SESSION C1
C1 Fuller, Dorian
Institute of Archaeology, London
RECENT ARCHAEOBOTANICAL ADVANCES IN THE STUDY OF RICE
DOMESTICATION, PRE-DOMESTICATION CULTIVATION AND ARABLE SYSTEMS.
Major leaps forward in understanding rice both in genetics
and archaeology have taken place in the past decade or so—with the publication
of full draft genomes for indica and japonica rice on the one hand, and with
the spread of systematic flotation and increased recovery of spikelet bases and
other rice remains on early sites in China, India and Southeast Asia. This
presentation reviews archaeobotanical evidence that can contribute to
documenting the beginnings and early development of rice agriculture, and
current evidence in both China
and India.
In particular, we will consider distinctions between the potential of a ‘hard’
domestication trait—non-shattering spikelet bases—against
softer ‘semi-domestication’ traits including grain size, awn hairs and
phytolith morphologies. Archaeobotanical evidence allows us to document the gradual
evolutionary process of domestication through rice spikelet bases, grain size
change, phytolith morphometrics and change in weed flora. but also allows us to
suggest the ongoing juxtaposition of wild/weedy rices with cultivated
populations, thus allowing for the ongoing introgression between cultivated and
wild populations. The archaeobotanical evidence is then considered together
with a synthesis of our current understanding of the reticulate framework of
rice phylogeny. This requires a hypothesis of contact-induced hybridization for
the early development of indica rices in northern India,
perhaps ca. 2000 BC, and suggests 2 or 3 dispersal events southwards from China.
C1 Lu, Tracey L-D
Anthropology Department, The Chinese
University of Hong
Kong
FOOD OR FUEL?
RETHINKING RICE EXPLOITATION IN PREHISTORIC SOUTH CHINA
When remains of grass plants are discovered in
archaeological deposits, they are usually interpreted as food residues of human
societies in the past. However, based on findings from harvesting and
cultivation experiments, ethnographic data, and phytolith analysis, it is
argued that rice remains found in some archaeological deposits in South China
may not be remains of food, but are likely remains of fuel instead. It is
further hypothesized that prehistoric human beings in South China might have
initially exploited wild rice as fuel before harvesting the grass for food.
Further, given the extreme small amount of grains produced by wild rice, and
the recent archaeological discoveries in the lower Yangtze River Valley,
the hypothesis of wild rice being cultivated due to the storability of its
seeds is also questioned.
C1 Gilligan, Ian
School of Archaeology
and Anthropology, The Australian
National University
THE NEOLITHIC IN AUSTRALIA: WHY NOT?
Material
and behavioural elements associated with the term Neolithic are almost
completely absent in Australia.
Among the few exceptions are the domesticated dog (originating in northern
China around 10,000 years ago and reaching Australia by 3,500 years ago as the
dingo), together with some evidence for increasing manipulation and control of
wild resources (mainly in southeastern Australia). While it has been suggested
that the latter developments represent independent local trends toward more
complex societies that perhaps might have led to an Australian Neolithic were
they not ‘nipped in the bud’ by the arrival of Europeans, the Neolithic in
Australia is notable essentially for its non-existence. Particularly striking
is the absence of any agricultural practices, despite the availability of
suitable potential plant and animal domesticates. Also not present is another
one of the original (though generally
overlooked) definitive attributes of the Neolithic: the weaving of textile
fibres for clothing. An unconventional model is presented, advocating a
significant formative role for clothing (especially textiles), which suggests
that a typical absence of clothing may provide a clue as to why the Neolithic
did not develop in Australia.
C1 Hill, R.D.
Department
of History and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong
THE CULTIVATION OF PERENNIAL RICE, AN
EARLY PHASE IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN AGRICULTURE?
Domesticated rice, Oryza
sativa L., though a perennial, has long been cultivated as an annual. This
has led a number of commentators to misinterpret the historical record. The
older view that rice was domesticated around the Bay of Bengal and adjoining
parts of mainland Southeast Asia has been
replaced by competing views. One is that rice was domesticated in that region
and the other argues for a once-for-all domestication in the Yangzi valley.
Botanical considerations point clearly to the retention of perennial
characteristics, notably lack of shattering of the mature panicles, while
archaeological and historical evidences suggest cultivation with more than a
single harvest from an initial planting – the practice of ratooning. Evidence
is reviewed briefly for China
and more extensively for Southeast Asia.
Modern field evidence is used to support the notion that ratooning was probably
more widespread in the past and that this practice may represent an early phase
in the history of rice agriculture in Southeast Asia as it does in China.
Some possible implications of this are briefly reviewed.
C1 Ikawa-Smith, Fumiko
Department of
Anthropology, McGill University,
Canada
WHAT IS ‘THE NEOLITHIC’ IN THE JAPANESE ARCHIPELAGO?
The
words ‘Neolithic’ and ‘Aneolithic’ have sometimes been used by biological
anthropologists in Japan describing the cultural contexts of skeletal remains,
but seldom by archaeologists, who preferred Japan-specific terms like ‘Jomon’,
‘Yayoi’, etc. In the Japanese Archipelago, partially ground stone tools appear
during the Late Pleistocene around 35,000 years ago, and the Jomon Period
begins with the addition of pottery to the diversified tool assemblages of
Final Pleistocene around 16,500 years ago. Sedentism is suggested by many Early
Jomon settlements by about 6000 years ago, when the manipulation of some plant species
may also have begun. Even though rice was known in Jomon Japan, the way of life based on its cultivation
marks the beginning of the Yayoi period, which is now dated to about 1000 BC in
Kyushu. Soon afterwards, however, Yayoi
farmers acquired iron tools and ritual bronzes. Otherwise, the concept of
‘Neolithic Revolution’ would have been applicable, even with the early
radiometric dates, to the Yayoi adoption of rice agriculture, as the Yayoi
society went through a rapid transformation towards state formation during the
few centuries BC and AD.
C1 Blench, Roger
Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, Cambridge
WAS THERE AN AUSTROASIATIC PRESENCE IN ISLAND SE ASIA PRIOR TO THE AUSTRONESIAN EXPANSION?
No Austroasiatic languages are spoken in island SE Asia today, although
we know from the Chamic languages of Vietnam and the SA Huynh culture
that contact was extensive between the mainland and the islands. However, the
diversity of Neolithic materials in various island sites has led some
archaeologists to question the Austronesian ‘Neolithic package’ model, without
advancing a positive alternative. This paper suggests that Austroasiatic
speakers had reached the islands of SE Asia (Borneo?)
prior to the AB expansion and that this can be detected in both the
archaeology, the languages and the synchronic material culture. The paper will
focus in part on the transfer of taro cultivation as part of this process.
C1 Oliveira, Nuno Vasco
State Secretariat of Culture, Government of Timor-Leste; ANU
Visiting Fellow
PAST PLANT MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS: AN ARCHAEOBOTANICAL PERSPECTIVE FROM TIMOR-LESTE
The history of plant management and agricultural origins in Timor and the wider region has been mostly investigated
through more indirect proxies, such as animal domesticates, pottery and pollen
records. The archaeological and archaeobotanical project conducted in
Timor-Leste between 2004 and 2008 aimed at investigating early plant food
management and the introduction of agriculture, using charred plant remains
from archaeological sites as a direct line of evidence. The results obtained
confirm the absence of rice or millets in any of the excavated assemblages,
suggesting that none of these crops were introduced to Timor-Leste with the
first pottery or animal domesticates. They have arrived only in a later period,
possibly within the last 2000-1500 years, when the caves investigated were no
longer being systematically used for habitation purposes. The macro- and
microbotanical analysis undertaken also suggests that a range of fruits and
tubers have been in use in Timor since the
early- to mid-Holocene, and that plant exploitation probably goes back as far
as ca. 40.000 years before present.
C1
Andjarwati Sri Sajekti
Muséum
national d’histoire naturelle, Paris
AN INDICATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE BASED ON PALYNOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN
TELAGA CEBONG, DIENG, CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA.
The study of
the ancient vegetation of Quaternary Period in Java still needs further
research in order to gain a better understanding about minor climatic and
environment changes, especially after and before the big even of Last Glacial
Period (LGP) which constitute a major factor of the global climate cycles. This
phenomenon impacted on the global environment and subsistence aspect on other
system such as flora, fauna and human. The vivant were able to survive by
adapting to this condition with the altered features in local and global
ecosystem. The vegetation is the resistant object to record these phenomena,
which brunt to global alteration environment cycle. This research explores the preservation of the pollen during the Holocene
Period using samples from the Dieng Plateau area in the Central of Java. Biomass
burning and resulting fire regimes are major drivers of vegetation changes and
the ecosystem dynamics. Although there is unbalance frequencies between the
charcoal and the ash based on the stratigraphical record, the present of
charcoal and ash suggest there were fire activities. This phenomenon raises the
question whether human activity could cause the fire, although there is also a possibility
of natural causes.
Big
quantities of charcoal on level 2 correlated with the high quantities of pollen
record and suggest human activities on the pre-agricultural such as burning of
semi arid vegetation for extension of land extension that could lead to the
deforestation. Also, the Monsoon gave long drier season as the collapse
condition on the lowland makes human cannot conduct cultivation thus force the
human to leave the area and moved to highland. The
purpose of this research is to understand the climatic changes and the impact
of the anthropic activities to the environment based on quaternary vegetation
record from Dieng highland. The vegetation from Telaga Cebong proposes a
correlation of human cultivation activities in Dieng Plateau around 2540 BP.
The presence of Poaceae in the highland is an indication of deforestation which
was done by human to fulfill their subsistence. Aside from natural event (such
as fire caused by the long drier season and the volcanic explosion), human
activity was one of the major factors that influenced environmental change.
C1 Anggraeni
School of Archaeology
and Anthropology, Australian
National University
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT ON THE KARAMA RIVER, WEST SULAWESI
The result of survey and excavations along the Karama River
supports the role of this river as one of important arterial routes for human
migration and interaction since the Neolithic period onward. This has been
demonstrated by the establishment of Austronesian characteristics of Neolithic
settlement at Minanga Sipakko and Kamassi, Kalumpang district, about 90 km
upstream, and currently by the existence of pre-Neolithic through Paleometallic
sites closer to the river mouth. Such evidence suggest that the sequence and the
development of occupation among those sites was quite complex. These problems,
which relate to explanations for the direction of movement to the Kalumpang
sites (whether via the river mouth or inland) will be discussed based on the
characteristics of the finds and geomorphology of the region.
C1 Lape, Peter
University of
Washington,
USA
Tanudirjo, Daud
Gadjah Mada
University,
Indonesia
THE EARLY “NEOLITHIC” ON PULAU AY, INDONESIA
This paper presents new data from several recently excavated
early agricultural sites on the island
of Pulau Ay, in eastern Indonesia.
Implications for this new data on theories of migration and networks are
considered.
C1 Simanjuntak, Truman
Center for
Prehistoric and Austronesian Studies, Indonesia
RESEARCH PROGRESS ON AUSTRONESIAN
STUDIES IN INDONESIA
This paper discusses new discoveries about early
Austronesian-speaking people in Indonesia.
Intensive researches at the Neolithic sites in various islands give a better
understanding on the dispersal of the early Austronesian speakers, including
the characteristics of their material culture. The dates obtained from a number
of sites reveal that Sulawesi was the oldest
occupation island (dates back to 3500-4000 BP) before they moved to various
other islands in the archipelago. Here, the early Austronesian speakers
preferred to settle along the river side or places near water sources, by
exploiting the available natural sources.
There seem to be two modes of
Austronesian occupation at the time: occupying caves or rock shelters in karstic
areas, which led to process of interaction with the indiginous population; or
staying on open uninhabited spaces. The most common material culture remains
are pottery (red-slipped and cordmarked wares), polished stone adzes (and axes
in eastern Indonesia)
and bracelets. The presence of early Austronesians in the archipelago is part
of their global diaspora, particularly within the Southeast Asia-Pacific
regions.
C1 Sergusheva, Lena
Institute of History,
Archaeology and Ethnology, Far Eastern Branch of Russian
Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, Russia
FIRST CULTIVATORS OF
RUSSIAN FAR EAST: RESULTS OF ARCHEOBOTANICAL STUDY
Archaeobotanical investigations were conducted for a series
of Neolithic sites of the south of Russian Far East (Primorye Territory)
dated in the range 5200-3300 BP. According them broomcorn millet (Panicum
miliaceum) and perilla (Perilla frutescens) were the first cultural
plants for this region. They were brought by migrants from the neighbor zone of
the modern North-Eastern China. It seems that this migration process began
after cooling of climate (about 5200 BP). Migratory groups went on Primorye Territory by the different ways and
brought the different species of millet. The agriculture products were not the
staple foodstuffs of them. The significance of plant production for human
subsistence systems grew up gradually during the Late Neolith period and might
become one of the basic component of subsistence systems by the Palaeometal Age
(about 3000 BP).
C1 Kuzmin, Yaroslav V.
