxiang Ice Age, the population of R. similis decreased drastically, and then increased gradually following the last interglacial period. A high-resolution genome of R. similis should be useful to study taxonomy, biogeography, comparative genomics and adaptive evolution of the most speciose freshwater goby genus, Rhinogobius.