Institute of Geology &
Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy
of Sciences, Novosibirsk,
Russia
THE NEOLITHIC OF THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST AND NEIGHBOURING EAST
ASIA: DEFINITION, CHRONOLOGY, AND ORIGINS
Today there is no
universal definition of the term “Neolithic” in world archaeology. Coined by
John Lubbock in the 1860s, it included first of all the presence of polished
tools (and to some extent pottery;see Lubbock
1878: 16). In the 1920s, the meaning of “Neolithic” became almost synonymous
with the presence of productive economy (livestock breeding and cultivation of
plants), after V. Gordon Child’s introduction of the “Neolithic Revolution”
concept. However, as progress in the study of prehistoric archaeology and
economy was made since the 1940s, it became clear that the Childean model of
the Neolithic can be applied only to Europe and to some extent to the Middle
East (here the term “pre-pottery Neolithic” was introduced to define the
productive economy prior to the invention of pottery). In other parts of the
Old World productive economy and pottery didn’t appear simultaneously, and this
has caused significant difficulty in determining the meaning of the Neolithic,
especially in East Asia with the oldest
pottery complexes. The most conventional understanding of the Neolithic epoch
in East Asia (mainly China, Japan, Korea, and the southern part of the Russian
Far East) is that it comprises the pottery-containing cultural complexes (see
works by Chester S. Chard, Gina L. Barnes and others). Today, the earliest
pottery in East Asia is dated to ca.
15,000–13,500 BP. Agriculture (in the form of early millet and rice
cultivation) appeared around 9000 BP, and in some regions significantly later.
As for the agricultural component of the East Asian Neolithic, it appeared in
Central China (millet) and in South China (rice) at around the same time, ca.
9000 BP. Millet cultivation spread mainly toward the north (Northern and
Northeastern China, Japan, Korea, and the Russian Far East), while rice
horticulture was brought to the south, including Southeast Asia, and later on
to the north (Korea and Japan).
Chronologically,
the beginning of the Neolithic in East Asia
coincides with the gradual warming in the Late Glacial, although there is no
direct correspondence between the warm climatic episode(s) and the invention of
pottery. It seems that pottery-making emerged in several places in continental
(southern China and the Amur River basin
of the Russian Far East) and insular (Japanese Archipelago) regions of East Asia approximately at the same time, after ca.
15,000 BP. The spread of pottery from the original
core areas was a complex process, with significant delays in several regions of
East Asia and neighbouring Southeast Asia. The
spatiotemporal patterns of this process need more research, and the simple
diffusion of knowledge for making the clay vessels from the place of origin to
the adjacent territories contradicts current knowledge. The spread of the
Neolithic in East Asia and neighbouring
territories therefore was a quite “non-linear” process in time and space. The
Jomon of Japan is one of the clearest examples of elaborate material culture
and affluent economy without significant (if any) agriculture prior to the
advent of rice cultivation about 2700–2500 BP.
It is clear that
concepts of the Neolithic and Neolithisation require substantial revision in
terms of their meaning. While pottery remains the most universal phenomenon
associated with the Neolithic stage (with some reservations; for example, for
Northwestern North America and Australia
where pottery was absent before European contact), agriculture is not common in
many early Neolithic complexes, especially in East Asia
where the manufacture of utilitarian clay vessels definitely preceded plant
cultivation by several millennia. Two major trajectories of the Neolithic can
be distinguished in the Old World: 1)
Levantine-European, with agriculture as the main criterion of the Neolithic;
and 2) East Asian, with pottery as the first indicator of the new cultural
epoch following the Palaeolithic. There are many “intermediate” archaeological
complexes which do not belong to these general categories.
C1 Vostretsov,
Yuri E.
Gelman,
Eugenia.I.:
Far Eastern
Branch of Russian
Academy of Sciences
ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES AND ADOPTION OF
AGRICULTURE IN COASTAL AREA OF THE SEA
OF JAPAN DURING MIDDLE
HOLOCENE.
Having
considered four time intervals which correspond to turning points in cultural
evolution of the population of Primorye and neighboring regions of the Sea of Japan basin.1. - 5400–5200 BP; 2. - 4700-4300 BP;
3. - 3600 – 3200 BP; 4. - 2500-2200 BP. All the intervals were connected with
climate cooling and fall of the sea level, and coincide with emergence of new
cultural traditions and adaptations. The first and forth are connected with two
stages in penetration of agriculture into coastal Primorye.
We suggest explanatory model of spreading agriculture in
coastal area of the Sea of Japan during the
Middle Holocene in environmental context. 1. agriculture spread to new territories
after and as a result of some ecological stresses, which destroyed resource
bases and subsistence systems and led to depopulation of the territory; 2. agriculture
spread to free territories quickly and had a wavy and pulsatory character; 3. emergence of agriculture was connected with
appearance of new population with a different, more stable cultural tradition
of agriculture.
C1 Tsydenova, Natalia V.
Institute of Mongolian,
Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Ulan-Ude,
Russia
ON THE ISSUE OF TRANSITION TO THE
NEOLITH IN ZABAIKAL’YE
Transition to the Neolith and the emergence of the earliest
centers of pottery is one of the most discussed problems in the modern stone
age - archaeology (Vetrov, 1995, 2008; Jal and others, 2001). The formation of
"primary" Neolith is dated within the limits of 11-15 thousand years
ago. Labely the monuments of upper paleolithic (or mesolithic) traditions of
making stone tools, existing alongside with the earliest ceramics were found
and actively investigated on the territory of north-east of Central Asia - in
Buryatia, Far East, China,
Japan.
In this context the material of the site Krasnaya Gorka dates as the earliest
stage of Neolith on the analogy of the sites of Ust-karengskaya culture on the
river Vitim is of particular interest. The
earliest neolithic levels of Ust-Karenga were dated within the limits of 11-12
thousand years by the use of the methods of absolute-dating [Aksenov, Vetrov
and others, 2000]. However, the collection of Krasnaya Gorka looks somewhat
different in comparison with the materials of the Upper Vitim - one of the
centers of the pottery emergence in Asia.
Among artifacts there are also wedge-cores and bifaces. The similarity is also
observed in the technology of knapping, which represent a cycle similar to that
reconstructed by V.M. Vetrov for Ust-karengsky culture [Vetrov, 1995]. Blanks
for the cores with bifacial underworking and those prepared out of small nodule
of suitable raw material, which received a wedge shape by the use of lateral
spalls are presented in the collection. Transverse burins with lateral retouch
widle presented in Ust-karengsky sites were found there only for the last
years. However, the lack ornamentation makes the pottery different from the
Ust-karengsky vessels. Another difference from the Ust-karengsky monuments is
the presence of tools on bifaces. The stone implements of the site are similar
to the material of such paleolithic sites on the Lower
Vitim as Invalidnoe III, Kovrizhka I and II, Bryzgunia I dated up
to 11190 ± 390 years ago. The ceramics was not found there. First and foremost
there are prismatic and wedge-shape cores and bifases [Tetenkin, Ineshin, 2005,
p. 96-104]. Analogys for the part of stone implements more remote
geographically than those of Vitimsky are traced in the early Neolithic levels
of Ust-Menja - 1 (7,8), and Studenoye - 1 (8,9) [Konstantinov, 1994, Fig.
52-53, Fig. 69-70]. But the pottery has some differences. All this material is
of undoubted interest both in the light of recent data on Neolithic sites dated
more than 10000 ago in Asia on the whole and the geographically near ones
[Aksenov, Vetrov, and others, 2000; Lapshina, 2000; Jahl, and others, 2001;
Kuzmin, 2005].
C1 JIA, Peter Weiming
University of Sydney
INITIAL RESULT FROM THE EXCAVATION OF THE LUANZAGANGZI
SITE, XINJIANG, CHINA
The
excavation at the Luanzagangzi site (1300BC-900BC) has achieved promising
results. First, the material culture has been clearly identified and
scientifically dated which is a significant improvement in cultural identification
and chronology in local regional archaeology. Second, the analysis of charred
seeds recovered by flotation indicates that early farming occurred during the
Bronze Age on the northern Tianshan slope of Zhungerer Basin.
The variety of crop seeds found during flotation shows this farming was a form
of multi-cropping which possibly contained wheat, millet and barley. As a parallel
reference, crop seeds were also found at Wupu, Harmi, and Xiaohe cemetery dating
around 2000 BC. These crops came into Xinjiang from different areas during the
early Bronze Age; wheat and barley were possibly brought here from further west
in Central Asia and West Asia. Through the
transitional zone of the Zhunggerer Basin in Xinjiang these crops were brought to the upper
Yellow River and central China.
Millet followed the same route in the opposite direction, from central China
to Xinjiang and further west. This reflects the early connections between east
and west. However, the crop seeds found at Luanzagangzi are the first scientifically
identified domestic plants in this region. Finally, the results of starch
residue analysis suggests that besides the crops, stone tools were used for
processing a variety of plants. Based on initial starch identifications, some
starch granules on the stone tools are possibly herbal medicines. The starch
residue analysis suggests that this method should be encouraged in future archaeological
fieldwork.
C1 Takamiya, Hiroto
Sapporo University
AGRICULTURAL ORIGINS ON THE ISLANDS
OF OKINAWA, JAPAN
Beginning of agriculture is one of the most puzzling themes
in the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology. According to Price and Gebauer,
more than thirty hypotheses have been proposed in order to explain agriculture
origins. At the same time, the spread of agriculture has become as puzzling
theme as the agriculture origins. If foraging way of life is easier than
farming, why hunter-gatherers accepted farming? The islands of Okinawa were inhabited, most likely, by foragers from
ca.6500 BP or ca.4000 BP for several thousand years. Then, by the 12th century
AD, intensive farming system was established on the islands. This paper will
discuss when the food production began on the islands. The paper also will
investigate how and why new economic system emerged there. The likely answer
appears to be demic diffusion.
C1 Hung,
Hsiao-chun
Academia Sinica, Taipei & Australian
National University,
Canberra
THE FIRST
SETTLEMENT OF REMOTE OCEANIA: LUZON TO THE MARIANAS
While all of the other languages of Micronesia belong to the Oceanic subgroup of
Malayo-Polynesian, the indigenous languages Chamorro in the Marianas and
Palauan in the Palau
islands, appear to belong to Western Malayo-Polynesian. A number of
archaeologists have suggested that there were close cultural relations between
the Marianas and the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic, such as western
Sulawesi, the Sulu archipelago, Masbate, and the Cagayan
Valley shell middens in northern Luzon. This paper examined available carbon-14 dates, and
details of pottery decoration and shell artifacts, and suggested that many
similar cultural traits were shared between the Neolithic cultures of southern Taiwan, Batanes, Luzon, Masbate and the Marianas. The settlement of the Marianas from the
northern Philippines
would have involved an open ocean crossing of about 2600 kilometres.
C1 Trejaut, Jean
Lee, Chien-Liang
Yen, Ju-Chen
Loo, Jun-Hun
Lin, Marie
Molecular
Anthropology and Transfusion Medicine Research
Laboratory Mackay
Memorial Hospital,
Taipei
MITOCHONDRIAL, Y CHROMOSOME AND AN
ANCIENT DNA MOLECULAR GENETIC ANALYSIS IN TAIWAN
AND ISLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA.
Abstract: Mitochondrial
DNA (mrDNA) and non recombining Y chromosome (NRY) are uni-parentally inherited
from mother to daughter or from father to son respectively. Their polymorphism
has initially been studied to demonstrate the out of Africa
hypothesis. Here, to better reflect the complex dynamics of populations in
insular Southeast Asia, mtDNA information (lineages) obtained from HVS-I &
II genotyping among 1400 individuals from island Southeast
Asia, Taiwan and
Fujian was
supplemented with the analysis of relevant coding region polymorphism.
Secondly, lineages that best represented a Clade (a branch of the genetic tree)
in the generic phylogeny of the whole data set were sequenced using complete
genomic mtDNA sequencing. Finally, these complete mtDNA sequences were used to
construct a most parsimonious tree and constitute the most up to date data set
available on Island Southeast Asia and Taiwan to date. This maternal
heritage has brought up new insights into the evolutionary history of Taiwan and has strong implications in assessing
the cultural and demographic relations of Taiwan with neighboring regions.
To obtain a more objective and balanced genetic point of
view, NRY chromosome was used. This analysis was achieved using slowly evolving
biallelic Y-single nucleotide polymorphism (Y-SNP). This was actually the first
time that such a high resolution technique was used for ISEA and Taiwan
regions. As above, the technique was applied to determine affinities (macro
analysis) between Taiwanese populations (mountain tribes, plain tribes, Minnan
and Hakka), the Philippines
and Indonesia.
Moreover, sixteen Y- short tandem repeats (Y-STR) were also used as they allow
deeper insight (micro analysis) into the relationship between individual of a
same region. A better definition of the relational, demographic and
emigrational components that constitute the make up of the present day
Taiwanese peoples was obtained with outstanding findings on the routes of
migration that occurred during the settlement of insular Asia.
Also included in the project was the construction of a state
of the art "ancient human DNA" laboratory. The study has brought up
new insights on the past genetic structure of the plain tribe people of Taiwan.
We showed that Han/Fujian affinity was present among people who lived at the
Nan-Ke (Nankuanli) site. One possibility is that an important part of this
genetic sharing could have been brought up by mainland southeast Asians (MSEA)
who would have settled in Taiwan
between 2000 and 4000 yrs ago (or more). Further study, is now undertaken to
demonstrate this still questionable "ancient cohabitation" hypothesis
between MSEA and plain tribes peoples. These results will be discussed using a
conceptual approach.
C1 Matsumura, Hirofumi
Sapporo Medical
University,
Japan
Marc F. Oxenham, Peter Bellwood
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, ANU
Nguyen Kim Thuy, Nguyen
Lan Cuong, Nguyen Kim Dung
Institute of Archaeology,
Hanoi
POPULATION HISTORY OF
MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA: VIEWED FROM HUMAN REMAINS OF MAN BAC SITE IN NORTHERN VIETNAM.
Southeast Asia is thought to have been occupied by
indigenous people, who exchanged genes with immigrants from North/East
Asia leading to the formation of present-day Southeast Asians.
This model is linked with the dispersal of farming populations by
archaeological data, and also supported by a wide range of genetic and
linguistic data. To address this scenario of population history in mainland
Southeast Asia using prehistoric human skeletal remains, the authors have
focused on the Man Bac site, which is located in Yen Mo district, Ninh Binh
province, northern Vietnam.
Our latest excavation project in 2004 and 2007 revealed 76 inhumation burials
associated with a considerable number of material objects. The temporal context
of this site was determined to be Neolithic (c. 3,800-3,500 years BP), although
this site so far lacks any evidence for rice farming. In terms of the local
cultural chronology, however, the material displays many characteristics close
to the Phung Nguyen culture, associated further inland with rice farming
customs.
Our multivariate analyses using
cranial and dental metrics made large scale comparisons of data from Man Bac
and other Asian and Pacific groups, disclosing the existence of large
intra-group levels of variation within the Man Bac site. Some individuals
resemble the people of the later Dong Son period and modern Vietnamese, while
others had close affinity to the earlier Bac Son and Da But cultural series,
morphologically affiliated with the early Holocene Hoabinhians. This finding
suggests an initial appearance of immigrants in northern Vietnam, biologically related to population
stocks in northern or eastern peripheral East Asian areas, including southern China,
followed by admixture with pre-existing populations. The Man Bac skeletons may
be key specimens to support the ‘Two-Layer’ hypothesis in discussions
pertaining to the population history of Southeast Asia.
C1 Nguyen Kim Dung
Hanoi, Vietnam
THE AN SON AND MAN BAC NEOLITHIC
SITES: A CASE STUDY OF EARLY AGRICULTURE IN VIETNAM PREHISTORY.
Though located very far from each other and in different
enviroments, current excavations have revealed very rich assemblages of
pottery, stone tools, plant and animal remains from An Son (Long An Province,
lower Mekong basin) and Man Bac (Ninh Binh Province, lower Red basin). The
paper will present our information from these two excavations, at An Son in 1997
and 2009, and at Man Bac from 20042007. Both sites are dated between 3500 and
3900 BP. The finds include many in situ
burials, mostly in extented supine positions with faces upwards. Grave goods
include pottery, stone tools, white and green jade onarments, and shell beads.
The material and cultural evidence from these sites suggests that the evidence
for agriculture, pottery and jade manufacture, marine resource exploitation and
trade are all excellent markers for the development of the Neolithic of
Vietnam.
C1 Watanabe, Shinya
Waseda University
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF
LITHIC WORKSHOP SITES BETWEEN THE NORTHERN COASTS AND THE CENTRAL
HIGHLANDS IN VIET NAM
The Neolithic cultures that appeared in broad areas of the Indochina peninsula after 2000 BCE show certain common
features, including polished stone axes or adzes, decorated ceramics and
ornaments made from shells or semi-precious stones. Among these objects, a
great variety of polished stone axes or adzes have attracted much attention.
Yet few archaeologists have carried out technological studies on these types of
stone tools. Some lithic workshop sites recently discovered in the Tay Nguyen
area in the Central Highlands in Viet Nam show that a highly
developed flaking technique to produce stone adzes was employed. This technique
is quite different from the sawing or string-cutting found in the coastal area
of northern Viet Nam.
Therefore, several styles of stone tool production can be recognised in the Indochina region. This new discovery of a divergent
practice of stone tool production in the Central Highlands calls for a
re-assesment of the privileging by scholars of coastal Viet Nam systems. Neolithic
cultures in the Indo China peninsula should best be approached by contrasting their
two very different environments, namely, the coasts and plains, and the
highlands and mountain areas.
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SESSION C2
C2 Ono, Rintaro
O'Connor, Sue
Archaeology and Natural History, Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University
PELAGIC FISH
EXPLOITATION DURING THE LATE PLEISTOCENE TO MIDDLE HOLOCENE IN EAST TIMOR (EFFICIENCY OF VERTEBRA ANALYSIS)
In Southeast Asia, there has been only limited evidence for
aquatic resource use prior to the mid Holocene because sea levels were deeply
depressed during the terminal Pleistocene to early Holocene, and the coast far
removed from the sites now located along the modern shore. An exception is
found in parts of Wallacea where the offshore profile drops steeply to the
continental shelf. The north coast of East Timor
is one such region, and the recent excavation at Jerimalai shelter
has produced abundant remains of marine shellfish and fish dated back to 42,000
cal B.P. This is the oldest evidence of Pleistocene marine exploitation in
Island Southeast Asia. Furthermore, our fish bone analysis reveals that the
exploitation of pelagic fish such as tuna was practiced since the initial
occupation around 42,000 cal B.P. and the number (MNI) of pelagic fish is
almost equal to that of inshore fish during the late Pleistocene, while the
number and importance of inshore fish dramatically increases during the early
to middle Holocene. Such evidence, coupled with the appearance of fish hooks in
East Timor in the terminal Pleistocene,
indicates the early adoption of advanced fishing technologies. Of significance
is the fact that 76 % of the identified fish bones from Jerimalai are vertebra;
usually regarded as non-diagnostic and overlooked for analysis. We stress here
the importance of analysis of fish vertebra for reconstructing prehistoric
fishing strategies.
C2 Herrera, Michael
James B.
Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines
Rubio, Raquel O.
Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines
RECOVERY OF ANCIENT
MITOCHONDRIAL DNA SEQUENCES AND THE INTRASPECIFIC PHYLOGENEITC AFFINITIES OF
THE DOMESTIC SUS IN THE PHILIPPINES.
The application of population genetics to the study of the
antiquity of domesticated pigs in the Philippines opens new avenues for
an improved understanding of Philippine prehistory. Pig genetic data can
provide information on the timing and directionality of human mediated
translocations of pigs through the archipelago. When coupled with ancient DNA
(aDNA) studies, the shallow time-depth evolutionary history of pigs can tell us
about the husbandry practices in the Philippines and the genetic
consequences of exploitation of this important food resource by past Filipinos.
Pig hair samples from across the Philippine archipelago as well as several
archaeological pig bones were processed for DNA analysis. The work reveals that
aDNA work on samples from tropical regions is burdened with technical
difficulties, ranging from degraded samples and contamination to PCR inhibition
by co-extracted products. Nevertheless, good progress has already been made,
and the combination of population genetics and aDNA is likely to develop into a
powerful method of constructing a better understanding of Philippine
prehistory.
C2 Ochoa, Janine
Robles, Emil
Archaeological Studies Progam, University of the Philippines
PALAWAN PALAEOZOOLOGY AND PALAEOGEOGRAPHY:
FAUNAL AND SUBSISTENCE CHANGE FROM THE LGM TO THE LATE HOLOCENE
Ille Cave site in Northern Palawan,
Philippines has produced tens of thousands of vertebrate remains from
well-stratified cultural contexts spanning more than 14,000 years. The
assemblage has provided a valuable opportunity to interpret human subsistence
activities, animal resource use and anthropogenic impact on the environment
across time. The assemblage presents new taxonomic accounts of carnivores and
cervids in the Terminal Pleistocene, particularly of deer and tiger. It also
presents evidence for a clear shift in hunting focus during the middle Holocene
when deer becomes rare in the assemblage and pig becomes the main large mammal
prey. Two species of cervid are abundant in the deepest deposits in the Terminal
Pleistocene, but they become increasingly rare in the later horizons and both
are now extinct on the main island. Shifting subsistence practices and
extinction events are attributed to changes in the local ecology of the island,
which are driven by regional climate and palaeogeographic change. Geographic
reconstructions of Palawan Island based on present day topography and bathymetry
show a dramatic decrease in Palawan land area
since the Last Glacial Maximum. Habitat constraints and change in vegetative
cover due to reduction of land area and changes in precipitation patterns put
considerable pressure on the tiger and deer populations that Palawan
held, and human predation likely exacerbated the rarity of these species.
Eventually, the combined environmental and anthropogenic pressures led to the
extinction of these large mammals.
C2 Storey, Alice
University of New
England, Australia
PHYLOGENETIC
RECONSTRUCTIONS AND THE POST-CONTACT HISTORY OF CHICKENS IN THE PACIFIC
Chicken mtDNA amplified from archaeological remains can be
used to reconstruct some aspects of prehistoric migration and interaction in
the Pacific. However, due to the effects of taphonomy and human/animal
interactions in the past, samples are not always available for ancient DNA
analyses. It is then very tempting to use modern chicken samples in an attempt
to supplement ancient DNA information. In this talk I will discuss the known
and potential movements of chicken in the Pacific from the first sailing of
Magellan, through the Manila galleon trade routes, chickens and diseases
introduced by Cook and the introduction of European stocks into the Pacific by
aid agencies such as the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and
the detrimental effects this will have on using modern chicken mtDNA as a way
to trace relationships both within and beyond the Pacific in prehistory.
C2 Hawkins, Stuart
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, College of
Asia-Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
White, Arthur W.
Worthy, Arthur W.
School of Biological,
Earth and Environmental Sciences, University
of New South Wales,
Sydney
Bedford, Stuart
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, College of Asia-Pacific,
The Australian National
University, Canberra
Spriggs, Matthew
School of Archaeology
and Anthropology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian
National University,
Canberra
LAPITA EXPLOITATION OF
THE VANUATU
MEIOLANIID (LAND TURTLE) 3100-2760 B.P.
The Vanuatu
archipelago was first settled by people associated with the Lapita cultural
complex as shown by a number of sites (Bedford 2006) dating from as early as
3100 B.P. They brought a transportable subsistence system which included
domestic animals and crops. However, when they arrived they also encountered
endemic terrestrial mega fauna for the first time, including an extinct
meiolaniid (Giant horned land turtle) currently under study (White et al in
prep). Their response was to exploit these large vulnerable land turtles,
providing an example of the interaction between cultural behaviour and an
island ecological system.
Using various zooarchaeological techniques we show that the
meiolaniid was exploited extensively within the Vanuatu archipelago during the
Lapita phase, while at Teouma it was exploited intensively during the first few
hundred years of settlement, up to the immediately post-Lapita settlement
phase, 2900-2760 B.P. This raises issues of the complex interaction between the
Lapita people and their environment, as it appears that increasingly intensive
settlement led to meiolaniid extinction around this time.
C2 Amphansri, Anusorn
Department of Anthropology, Silkaporn
University, Bangkok
HUNTING ADAPTATIONS OF
THE HIGHLAND PEOPLES OF NORTHERN THAILAND IN
THE LATE PLEISTOCENE AND EARLY HOLOCENE: ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FROM THE
BAN RAI AND THAM LOD ROCKSHELTERS
This paper utilizes zooarchaeological evidence to
investigate prehistoric highland hunting strategies of the Late Pleistocene and
Early Holocene inhabitants of Ban Rai and Thom Lod Rockshelters, the Pang Mapha
district of Mae Hong Son Province, north-western Thailand. Although in close
geographic proximity, the two sites are located in very different topographic
localities that influenced the types of landscape, environment and fauna
present at the end of the Pleistocene. The study suggests that the human
inhabitants of Ban Rai and Tham Lod employed very different hunting strategies
to compensate for the differences in the availability of local faunas. The
study demonstrates that complexity in human hunting techniques has a deep
antiquity within the region.
C2 Piper, Philip
Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines
EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE OR
ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE? WHERE ARE ALL THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE NEOLITHIC OF SOUTHEAST ASIA
In recent years the challenge of identifying the origins of
domesticated and commensal taxa in mainland Southeast Asia and their subsequent
translocation across Island Southeast Asia, Australasia
and on to the Pacific has been championed by modern and ancient DNA analyses
and traditional zooarchaeological research has taken a backstage role. This has
resulted from the assumption that within regions that have native wild pig
populations it is difficult to identify introduced, managed pigs within the
archaeological record. This, and the lack of systematic zoorchaeological
research in large parts of mainland and Island Southeast Asia has left the
region devoid of any archaeological evidence of the occurrences of domestic
animals. This paper demonstrates how traditional zooarchaeological research can
be used to identify ancient domestic animal populations in the archaeological
record and help find and target samples for genetic and other technical,
focussed research projects. It also emphasizes the need to study the entire
faunal assemblages recovered from archaeological sites and not only the
domesticated animals to understand the dynamics driving human behavioural
change from hunting and gathering to animal management.
C2 Cucchi, Thomas
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de
Recherche 7209, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, ‘‘Archéozoologie,
Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques et Environnements,’’ Département
‘‘Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité ’’ Paris, France
Dobney, Keith
Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, United
Kingdom
PAST HUMAN
TRANSLOCATION OF PIGS IN ISLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA:
A DENTAL GEOMORPHOMETRIC APPROACH
Pigs have strong economic, social and religious values for
tribal societies of Island South East Asia and have been translocated
throughout the islands, leading to a complex current distribution shaped by
past and present societies. Human dispersal of animals is therefore not only
relevant for understanding the behaviour of prehistoric societies from Island
South East Asia and Oceania but also the chronological context and the species
involved, but the processes are still poorly understood. This paper reveals the
contribution of new technics in Zooarchaeology (Geometric Morphometric and
Palaeogenetic) to decipher the species involved in this human dispersal and to
provide indirect clues to human movements in relation to the Austronesian
migration. The comparative study of the genus Sus osteoarchaeological remains
from the key site of Liang Bua (Flores) with extant taxa (6 species) from
Island South East Asia provided evidence for the antiquity of human
translocations of the Sulawesi warty pigs (Sus celebensis) to the lesser Sunda
islands and Mollucas as well as the dispersal of domestic pigs (Sus scrofa)
throughout the Sunda islands toward Remote Oceania. The latter is linked to the
Neolithic migration of the Lapita peoples, the ancestors of the modern
Polynesians. This discovery provides a new migration path for the Austronesian
diaspora which complements the classic models based on modern genetics and
linguistic.
C2 Basilia, Pauline
Lim, Eleanor
Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines
AN INVESTIGATION OF
TAPHONOMIC EFFECTS ON TRIDACNA SP. MICROSTRUCTURES
Microscopy of artifacts made from marine shells is highly
problematic due to the lack of taphonomic studies of marine shell
microstructural decay in archaeological deposits. The study utilizes
experimental archaeology to investigate some of the possible taphonomic effects
at the microstructural level on the calcium carbonate lattices of Tridacna sp.,
a raw material commonly used in the production of prehistoric adzes and several
types of ornament. Using Scanning Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force
Microscopy, shell specimens and shell beads recovered from Ille Cave,
El Nido, Palawan are examined and compared.
Results shed light on future microscopic investigations on the shell
manufacturing industry with a database distinguishing human alterations and
natural taphonomic processes.
C2 Voen, Vuthy
Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, Ministry of
Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia
ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY
OF PHUM SNAY A PREHISTORIC CEMETERY IN NORTHWESTERN
CAMBODIA
The faunal assemblage recovered from Phum Snay comprises two
different components; grave goods associated with human burials and other
fragments originating from settlement activities. Studies of taxonomic
representation, age profiling, body part representation and treatment of the
animal bones are integrated to demonstrate the differences between the
deliberate positioning of grave offerings and the animal remains associated
with phases of settlement occupation. Taphonomic analyses of the fish remains
incorporated into graves demonstrate that these offerings had been cooked,
possibly as part of a ritual prior to their incorporation into the burials. The
diversity of different mammal, reptile and fish taxa from settlement contexts
suggests a broad-spectrum foraging strategy that incorporated a range of different
environments with somewhat of a focus on forest-adapted species.
C2 Takahashi, Ryohei
Graduate University for Advanced Studies
Ishiguro, Naotaka
Gifu University
Anezaki, Tomoko
Gunma Prefectural Museum
of Natural History
Matsui, Akira
Nara National Institute for Cultural Properties
Hongo, Hitomi
Graduate University for Advanced Studies
DID DOMESTIC PIGS REACH
PREHISTORIC RYUKYU ISLANDS?
We analyzed bones of the genus Sus excavated from Noguni
shell midden (Okinawa main island, Japan, 7000-6600 bp) by using
morphological and phylogenetic methods. The Sus samples from Noguni were
compared to Sus remains from later sites in Okinawa
(ranging from 5500 to 1700 bp) as well as to the modern Ryukyu wild boar. Based
on the length of lower 3rd molar, Sus from Noguni are clearly smaller than
those from other sites in Okinawa. Also, lower
3rd molars from Noguni showed different size range from those of modern Ryukyu
wild boar (Sus scrofa riukiuanus). The analysis of mitochondrial DNA D-Loop
region indicated that Sus from Noguni belong to a different phylogenetic
lineage from modern Ryukyu wild boar, although our data are fragmentary. Based
on the morphological and phylogenetic analysis, we examine two possible
hypotheses: First, Noguni's Sus might have descended from a type of Ryukyu wild
boar that had been extinct. Second, the Sus from Noguni were introduced to Okinawa islands from elsewhere.
C2 Larson, Greger
Department of Archaeology, Durham University
A RIGOROUS EVALUATION
OF THE OUT OF TAIWAN
HYPOTHESIS THROUGH AN ANALYSIS OF PIG, DOG, AND CHICKEN PHYLOGEOGRAPHY.
The establishment of agricultural economies based upon
domestic animals began independently in many parts of the world and led to both
increases in population size and the migration of cultures carrying domestic
plants and animals. The precise circumstances of the earliest phases of these
events remain mysterious given their antiquity and the fact that subsequent
waves of migrants have often replaced the first. Through the use of ancient DNA
derived from pig (Sus scrofa) samples from six East Asian archaeological sites
along the Yellow River valley, and through an analysis of more than 1,500
modern pig samples (including 151 novel specimens), we provide evidence for the
long-term genetic continuity between modern and ancient East Asian domestic
pigs. We also discuss the evidence supporting the case for three additional
independent domestications of indigenous wild boar populations: one in India, and two in peninsular Southeast
Asia. Though the ancestors of pigs derived from one of the
Southeast Asian populations have since been replaced by domestic pigs derived
from Chinese wild boar, they remain vital to inhabitants of Island Southeast
Asia (ISEA) and the Pacific. Lastly, we demonstrate the existence of numerous
populations of genetically distinct and widespread wild boar populations that
have not contributed maternal genetic material to modern domestic stocks. These
results provide the most complete picture yet of pig evolution and
domestication in East Asia, and generate testable hypotheses regarding the
development and spread of early farmers in the Far East.
C2 Rabett, Ryan
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
EARLY HUMAN OCCUPATION OF NINH BINH
PROVINCE, NORTHERN
VIETNAM: EVIDENCE FROM TRANG AN PARK.
The end of the Pleistocene in Southeast
Asia was marked by pronounced coastal inundation. By the
mid-Holocene three-quarters of the previously exposed Sunda Shelf was submerged
beneath the South China Sea. These facts are
well-known; much less well understood, though, is the way that early human
groups responded to these changes, how they adapted their economies and
settlement, and the pace at which these adjustments occurred. Between 14,600
and 14,300 cal. BP sea levels rose by an estimated 5.3 m per 100 years and
continued at an average exceeding 1 m per 100 years until c.11,000 cal. BP and
the early Holocene. These are changes that would have been visible at the human
generational scale, and in Southeast Asia they
provide an ideal opportunity to study the way people coped with major
environmental refurbishment as inland habitats became maritime. Collaborative
exploratory investigation of the archaeological record from Ninh20Binh
province, in northern Vietnam,
has provided a rare opportunity to establish a detailed sequence of early human
activity during this dramatic deglacial phase. The current paper describes the
results of the second year (2008) of excavation at the cave site of Hang Boi in
Tràng An park, and of insights that are emerging into short-term adaptations to
environmental change across the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.
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SESSION C3
C3
Halcrow, Siân
Tayles,
Nancy
Department
of Anatomy and Structural Biology, University of Otago
BIOARCHAEOLOGY
OF PREHISTORIC MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA
Social
identity is fundamental to the structure of societies and culture. As a
specialisation that incorporates both the biological and social sciences,
bioarchaeology is particularly well placed to contribute to the understanding
of social identities in the past. This paper reviews recent bioarchaeological
research in prehistoric Southeast Asia that
is advancing our understanding of social change with agricultural development
in the region, with a focus on recent work on infants and children from Thai
sites.
C3
Willis, Anna
Oxenham,
Marc
School of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Australian National University, Australian National University
NEOLITHIC
BURIAL PRACTICES AT AN SƠN IN SOUTHERN VIETNAM
This paper discusses the preliminary analysis of the
mortuary treatment of individuals from the Neolithic site of An Sơn (~4000
– 3000 BP), located in Long An Province, Southern
Vietnam. 31 individuals from the 2004, 2007 and 2009 excavations
are included in this study. Differences in burial treatment, including grave
inclusions, are examined in order to explore any differentiation in burial
practices based on age, sex, social status or any other social construction of
identity. For instance, how did these individuals socially identify themselves
and others and how was this portrayed in death? These results will be compared
to other contemporaneously relevant sites, for example Man Bac,
to contextualise the funerary practices and explore potential
regional and temporal continuity or variability. Preliminary results suggest
that children as young as a few weeks old were given funerary treatment and
grave goods. The discussion of these findings will contribute to our knowledge
of Neolithic mortuary practices in Southern Vietnam.
C3
Harris, Nathaniel J
Tayles,
Nancy
Department
of Anatomy and Structural Biology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
DISPOSING
OF THE DEAD: THE APPLICATION OF ANTHROPOLOGIE DE TERRAIN TO
BAN NON WAT, THAILAND
Anthropologie
de terrain, also
called 'field anthropology', is a taphonomically based methodology used to
reconstruct past funerary practices. Upon careful examination of skeletal
elements within a grave it is possible to determine: whether a burial was
primary in nature or occurred over multiple episodes;
the original position of the cadaver within the grave; and whether the
body was inhumed, wrapped, or placed in a coffin. Differences in funerary
treatment between individuals could be influenced by a number of social factors
including sex, age, and social status. By examining these differences it can
therefore be possible to make inferences about the social organisation of past
societies.
This
paper describes the results of such an application of field anthropology to
Bronze Age burials from the site of Ban Non Wat, Thailand. This time period
encompasses six mortuary phases and comparisons will be made both within and
between these phases based on sex, age, and burial goods. A potential outcome
of examining the funerary practices of Bronze Age Ban Non Wat is the
identification of preferential treatment based on social identity, which in
turn may add to the current debate over social organisation in Bronze Age Thailand.
C3 Sukliang, Somthawin
Silpakorn University, Bangkok
CHILD MORTUARY RITUAL IN IRON AGE SOUTHEAST ASIA (THAILAND)
There is a lack of archaeological research in Thailand
on childhood, particularly on social aspects of childhood. In response to this
deficiency in research, this study attempts to assess child mortuary ritual to
understand the social system in the Iron Age. This research compares the child
mortuary ritual of the prehistoric Thai sites of Ban Wang Hai and Noen U-Loke,
and the social status of the adults (parents) that may be affecting mortuary
ritual. Mortuary ritual is investigated through excavation records, including
grave goods and burial place. This paper describes similarities and differences
in child mortuary ritual between the two sites and discusses these findings in
relation to social status in the Iron Age.
C3
Bui, Thi Mai
Girard,
Michel
Centre
d'Etudes Prehistoire Antiquite Moyen Age, France
Nguyen
Thi Mai Huong
The Institute of Archaeology, Hanoi
THE
CONTRIBUTION OF PALYNOLOGY IN FUNERAL CONTEXTS: APPLICATION AT THE TRAN PHU
SITE (HANOI).
Pollens
identified in archaeological sediments are often the only witnesses to
vegetation and environment in the past. They can also reflect ritual
activities. Traces of funerary ceremonies can be discerned, as pollen can be
indicative of the attention of living people to the deceased. During funerary
ceremonies, to show respect to the dead or as a ritual, people frequently put
various plants into burials, as a bouquet of flowers, or as medications,
cosmetics, honey and its by-products, or textiles. Pollen analysis results from
graves may therefore lead to better knowledge of the local environment and
allow us to find evidence of funeral rites. To illustrate this subject, some
samples were selected from the Tran Phu site (Hanoi) with the aim of using pollen and spore
analysis results to reveal burial ritual activity. This is the first study
applying this kind of research in Vietnam.
C3
Tilley, Lorna
Oxenham,
Marc
Australian National University
I
FEEL YOUR PAIN: USING A BIOARCHAEOLOGY OF CARE APPROACH TO EXPLORE PERSONHOOD
IN THE VIETNAMESE NEOLITHIC.
Over
the last ten to fifteen years there has been an increasing archaeological
focus on concepts of agency and identity. However, although this provides an
important base for theorising on prehistoric social relations, when applied to
specific examples the end product is often disappointing – only abstract,
generic or even stereotyped communities and individuals emerge. This
presentation suggests that, under certain circumstances, contextualised
analysis of evidence from human remains of the experience of living with
disease or injury can provide a window onto broader contemporary behaviour and
practice, and that this in turn allows a more nuanced insight into questions of
personhood and even into aspects of individual personality. This is illustrated
in the case study of Man Bac Burial 9 (M9), a young man from Neolithic Vietnam
who was paralysed from the waist down and possessed only very limited upper
body mobility, yet who survived in a subsistence economy for over a decade. His
survival indicates time-consuming and dedicated care from his group, and it is
consideration of M9’s care requirements, the likely nature of support received
and the way in which M9 appears to have coped with his condition that form the
basis of this paper.
C3
Huffer, Damien
Australian National University
POPULATION
MOBILITY AND FAMILY STRUCTURE DURING THE NORTHERN VIETNAMESE HOLOCENE
The
skeletal sequences from the sites of Man Bac (Ninh Binh Province,
c. 3800 BP) and Con Co Ngua (Thanh Hoa Province,
c. 5000 BP) represent the largest and, in the case of Man Bac, best preserved
osteological assemblages from the Neolithic period of northern Vietnam.
Furthermore, they chronologically represent both the beginning and end of the
Neolithic, a time period which witnessed marked change in burial ritual, social
organization, and the frequency and range of trade for foreign goods, even
though the adoption of agriculture had yet to occur. These transitions have so
far been documented primarily through archaeological lines of evidence, yet
diachronic bioarchaeological investigations can also prove valuable. Investigations
of large-scale mobility (via nonmetric biodistance and Sr/O18 isotopic
analysis), and the biomechanics of lower body use (via musculoskeletal stress
markers, bilateral asymmetry, squatting facet frequency, and cross-sectional
geometry), can theoretically be correlated to better understand how these
changes affected migration between communities at the population, sex, age, or
subgroup level, and the physical effort exerted in this hypothesized travel,
especially if lower body use increased with long distance trade during the
later Neolithic. Correlations between the biomechanical, isotopic, nonmetric
and mortuary data could, in the case of Man Bac, provide insight into the
nature of kinship networks in this community, and the larger socio-economic
conditions that may have influenced their formation. This presentation will
give an overview of the questions at the heart of my currently in-progress
dissertation research, as well as present an initial exploration of preliminary
data, the limitations inherent in this research, and remaining work.
C3
Garong Ame
Graduate
School of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan and
Archaeology Division, National Museum of the Philippines
Takashima,
Chizuru
Faculty
of Culture and Education, Saga University, Saga,
Japan
Datar,
Francisco
Dept.
of Anthropology, Univ. of the Philippines, Manila
Ronquillo,
Wilfredo
Archaeology
Division, National Museum of the Philippines, Manila,
Kano, Akihiro
Koike,
Hiroko
Graduate School of
Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
OXYGEN
ISOTOPE ANALYSIS USING HUMAN TOOTH ENAMEL CARBONATE FROM ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
IN THE PHILIPPINES
Since
tooth enamel carbonate retains the oxygen isotope composition from the ingested
drinking water and foods during the mineralization process, it could provide
isotopic composition of meteoric water that reflect local precipitation related
to the habitat of the individual. Oxygen and carbon stable isotopic (δ18O
and δ13C) analysis using tooth enamel carbonate enable to estimate
geographical variation and movement amongst past population. Breastfeeding and
weaning patterns are also preserved in the tooth enamel and provide a record of
childhood diet.
A
total of 94 individual from six burial sites in the Philippines were sampled and
analyzed. These are the Batanes site in the northernmost part of the
Philippines associated with boat-shaped and primary jar burials (355±70 BP),
the primary burials(1600-1350 BP) and secondary burials 630-425 BP) from Lal-lo
shell midden sites in Northern Philippines, the 13th century mummies and mass
grave cave burial (17th-18th century) from Kabayan Benguet Mountain Province
northwest of Luzon, the Sta.Ana burial site in Manila (about 1095 AD, the
Romblon site in Romblon Island (14th-15th century) and the Cebu burial site
located in Boljoon Parish Church (18th-19th century), both from Central
Philippines.
Geographical
movement and variation were studied by δ18O analysis using teeth enamel
carbonate. Most of the average δ18O values from each site had a clear
correlation to the precipitation which has the south to north cline (Romblon
(n=18; -6.9‰), Sta. Ana (n= 14; -7.4‰), Lal-lo (n=5; -7.7‰) and Batanes (n=19;
-8.1‰), except for Kabayan site (n=25; -8.5‰) situated in the mountainous
region that showed lower value than average δ18O. Difference of δ18O
values within each site implies higher mobility in the island site like Batanes
(±1.5‰) than those in the inland such as Kabayan site (±1.1) indicating
possible migration. Variations of δ18O values within each individual using
M1, P2, M2 and M3 showed that those from Batanes site were higher than the
other sites. We also examined successive sampling of M1 from the crown to the
cervical line. These results indicate more than 1‰ seasonal differences in each
individuals, suggesting that they might drink stored water from the pond or
jar.
C3 Liu,
Chin-hsin
Department of Anthropology, University
of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Cheng-hwa
Tsang
Yi-chang
Liu
Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Krigbaum, John
Department of Anthropology, University
of Florida, Gainesville, FL
PALEODIETARY RECONSTRUCTION IN IRON AGE NORTHERN TAIWAN: ISOTOPIC EVIDENCE FROM SHIH-SAN-HANG
In this paper we evaluate light stable isotope data to
infer marine vs. terrestrial paleodiet for a sample of adult individuals from
Shih-san-hang, an Iron Age site in northern Taiwan. Faunal remains and
hunting-gathering artifacts suggest the utilization of both terrestrial and
marine protein resources, however, the extent to which rice was consumed is not
known, although its consumption is inferred from recovered harvesting tools and
rice husk remains present in pottery temper. This paleodiet study provides
complementary data to infer food consumption of the Shih-san-hang people.
Building on results from previous paleopathological studies on nutritional and
dietary markers (e.g., enamel hypoplasia, porotic hyperostosis, dental caries,
dental calculus), we use the data in concert with a subset of individuals
analyzed for stable isotope ratios. Human (N=25) and faunal (N=21) bones were
sampled for stable carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from bone collagen and
stable carbon isotopes from bone apatite. Faunal isotope values from bone
collagen and bone apatite are consistent with taxon-specific diet. For bone
collagen, human d13C values average -13.2‰ and d15N values average 9.9‰, while
human bone apatite d13C values average -7.6‰. Gender differences in health are
evident in some paleopathological markers (e.g., enamel hypoplasia), but do not
seem to correlate with the stable isotope results. Preliminary interpretation
of our isotopic data suggests a marine-based dietary regime with some
terrestrial-based input for those individuals sampled in this study.
C3
King, Charlotte
Tayles,
Nancy.
Department
of Anatomy and Structural Biology, University of Otago
‘FOR
DUST YOU ARE AND TO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN’ - WHY DOES DIAGENESIS MATTER?
Isotopic
analysis of human bone is becoming an increasingly important tool for the
archaeologist in divining past life-ways. The isotopic ratios within bone are
often assumed to be preserved as in life, but diagenetic change can alter
these, invalidating the results of isotopic analysis. Diagenesis, if evaluated
at all, is usually quantified using a single method of chemical analysis, FT-IR
spectroscopy. This study, based on the human remains from Ban Non Wat, Northeast Thailand, tested the value of FT-IR analysis,
and highlighted its insufficiencies. Instead, the non-destructive technique of
Raman spectroscopy was most useful in confirming high levels of diagenesis and
secondary mineralisation at Ban Non Wat. This technique showed soil composition
and groundwater flow are the conditions which most affect diagenesis, and have
rendered the bones of Ban Non Wat entirely unsuitable for isotopic work. The
findings of this study have implications for all isotopic work undertaken on
bone in the region, and have proven tooth enamel to be less affected by
diagenetic processes.
C3
Foster, Aimee
Buckley,
Hallie
Tayles,
Nancy
Department
of Anatomy and Structural Biology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
SKELETAL
ANALYSIS OF ACTIVITY IN MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA
Identifying
divisions of labour in prehistoric societies is a notoriously difficult task in
archaeological studies, yet it is vital for our understanding of social
identities in the past. Bioarchaeology thus has much to offer this area of
research: by analysing the human skeleton for changes that have occurred as a
result of habitual activity during life we are able to investigate how factors
such as biological sex relate to levels and/or types of activity.
This
paper investigates the possibilities and limitations involved when studies of
activity are used to investigate prehistoric social identity, and presents some
results from the analysis of two mainland Southeast Asian skeletal samples, Man
Bac, Vietnam (n=25), and Ban Non Wat, Thailand (n=66). Adult skeletons were
analysed for entheseal change and degenerative joint disease. Comparisons were
drawn between males and females, within and between the samples. The results
highlight that while distinctions may be made between males and females in
terms of activity, the relationships of activity markers to other factors such
as age and body size are significant complications in this type of analysis.
C3 Pureepatpong,
Natthamon
Silpakorn University, Thailand
MUSCULOSKELETAL
STRESS MARKERS AND PALAEOPATHOLOGY OF HUMAN REMAINS IN THE LATE
PLEISTOCENE-EARLY HOLOCENE AND LATE HOLOCENE PERIODS IN PANG MAPHA DISTRICT,
MAE HONG SON PROVINCE, NORTHWESTERN THAILAND
This
paper reports on the study of musculoskeletal stress markers (MSM) and
palaeopathology of the human remains from Tham Lod (Late Pleistocene) and Ban
Rai (Early Holocene) rockshelters and log coffin caves (Late Holocene) in Pang
Mapha District of Mae Hong Son Province. MSM were more prominent in the Late
Holocene compared with the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. In addition,
there are a wider variety of pathological lesions on bones from Late than from
the Early Holocene. These results may be a reflection of the subsistence
pattern of the people in the Late Holocene being more complex than that of the
people in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. It may also suggest that a
living in a complex and demanding social environment has stronger effects on
the health of the people.
C3
Clark, Angela
Tayles,
Nancy
Halcrow,
Siân
Department
of Anatomy and Structural Biology, School of Medical Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand
SEX
ASSESSMENT: EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT IT, BUT WHO IS DOING IT RIGHT?
The
correct assessment of biological sex is crucial for identifying and
understanding social identity in prehistory. The aim of identifying biological
sex is not to directly infer gender, but to provide a means to integrate
osteological evidence of health with archaeological evidence of burial
treatment to assess gender as an aspect of social identity.
This
paper presents a proposed research project that aims to determine whether
sexual dimorphism can be used to indicate health change in Southeast Asian
prehistoric societies during the adoption and intensification of rice
agriculture. A bioarchaeological investigation of Neolithic and Bronze Age
adult individuals from the prehistoric site at Ban Non Wat, Thailand,
will allow a comparison between social identity and overall quality of life.
Sexual
dimorphism, the difference between male and female physical body size and
shape, varies between populations and influenced by the socio-cultural factors.
Including, the adaptation to new foods, different food preparation methods,
diet type, gender based preferential treatment and the sexual division of
labour. Morphological characteristics of human remains are used to assess
biological sex and the level of sexual dimorphism within a population can
affect sex assessment. As sexual dimorphism is population specific, the
descriptions of sex characteristics predominantly derived from European samples
may prove inaccurate for the consequent sex assessment of a Southeast Asian
population. The extent to which sexual dimorphism varies in prehistoric
Southeast Asian populations is yet to be fully investigated. This paper will
specially focus on providing a theoretical and methodological framework for
investigating the level of sexual dimorphism in prehistoric Southeast Asia. Without an accurate assessment of sex,
the consequent discussions of social identity are futile.
C3
Wangthongchaicharoen, Naruphol
Department
of Research, The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre –
SAC, Bangkok, Thailand
THE
METRIC ATTRIBUTES OF INFRACRANIAL SKELETONS OF PREHISTORIC HUMANS FROM WAT PHO
SRINAI, BAN CHIANG, NORTHEAST THAILAND
The main aims of this study are to investigate and
interpret the physical characteristics of the prehistoric human
remains from Wat Pho Srinai, Ban Chiang Cultural Tradition site in Udon
Thani province, Northeast Thailand which
was excavated in 2003. In this season, approximately 109 human skeletons
were uncovered and placed into two age groups: (1) 45 skeletons of
infants, children and subadults whose bones had not fused, and (2) 64
male and female adult skeletons. Using
osteometry of infracranial traits, standard metric measurements and indices
were utilized to determine the biological identities of the remains
such as their sex, age and height, as well as their social
characteristics such as occupation, etc. Furthermore, the study
attempts to calculate the different degrees of sexual dimorphism and
compare to the others prehistoric populations like Ban Chiang, Non Nok Tha and
Ban Kao, and to the modern ethnic groups living in Thailand
(e.g., Thai-Chinese, Northern Thai and Northeastern Thai, etc.).
C3 Eng, Ken Khong
Department
of Forensic Medicine, Penang
Hospital, Malaysia
Chia,
Stephen
Centre for Global Archaeological Research Universiti
Saims Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
BIOANTHROPOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES ON A LATE PREHISTORIC BURIAL IN BUKIT KAMIRI SEMPORNA, SABAH, MALAYSIA
In
March 2007, archaeological survey and excavation at Bukit Kamiri in Semporna,
Sabah, Malaysia uncovered two late prehistoric human skeletons, radiocarbon
dated by marine shells to between 3,330 and 2,830 BP. The two skeletons were
found together in a burial associated with burial items such as pottery sherds,
iron knives, and food remains consisting of marine shells, fish and animal
bones. Bioanthropological analysis of the skeletal remains revealed two adult
males. One was a young adult aged between 25 and 34 years old, with an
estimated height 157.22 +/- 3.85 cm while the other was an middle aged adult,
between 35 and 44 years old, with an estimated eight of 166 +/- 3.85 cm. No
signs of pathological condition or violence were observed on the skeletal
remains. Multivariate cluster analysis using the Q-mode correlation coefficients
on the dental metric traits suggested close affiliation to early human
populations from mostly Island Southeast Asia and Southern
China.
C3
Medrana, Jack G. L.
University
of the Philippines
RECONSTITUTING
AESTHETICS IN THE ANCIENT FILIPINO BODY
How about
an archaeology of body aesthetics? I am inviting the archaeological and the
aesthetic in a fashion show attended by multiple beholders of beauty. The body
as beautiful is a construct produced by chroniclers, ethnographers, and
archaeologists, and it is oftentimes considered in the creation of social
identity. The paper will attempt to address questions like: What have been done
towards an archaeology of body aesthetics? What are the developing issues and
trends? The Filipino body of the past would be the main participant doing the
catwalk. Beginning with a review on the aesthetic discourse, the second part of
the show looks into the documentary reconstruction of the Filipino corpus. Then
there would be a shift of the spotlights to the archaeology of the skeleton,
highlighting the osteological attributes and changes such as artificial cranial
reformation and teeth modifications which are highly perceived to be associated
with the beautiful.
C3
Boonlop, Korakot
Department
of Research, The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre –
SAC, Bangkok, Thailand
DENTAL
CHARACTERISTICS OF PREHISTORIC POPULATION IN THE SAKON NAKHON BASIN, NORTHEAST THAILAND: A REFERENCE CASE FROM DENTAL REMAINS
AT BAN CHIANG
Dental
anthropology is a vital part of bioarchaeology, which is the study of human
remains in archaeological contexts. Dental enamel (the hard, white outer
covering of the tooth) is the hardest material in the human body, and teeth are
often preserved even when bones are not. They are one of the most informative
parts of the human skeleton, and are incredibly well preserved
archaeologically. Not only are they durable, but they are also a treasure trove
of information. They provide insight into various issues anthropologists,
archaeologists and historians are concerned with, e.g. reconstruct
age-at-death, diet changes, health, general stress, how closely groups were
related, ancestry, and markers of social identity. This information greatly
increases our knowledge of people and their society in ancient times. This
paper is a quick introduction to what teeth can tell us about the prehistoric
people at Ban Chiang, based on the result of dental morphometric and
morphoscopic analyses, focuses on the dental remains discovered in 2003-2004
from an excavation at Wat Pho Sri Nai cemetery.
C3
Arif, Johan
Kapid, Rubyanto
Department
of Geology, Faculty of Earth Science and Technology, Institute
of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia
SECULAR
DENTAL REDUCTION OF PREHISTORIC JAVANESE POPULATIONS
The
secular dental reduction of prehistoric Javanese populations is reviewed. The
samples consist of prehistoric human molars from various caves in Java,
consisting of R3 Pawon from Pawon cave in West Java and Wajak, Sampung,
Hoekgrot, and Jimbe that are all different caves in East
Java. The specimens are divided into Early and Middle Holocene
samples. The result of our study identifies a diminution in molar size in
prehistoric Javanese populations. The Early Holocene assemblage has relatively
larger tooth dimensions than that of the Middle Holocene in length, breadth,
and area measures. But, we have difficulties in elucidating the reason for this
change because of the limited supplemental data. One of the difficulties is in
determining the status of the specimens from Pawon cave. Nevertheless, based on
the date and cultural remains, we suggest that the Pawon culture might be
comparable to Sampung bone culture.
However,
the diminution in molar size seen in the samples from Wajak to Hoekgrot-Jimbe
might be caused by a cultural change from hunter-gatherer to semi-sedentary
societies, or because of isolation of a human population, especially for
Wajak. The big molar size of the Wajak specimen is linked to Wajak’s strong
masticatory system. The strong masticatory system has been interpreted as an
adaptation to high chewing stress.
C3
Widianto, Harry
Balai Pelestarian
Sangiran, Indonesia
HUMAN
REMAINS FROM THE MAJOR ISLANDS OF INDONESIA DURING THE SECOND HALF OF
THE HOLOCENE
C3
Matisoo-Smith, Lisa
University of Otago, New
Zealand
DNA
SAMPLING IN AND WITH PACIFIC COMMUNITIES – IMPLICATIONS, PROSPECTS AND FUTURE
DEVELOPMENTS
For
the past decade we have focused on DNA analyses of commensal animals to use as
a proxy for understanding prehistoric human migration in the Pacific. One of
the main reasons we took this approach was because local communities were not
interested in or willing to provide DNA samples. Local community attitudes
however are beginning to change as people become more familiar with DNA
technology and new approaches to working with communities are being used by
researchers. Here I will describe the approach we are taking in working with
several Pacific communities to engage in analyses of both ancient and modern
DNA and discuss the potential benefits to both researchers and communities and
the implications for definitions of identity for Pacific peoples.
C3
Buckley, Hallie R
Department
of Anatomy and Structural Biology, University
of Otago, New Zealand
THE
PEOPLE OF TEOUMA, VANUATU: QUALITY OF LIFE IN A 3000 YEAR OLD
COMMUNITY FROM THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
The
Lapita-associated cemetery site of Teouma, Efate Island, Vanuatu,
has provided researchers with a unique opportunity to begin to understand
aspects of the quality of life of these people at a community level. There have
been excavations of the cemetery site in 2004–2006 and 2008–2009. To date, a
total of 60 inhumations consisting of both adults and subadults have been
excavated. This presentation will outline the findings on health and disease
from the human skeletal remains excavated in the first three field seasons.
Field observations of health and disease from the recent excavation in 2008–09
are also discussed. The macroscopic findings on health and disease on the first
three field seasons skeletal remains indicate some chronic stress during
childhood affecting growth, poor dental health, and heavy work loads in both
sexes. Existing dietary isotope data and variation in burial treatment within
the cemetery will also be considered in relation to the macroscopic data on
health and disease.
C3
Shaw, Ben
Buckley,
Hallie
Summerhayes,
Glenn
University of Otago
Anson,
Dimitri
Otago Museum
Valentin,
Frederique
CNRS, UMR 7041, France
Mandui,
Herman
Papua New Guinea National
Museum and Art Gallery
Stirling,
Claudine
Reid.
Malcolm
Otago
Centre for Trace Element Analysis, Dunedin
MIGRATION
AND MOBILITY AT THE LATE LAPITA SITE OF REBER-RAKIVAL (SAC), WATOM ISLAND
USING ISOTOPE AND TRACE ELEMENT ANALYSIS: A NEW INSIGHT INTO LAPITA INTERACTION
IN THE BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO
This
paper presents strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen isotope (δ18O) and Ba/Sr
trace element data in archaeological tooth enamel samples to investigate
migration and mobility in human and pig populations from the Late Lapita site
on Watom Island
in the Bismarck Archipelago. A selection of
human teeth was also included from the Late-Post Lapita site of Lifafaesing, Tanga Islands
as a geographic/ geological comparison. Previous archaeological models have
identified Lapita mobility at a community level using obsidian distribution
patterns and changes in ceramic design, whereas isotope and trace element data
can potentially reconstruct prehistoric mobility on an individual level. It has
been argued using material culture analysis that Lapita mobility decreases over
time in the Bismarck Archipelago. These models
of Lapita interaction will be re-considered in light of isotope and trace
element data from Watom
Island.
The
results indicate that there is a large amount of isotopic variation in the Bismarck Archipelago which is useful for identifying
non-local individuals and possibly determining their origins. The data suggest
that one human individual and several pigs may have come from elsewhere in the
region. Three potentially separate locations were identified for the non-local
pigs. Using the data from SAC it is argued that the Late Lapita communities in
the Bismarck Archipelago were more mobile than
previously assumed. The potential for identifying individual migrants in a
Lapita context are discussed in terms of assessing the more subtle aspects of
Lapita society by relating migration to differences in the sex of individuals
and difference in burial position. The future use of isotope based migration
research in Pacific
Island archaeology is
then considered.
C3 Kinaston,
Rebecca
Buckley,
Hallie
Department
of Anatomy and Structural Biology, University
of Otago, New Zealand
Neal,
Ken
Isolytix, Dunedin, New Zealand
HEALTH
AND DIET AT NEBIRA: A BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF PREHISTORIC LIFE ON
THE SOUTH COAST OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA
The
prehistory of Papua New Guinea (PNG) is recognised for its cultural, biological
and linguistic diversity. However, few prehistoric cemeteries have been found
in PNG leading to gaps in our understanding of prehistoric health, disease and
diet in this area of the world. The site of Nebira is one of the only large
prehistoric settlements to be found in the region of the South Coast, PNG and
the presence of a prehistoric (1000-400 BP) burial ground at Nebira makes this
site exceptional. We use stable isotope analysis for dietary reconstruction in
conjunction with paleopathological and growth evaluations of the individuals
interred at Nebira to investigate:
1)
dental evidence of diet (caries, periodontal disease, antemortem tooth loss and
calculus);
2)
non-specific stress indicators (linear enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia and
porotic hyperostosis);
3)
growth (adult stature and subadult long bone lengths); and
4)
the potential consequences of diet on skeletal and dental health and growth.
Carbon, nitrogen and sulphur stable isotope analysis of bone collagen suggested
the diet of the inhabitants of Nebira was predominately terrestrial and low in
protein with no statistically significant differences between males and
females. The patterns of dental health and a high prevalence of non-specific
stress indicators and short stature support the assumption that this diet could
have affected the health and growth of these people. The lack of sexual
differences in diet suggests that limited or no preferential food allocation to
males or females occurred in this society, at least with regard to protein
foods. Male and female health and growth patterns were also similar, suggesting
the effect of diet and other potential stresses were comparable between these
two groups.
C3 Valentin, Frédérique
CNRS, UMR 7041, France
Herrscher, Estelle
Mesquin, Lauréline
CNRS, UMR 6578, France
Sand, Christophe
Institut d’Archéologie de Nouvelle Calédonie et du Pacifique
NEW MORTUARY,
BIOLOGICAL AND DIETARY DATA ON FIRST MILLENNIUM AD POPULATIONS FROM THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC
ISLANDS: THE CASE OF THE POE SAND DUNE
BURIALS (WEST COAST, NEW CALEDONIA)
Populations living in the Southwest Pacific islands during
the first millennium AD are little known. The bioarchaeological record includes
so far data on individuals uncovered in some sites from the Fijian archipelago,
amongst which the cemeteries of the Sigatoka Sand Dunes. To remedy to this
situation, we present here new mortuary, biological and dietary data recorded
on burials recently excavated (2007) in the sand dune of Poe (site WBR047), on
the West Coast of New Caledonia. Mortuary
features display similarities with the Sigatoka Sand Dunes burials, including
the frequent use of tightly flexed positions. Palaeopathological and isotopic
data indicate dietary practices heavily dependant on coastal marine foods
and/or C4 plants. This reliance on coastal resources appears stronger than the
one demonstrated by earlier, even colonising, human groups while the first
signs of intensification of horticulture are shown by the archaeological record
in the first millennium AD on the island. Helping understanding this
opposition, isotopic analyses of modern faunal remains from New Caledonia, suggest an influence of local
environmental conditions on the reconstruction of isotopic dietary patterns.
SESSION C4
C4 Barretto-Tesoro, Grace
Archaeological
Studies Program, University of the Philippines,
The Philippines
MIXED BURIAL PRACTICES IN THE PHILIPPINES
This paper is
preliminary research on Philippine sites which yielded a variety of burial
practices. To date, no comprehensive analysis has been done to investigate the
reasons for the presence of diverse burial manners. I will survey burial sites,
describe the burial practices, examine related evidence, and offer
interpretations that could affect the disposal of corpses. I will try to
explain the diversity of burials by using local perspectives.
C4 Bersales, Jose Eleazar R.
Department of
Sociology and Anthropology, University
of San Carlos, Cebu, The Philippines
LATE PRE-COLONIAL MORTUARY PRACTICES IN CENTRAL
PHILIPPINES: DATA FROM BURIALS RECOVERED IN BOLJOON, CEBU, PHILIPPINES
Between February
2007 and March 2009, four month-long excavations have been conducted on the
grounds of the nearly 250-year old Patrocinio de Sta. Maria Church, a
Philippine National Cultural Treasure located in the coastal town of Boljoon, 101 km.
southeast of the capital city of Cebu, in
central Philippines.
The site has so far yielded 39 burials, four of which have been AMS-dated to
between 1529 and 1619±40 years.
Boljoon first
enters recorded history when it was established as an Augustinian vicaria in
1599, although in it was not until 1692 that a permanent parish priest was
assigned there. Based on the burial assemblage, the site exhibits pre-colonial
burial practices which may also provide some insights into the graduated
character of the Hispanization of Cebu.
Four different
burial orientations have been observed (generally accruing to the four cardinal
points), together with three burial positions (supine, lateral, and
crouched/flexed). Thirty-six of the 39 burials are primary inhumations although
over half were recovered in varying stages of disarticulation and fragmentation
due to the subsequent use of the same location for later burials or due to much
later intrusions as the area became the site of the church and its plaza. Three
others were recovered as reburials, with two of them showing a remarkable level
of treatment in that even the accompanying grave goods were also reburied. A
double burial, one buried in crouched position “neatly” over another in
extended position was also recovered.
The site offers
opportunities to understand the dimensions of mortuary practices in
pre-Hispanic and early colonial period Cebuano populations, especially with
regard to the manipulation of ritual and symbol for representing social
identities, as well as cultural practices that may indicate differential
treatment of burials on the basis of gender as well as accompanying burial
goods. Whether the latter can be considered prestige goods is also a subject of
this study.
C4 Chang, Kuang-Jen
Indepedent
Scholar
VARIETIES OF DISPOSAL TYPES IN CALATAGAN CEMETERIES, SW LUZON: A PRELIMINARY OBSERVATION
The co-existence
of various types of interments in a cemetery is a common phenomenon in
Calatagan sites, Southwest Luzon. A group of
the 15th-16th CE cemeteries comprises nearly eleven hundred interments, also
represents more than twenty various types of disposals. Since Fox’s excavation
and brief report, which were more than 50 years ago, our understanding of those
mortuary practices is still poor. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the
detailed information of those interments, as well as to examine multiple levels
of comparisons among them. Based on the investigation, thus, this paper also
discusses the relevant issues of the varieties of disposal types in Southeast
Asian archaeology.
C4 Lara, Myra
Victor Paz
Archaeological
Studies Program, University of the Philippines
Helen Lewis
School
of Archaeology, University
College Dublin, Ireland
Jonathan Kress
Independent
Scholar
Jack Medrana
Archaeological
Studies Program, University of the Philippines
TEMPORALITY OF HUMAN INHUMATION THROUGH ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
OSTEOLOGICAL ANALYSES: A LOOK AT THE ILLE SITE ASSEMBLAGE
This paper
describes the archaeological contexts and some results of osteological analysis
on remains from burials found in a cave site at Ille, New Ibajay, El Nido
Palawan, Philippines.
At least four general burial ‘phases’ were recognized during excavations at
Ille: a mid to late 18th century cemetery comprising of extended burials
oriented to the south; a slightly older cemetery of extended burials oriented
to the east or west; a Neolithic phase characterized by extended inhumations
associated with stone markers, and; a 9000 BP phase composed of cremation
burials. As of the 2009 excavation season, about 70 burials were found to
comprise the most recent cemetery; about four are considered to be included in
the slightly older cemetery; at least two burials are considered Neolithic, and
five cremation burials were found so far. Burials from the first three phases
are all primary but remains from the cremation phase received bone
modifications in terms of disarticulation, defleshing, fragmentation, and
burning. Found associated with two skeletons in the most recent cemetery are
copper rings; one skeleton from the second phase is found associated with
Indo-Pacific beads and a metal dagger; a burial considered to be Neolithic is
associated with large shell discs and hammerstones.
C4 Lloyd-Smith, Lindsay R.
The Cultured
Rainforest Project, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK
VARIABILITY IN NEOLITHIC BURIAL PRACTICE AT NIAH CAVES, SARAWAK
The Later Prehistoric
cemetery in the West Mouth, Niah Cave (Sarawak) is
one of the largest investigated in Island Southeast Asia, with 89 primary
extended burials and 93 secondary burials thought to date to between 1300 BC
and 200 BC. As well as the well known West Mouth, the nearby site of Lobang
Jeragan, completely excavated in 1962, contained 25 primary and 21 secondary
burials now thought to date to a 250 year period sometime between 950 BC and
450 BC. Spatial and chronological analysis has shown that mortuary practice at
both sites followed similar historical trajectories, from primary extended
burial, followed by unburnt secondary burial, and then cremated burials. These
two sites provide an excellent opportunity to compare contemporaneous burial
practices at the local level, and their potential implications for our
understanding of the societies who buried their dead there.
C4 Kusmartono, Vida Pervaya Rusianti
Centre for
Archaeology, Banjarmasin, Department of Culture
and Tourism, Indonesia
DAYAK MORTUARY: DISPOSAL MODES, SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT AND ITS
SIGNIFICANCE
The pre-Hindu
conception of the world and its manifestations can still be seen today among
some societies in Indonesia.
The conception of the world is perceived by the societies as a sacred world of
an ideal order constituting superior existences, their dwelling, and a place of
all beginnings. This ideal order also represents extreme opposite aspects of
duality that as a whole creates balance. The cognizant of the macrocosm and the
need to live in harmony with nature lead the society to create a replica of the
sacred world, which is manifested not only among the living but the dead as
well. In many societies the dead are respected greatly due to the belief that
the spirit of the deceased will finally return ‘home’ joining the ‘father’ of
humans and the supreme deity in the sacred world. The ‘home’ being congenially
organized is often represented in the realistic world by features of the
universe, either on architecture or landscape. A sacred landscape is a cultural
signature of a society performing its ideology, which in a micro scale is
indicated by its spatial arrangement. A group of tribes who continue to believe
in maintaining the conception of the balance of duality are the Dayak; the
Dayak is one of the direct descendants of the
Austronesian-language-speaking-people, who mainly resides in the hinterland of Kalimantan. The Dayak show their inmost ideological
belief reflected in mortuary practice and other non-religious activities.
Therefore, I would like to discuss the placing of the dead in a specific
spatial arrangement based on archaeological evidences in association with the
ancient Dayak cosmology. The spatial arrangement will provide information on
how they perceive and interact with their surrounding nature.
C4 Umar, Dwi Yani Yuniawati
National
Research Center
for Archaeology, Jakarta, Indonesia
THE DISTRIBUTION OF STONE VATS IN CENTRAL
SULAWESI
The Central Sulawesi Province
is very rich in remains from the period of the megalithic tradition development.
These remains comprise stone vats, megalithic statues, stone mortars, pitted
stones, engraved stones and others. From the megalithic remains in Central
Sulawesi, of interest are the stone vats, that are found only in this region
and bear similarities to those in Mekhong
Valley, Lao (Madelaine
Colani 1935).
These stone vats
are called Kalamba, meaning boat and its cover tuatena, by the local people.
Kalamba is a stone vat cylindric in shape with an opening at the end. The
megalithic remains in Central Sulawesi are found distributed in four areas they
are Bada Valley
(South Lore district, Poso regency), Besoa
Valley (Central Lore district, Poso
regency), Napu Valley
(North Lore district, Poso regency) and Palu Valley
(Donggala regency).
Besides in
Central Sulwesi the kalamba is also found at around Lake
Toba, North
Sumatera Province
(Hoop 1938), and Donggo, West Nusa Tenggara
Province but not as many as in Central Sulawesi.
C4 Oxenham, Marc
School
of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Australia
THE SOCIAL AND BIOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION OF CHILDHOOD IN
ANCIENT VIETNAM
This paper
examines the differential mortuary treatment of subadults and adults in the
late neolithic cemetery site Man Bac (~3,800-2,600 ybp), situated on the
southern fringes of the Red River Delta,
Vietnam. The
focus of this mortuary analysis is to explore aspects of the social and
biological construction of childhood as revealed through the manner in which
adults have treated their young during funerary rituals. It is hypothesised
that several broad social and biological categories of subadult age or
development are expressed in the mortuary treatment of Man Bac children. The
discussion of these findings will build on our knowledge of the construction of
childhood though the eyes of adults in ancient Vietnam.
C4 Coupey, Anne-Sophie
University of Rennes I, France
FUNERAL CONTAINERS IN THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN IRON AGE:
PRESERVED REMAINS AND SIGNS PROVIDED BY BONE’S POSITION
Type of funeral
containers has a real significance in the funeral practices. The material used
to make up the coffins depends not only on its availability in the region and
its easiness to make, but on the regard for cultural and perhaps religious
traditions of the time. Size of the coffins and probable ornamentation
(preserved or not) should have had an ostentatious function. On a same site and
during the same period, several types of coffins were used. They can be
different according to the age at death. Beside the ceramic jars - burial
containers of infants -there are traces of outlines of wooden coffins and some
linear delimitation effects or compression of the skeleton. Bone’s and grave
goods positions indicate a decay in an empty space, so inside a body container.
It is possible to restore the general shape of coffins and their rigidity,
therefore the material they were made of. Obviously, funeral containers reveal
a part of the status of the deceased and of his cultural environment.
C4 Pautreau, Jean-Pierre, Anne-Sophie Coupey, Christophe
Maitay, Emma Rambault, Aung Aung Kyaw
University of Rennes I, France
IRON AGE RITUAL AND GRAVE GOODS IN THE SAMON VALLEY
(UPPER BURMA)
The
Burmese-French joint project aims at studying burials from Iron Age in the
Samon valley (south of Mandalay).
Since 2001, approximately 500 graves from eight burial sites have been
excavated in this area. Their study allowed us to better know the ways of
burial, to specify the archaeological context of some of the artefacts, and to
add some chronological markers to our knowledge of the Iron Age in Upper Burma. Sometimes organized in rows, sometimes in
groups (family?), almost all of the graves are individual and primary. The
deceased were buried with the head towards the East (in 6 sites) or towards the
north (2 sites).The main grave goods - set of 3 pottery vessels, stone and
glass beads, some iron tools and weapons and some copper-alloy items - indicate
a cultural cohesion of all these communities living on the basin side of the
Samon river during the last 4 centuries BC and the beginning of History.
C4 Kanungo, Alok Kumar
Homi Bhabha
Fellow, Dept. of Archaeology, Deccan
College, India
BURIAL PRACTICES AMONG THE NAGAS IN TRANSITION: SURVIVAL OF
ONE OF THE MOST ELABORATE FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE WORLD
India
being a country of many communities it is natural to have various types of
methods of disposal of the dead. Indian kings did not build pyramids for
themselves but the indigenous people living in hilly terrain of northeast India
practise one of the most elaborate burials and their grave goods have been the
richest. Unfortunately less work has been carried out on the burial practices
of the Nagas than on the megaliths of the past.
The unique
practice of burial and rituals related to the same among the Nagas is fast
disappearing. Nagas living in Nagaland have given up practising their ancestral
way of burial in the last few decades from Angami and Ao to Konyaks as the
Christianity made inroads among them. Nagas living in Arunachal Pradesh have
only recently been forced to abandon many of the burial practices. We know
nothing about the Nagas living in Myanmar. The Nagas were
extraordinarily sensitive to everything connected with the subject of
post-death ceremonies and practices. They believe that the spirits of the dead
have power over the living, that they can ruin the harvest and kill the infact
in the womb. It is therefore important not to incur the displeasure of the
spirits by failing to perform the prescribed rituals. The Ninu massacre of
1874-75 is an eloquent proof of how the Wanchos reacted violently when there
was an interference in their burial practices and killed more than 80 British
soldiers. However, this practice has been entirely abandoned a few years ago.
From keeping the body for six months in the house in 1839 (first reported by M.
Bronson), present day Aos do not keep the dead body even for the distant
relatives to pay their last respect. Exposed burial among the Nagas of the
Arunachal Pradesh was abandoned by the converted Christians in 1990s and made
to stop in 2002 at gun point by one of the Naga insurgency groups. For the same
reason the practice of the secondary burial has also disappeared. This may be a
good sign for hygienic purpose but without Wanchos history being written and
their origin being known we are lacking an important evidence which is vital to
understand their past. However, there still remain many evidences related to
the burial practices among the Wanchos which should be recorded either now or
never. For example, no smoking of dead is done inside the house anymore though
the body is kept in kitchen till the relatives and friends arrive from nearby
villages, if not for weeks, at least for a few days; exposed burial are just
being stopped so relics of this and secondary burials are still standing; though
most of the cist/pot burial are covered under earth but still there are
villages where these are existing in abandoned condition. Still the last
generation of people are alive who practised the secondary burial. There still
are old people who processed the skulls for the secondary burial. However, the
dating of the chamber/cist containing multiple heads of several generations and
identification of the cause of death is a serious problem as different methods
are employed by people of different villages for detaching the skull from the
body. Besides the skull is nailed/drilled haphazardly for ornamentation. Still
the practices of post burial feast and offering of very elaborate and expensive
grave goods are prevalent. This paper is an attempt at recording the history of
changes in burial practices and surviving customs.
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SESSION C5
C5 Morwood, Michael J.
University of Wollongong
Westaway, Kira E.
Macquarie University
Island of fire:
volcanoes as agents of death, destruction and migration on Flores Island, Indonesia
Volcanoes
forming the central spine of Flores
Island have dominated
every square metre of island space since it was formed ~12 million years ago by
submarine volcanism. The stratigraphy and archaeological evidence found at two
sites on Flores can be used to reconstruct the
relationships that existed between hominins and volcanoes on this section of
the Indonesian archipelago. These sites are: Soa
Basin, an ancient lakeshore
environment near Bajawa in central Flores and Liang Bua an inland cave site
located in the mountainous region of Ruteng in western Flores.
Both sites display evidence of massive volcanic destruction; with large erosion
contacts, thick tephra deposits and lack of occupation deposits immediately
after each event. This evidence suggests that the dominance of Flores by volcanoes was not restricted to just visual
appearance but influenced the survival and preferred location of hominins and
other fauna, particularly Stegodon.
Morwood will discuss the influence of volcanism on the ~800 ka hominins from
Soa, while Westaway will recount the impact of the 17 ka eruption on the
inhabitants of Liang Bua. The sediments at Soa are inherently volcanic, ranging
from deep tuffs to ignimbrites and lava flows, and demonstrates the consistent
volcanic influences on the sedimentology and environment of this area. In
contrast, the sediments at Liang Bua are periodically punctuated with evidence
of volcanic events, with the two largest occurring at ~17 and 12 ka. The
volcanic events at Soa caused death, destruction and possibly the extinction of
certain Stegodon species (Stegodon sondaari), while the Liang Bua events may have caused migration to
another less affected area of Flores.
C5 Clarkson, Chris
Harris, Clair
University of Queensland
Haslam, Michael
University of Oxford
AFTER THE BIG BANG: ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
FOR THE IMPACT OF THE TOBA SUPER-ERUPTION ON HOMININ POPULATIONS IN INDIA
Archaeologists
and climatologists continue to debate the impact of the Sumatran Toba
super-eruption (74kya) on global climate, vegetation and human populations.
Preliminary results are reported for archaeological and palaeoenvironmental
research conducted in two river valleys in India, where Toba tephra deposits
are extensive. These are the Jerreru River Valley
in Andhra Pradesh in southern India,
and the Son River Valley of Madhya Pradesh in the north. The two sampled
regions provide an opportunity to compare long sequences in very different
geographic zones - both of which contain lithic assemblages and Toba ash
deposits. Based on the chronology of human occupation and evidence for long-term
continuity in stone-working practices, we hypothesize that the
impact of the Toba eruption on hominin populations may have been less severe than other researchers have proposed.
C5 Dizon, Eusebio
National Museum of the Philippines
PHILIPPINE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES COVERED BY
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
Volcanoes
must have played a significant role in the choice of human occupation. No
matter how dangerous volcanoes can be, people were and are still attracted to
them. People must have been attracted to volcanoes, for their intrinsic beauty
and the vast fertile land they have in their surrounding areas. In the Philippines,
there have been a number of archaeological sites found near or around volcanoes
such as in Zambales and Pampanga, Sorsogon, Batangas, Batanes, etc. Sites
buried in deep sand dunes in the Sabtang Island of Batanes are suggestive of
tsunamis. This paper will present a picture of these sites when they were
abandoned by volcanic eruptions.
C5 Melendres, Rhayan G.
University of the Philippines
THE MOUNT PINATUBO
ERUPTION AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF CENTRAL LUZON, PHILIPPINES:
EVIDENCES FROM ARCHEOLOGY, ETHNOHISTORY AND ETHNOGRAPHY
Mount Pinatubo is an active stratovolcano located in Central
Luzon Philippines.
Before its eruption in 1991, this inconspicuous and heavily forested mountain
supported thousands of indigenous people in particular the Aytas. Earlier
large eruptions occurred 17,000, 9000, 6000–5000 and 3900–2300 years ago.
Each of these eruptions seems to have been very large, ejecting more than
10 km³ of material and covering large parts of the surrounding areas with
pyroclastic flow deposits. Scientists estimate that the most recent eruption
before 1991 happened about 450 years ago, and after that, the volcano lay
dormant. And these
eruptions adversely affected the indigenous people of Central
Luzon. This paper will look at the consequences and effects of
these eruptions on the lives of the people of the Central
Luzon most specially among the Aytas. It will focus on changes on
political and social structure, resource mobilization and exchange,
architecture and settlement patterns and lifestyle of the people. Evidence will
come from archeological, ethnohistorical and ethnographic data.
C5 Eiji Nitta
Kagoshima University
The Shikiryo site: a 9th century settlement
and agricultural field buried by the eruption of Mt.Kaimondake, south Japan
Recent excavations at the Shirkiryo site in Kagoshima Prefecture
have provided rich evidence about how villagers in southern Japan reacted to a major volcanic
event. During the night of 25 March 874 AD, Mt.Kaimondake erupted and within a
few days, a blue-grayish hard ash layer (Aokora), together with surge and mud
flows, buried a large
region. Archaeological research at the Shikiryo site has unearthed a rice paddy
field, farmland and a dwelling house buried by the ash. The excavations of the
rice paddy found hollows of rice roots that showed a harvest higher than
average for this time period. Excavations revealed how the villagers had
attempted to recover from this disaster, but the scale of the ashfall was too
large and the site was abandoned.
C5 Sato, Hiroyuki
University of Tokyo
Soda, Tsutomu
Institute of Tephrochronology for Nature and History
Izuho, Masami
Sapporo Center for Buried Cultural Property
TEPHROCHRONOLGY AND
HUMAN ACTIVITIES OF LATE PLEISTOCENE IN KYUSHU
ISLAND, JAPAN
There are many Quaternary volcanoes in Kyushu Island.
In particular, Aso, Aira, Ata, and Kikai caldera volcanoes frequently erupted
on a large scale in the past. The pyroclastic flow and tephra-fall of the
eruption of Aira volcano (28-29ka), which was one of the largest in history,
impacted catastrophically on the southern Kyushu
region and those who lived there. After this volcanic event, the preceding
Pan-Japanese strategy of cultural adaptation came apart and differentiated into
several original new strategies, through the
diffusion of new technological information and cultures from the adjacent areas
such as the Korean peninsula and the Setouchi region.
C5 Summerhayes, G.R.
Leavesley, M.
Otago University, New
Zealand
Hope, G.
Australian National
University
Mandui, H.
National Museum
and Art Gallery
of Papua New Guinea
Fairbairn, A.
University of Queensland
Kosipe's volcanic landscape
The Kosipe
region is important for the early prehistory of Papua New Guinea. First excavated
by Peter White in the 1960s, it has recently been the focus of major
archaeological and palaeo-environmental research. The research has pushed the
human antiquity of Papua New
Guinea further into the Pleistocene and is
providing a unique perspective on people-land interactions. It is apparent,
however, that to understand the archaeological significance of this site, it is
necessary to understand the region’s volcanic history. This paper will outline
the critical relationship between the volcanic events of this region, and
Kosipe’s unique archaeological record.
C5 Torrence, Robin
Australian Museum
THE ROLE OF VOLCANISM
IN THE ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF LAPITA POTTERY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Tephra derived from the W-K2 eruption of Witori volcano in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea comprises a
significant stratigraphic marker that separates the remains of early cultural
groups that produced and used large obsidian stemmed tools from those of
subsequent societies which made Lapita style pottery. Is this a case of mere
correlation between cultural change and natural disaster or did the Witori
event play a significant role in the loss of one kind of material culture and
the adoption of another or in the migration of a new population? A recent study
using Bayesian modeling of radiocarbon dates places this natural disaster
remarkably close to the timing for the earliest appearance of Lapita pottery in
the Bismarck Archipelago. Proposals for the role of the W-K2 eruption on the
origin and subsequent spread of Lapita pottery into Remote Oceania are debated.
C5 Lilley, Ian
University of Queensland
INSIDE OUT AND OUTSIDE
IN: THE IMPORTANCE OF REGIONAL CONTEXT IN LOCAL REACTIONS TO VOLCANIC ACTIVITY.
This paper considers how events and process associated with
localized volcanism can pull in people, goods and ideas from areas a long way
from the volcanic epicentre, as well as push people, ideas and things outwards,
away from the communities most immediately affected. The focus will be on
trajectories of change in the North New Guinea - Vitiaz - West
New Britain region over the last 3,500 years, and specifically the
similarities and differences in the wider human impacts of the eruptive history
of the Willaumez-Hoskins volcanoes during this period. The aim is to remind
ourselves to consider the broader geohistorical contexts of "Living with
Volcanoes."
C5 Bedford, Stuart
Spriggs, Matthew
The
Australian National University
ISLANDS OF ASH AND CORAL: 3000 YEARS OF HUMAN
ADAPTATION TO VOLCANIC ACTIVITY IN VANUATU, SOUTHWEST PACIFIC.
Of
all the Pacific islands, Vanuatu
has been recently assessed as the archipelago most frequently affected by a
range of natural catastrophes. One that is a
constant threat is that of volcanic activity and eruptions. Currently active
volcanoes are present in the north, centre and south of the archipelago.
Archaeological research that has been carried out across Vanuatu indicates that ash-fall,
both catastrophic and more benign, features regularly in the composition of the
stratigraphy of sites. A number of excavated sites are discussed here which
demonstrate both the hazardous and beneficial nature of these volcanic
eruptions and how ni-Vanuatu have adapted to their ever present threat.
C5 Sheppard, Peter J.
University of Auckland
A VOLCANO IN THE
BACKYARD: IMPACT OF THE RANGITOTO ERUPTION ON MAORI OCCUPATION OF AUCKLAND
The Auckland Harbour is dominated by Rangitoto, a basaltic volcano
which forms Rangitoto Island just adjacent to the island of Motutapu.
When Maori first occupied the harbour, some 800 years ago, Rangitoto apparently
did not exist, but the island
of Motutapu contains some
of the earliest sites in the region. When Rangitoto erupted, Motutapu was
covered in a thick deposit of ash which would have had a significant impact on
the inhabitants and natural environment of the island, yet people returned
quickly from the nearby undamaged islands and mainland, if only to survey the
destruction, as evidenced by foot-prints in the ash. This paper surveys the
archaeological and geological research which has been conducted on Motutapu
over the last 40 years and considers its potential for assessing volcanic
impacts on settlement at the micro or local scale.
SESSION C6
C6 Barton,
Huw
School of Archaeology
and Ancient History, University of
Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
LEARNING TO
FORGET ON THE PATH TO THE PADI FARM.
Abstract: The production of sago – the starch
derived from the interior pith of several species of palm – appears to have a
long history in Borneo. Historic records
indicate that sago was still utilized on a regular basis well into the
twentieth century by many groups that are now considered to only produce and
eat rice. There are several indigenous sago producing palms in Borneo (Eugeissona; Arenga; Caryota) and one
major introduction from New
Guinea (Metroxylon).
Amongst the Penan of Borneo, sago is still a key food resource, but amongst
many farming communities, it has been relegated to the margins; an inferior
food for inferior people, though the plant remains a useful timber for craft
and the fronds for thatching. Some farming communities, such as the Kelabit of
the uplands of interior Borneo now claim that
they have never eaten sago – ever, while their own history suggests otherwise.
This paper explores the role of sago amongst farming communities and in
particular the importance of ‘forgetting’ sago to in order to farm rice.
C6 Denham, Tim
Monash University, Australia
HUMAN OCCUPATION OF THE MONTANE RAINFORESTS
OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA:
SNAPSHOTS FROM THE PLEISTOCENE TO PRESENT
Renewed
multi-disciplinary investigations at a series of archaeological sites across
the highland spine of Papua
New Guinea clarify the occupation chronology
of the region, as well as enable relatively in-depth regional interpretations
of human-environment interactions through time. A series of interpretative
scenarios are woven against this evidential background to infer how people
subsisted in, and eventually transformed, montane rainforest environments
towards the present. The nature of these human-environment interactions varied
greatly spatially and through time.
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SESSION C7
C7 Carter, Alison
University of
Wisconsin, USA
Trade
and Exchange Networks in Iron Age and Early Historic Cambodia: Preliminary Results from
a Study of Stone and Glass Beads
Iron Age and Early Historic Cambodia has often been left out
of discussions regarding trade, exchange and socio-political development in Southeast Asia. This study seeks to fill these gaps
by studying stone and glass beads from several Iron Age and Early Historic
periodites in Cambodia.
Beads are excellent indicators of regional and international trade, of
socio-economic and technological organization, as well as ideology and status.
Compositional analysis of beads can add another level of understanding to the
production and distribution of beads across a broad landscape. This study will
present preliminary results of Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass
Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) compositional analysis from Iron Age and Early
Historic site across Cambodia
and discuss the implications this research has for our understanding of trade
and interaction networks in Cambodia
and across Southeast Asia more broadly during
this period.
C7 Chan,
Sovichetra
Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia
Cultural
potential of Basak, Svay Rieng
Svay Rieng is a province located along the Khmero-Vietnamese
border in the Mekong Delta. Previous inventory catalogued by French scholars
indicated a relatively sparse archaeological sites distribution in the area.
However, current inventory has documented over 300 archaeological sites in this
province. The sites registered are mostly remnants of brick religious monuments
with the largest concentration of remains found at Basak, located along the Vaico River.
Excavation by Jean Commaille in 1902 revealed the original
layout of a brick temple complex surrounded by wall and moat, as well as
statues and inscriptions that were attributed to the Angkor
period. In addition to pre-Angkorian artifacts including lintel and
inscriptions were also uncovered. This evidence demonstrates the long-term
occupation of Basak from the pre-Angkor to Angkor
period. This paper will discuss the following topics: a) description of sites
along the Vaico River
and Bassak; b) the influence of the irrigation system from the Angkor region based on inscription; and finally, c) a
proposed cultural resources management of the area.
C7 Chhay
Rachna
APSARA Authority, Cambodia
Heng Piphal
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
The Crossdraft Kiln, an evaluation and THE use of
Khmer kilns from late 9th to 13th centurIES.
During the last few years, many kiln sites in Angkor region have been excavated by national and
international teams, such as Tani, Thnal Mrech (also known as Anglong Thom),
Sor sie, Khnar Po, and Bangkong kiln sites. All these kilns used a crossdraft
technique to produce glazed and unglazed ceramics. Depending on their dating,
the productions and the evolution of the crossdraft’s use, provide some
understanding of the characteristics of Crossdraft kiln from the late 9th
to the 13th century of Angkor. This paper will focus on the difference between
localization and the ideas of kiln construction. Then on the development of the
kiln’s firewall and firing chamber, that show the potters’ concept of
crossdraft kiln to produce ceramic. Some examples of their production will also
be presented.
C7 Dega, Michael
Latinis, D. Kyle
Naga Research Group
Possible
Production Centers of Cambodian Circular Earthwork Ceramics as explained
through XRF Analysis
X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis of several earthwork
ceramic assemblages lends possible interpretations that ceramic production
centers are identifiable within the fairly homogenous site grouping. The
earthwork sites, occurring across a basaltic plateau in eastern
Cambodia/western Vietnam,
have been assessed as having internally homogenous site characteristics and
material records. The XRF study provides an additional level of analysis to
assess diversity within the earthwork assemblages and potentially, has meted
out ceramic production centers within the site grouping.
C7 Ea Darith
APSARA, Cambodia
KOL VILLAGE:
A Set of Community Structures in Angkor Period
Kol Village
is one of sets of community structures in the Angkor period located to the west
of Angkor, approximately 50 km along the ancient road from Angkor
to Phimai. The recent survey found that people have been living there from
pre-historical times to the Angkor period and
continuing to the present. Kol village was probably home to a large community
during Angkor period because of the remains of
some structures such as water infrastructures, roads, bridges, monuments, rest
house, hospital chapel, habitation mounds, and ceramic shards. In order to
understand some of these structures, we excavated two trenches to study road
structures and a bridge. This study provided us ample information about the
technology of building a road and a laterite bridge, as well as the connections
between people from one place to another by ancient roads and sets of community
structures in the Angkor period.
C7 Evans, Damian
University of Sydney
The
Development of Early Urbanism in Cambodia: Results of Archaeological
Field Surveys 2008-9
Recently, the many years of archaeological surveys at Angkor
undertaken by members of the Greater Angkor Project have been extended to
include a range of other temple complexes in Cambodia, including Banteay Chmar,
Sambor Prei Kuk, Preah Khan of Kompong Svay and Koh Ker. Evidence has been
uncovered at several of these sites to suggest that, like Angkor,
they possessed sophisticated and extensive water management systems and
extended urban complexes beyond the central temples which have defined them
archaeologically for more than a century. This paper will present a comparative
overview of the recent finds and discuss the implications of the new maps of these
sites for our understanding of the nature of early Khmer urbanism and
settlement patterns.
C7 Fehrenbach, Shawn
University of Hawa’I, Manoa
Earthenware
Ceramic Technologies of Early Historic Angkor Borei, Cambodia
Organizational changes between the Late Prehistoric and
Early Historic periods (c. 500 BCE – CE 500) in Southeast
Asia involved increasing socio-political complexity leading to the
emergence of the region’s earliest states. Archaeological ceramics provide an
abundant data source for considering the social, political, and economic realms
of ceramic production. This paper examines ceramic production at the Mekong
Delta site of Angkor Borei by positioning technological variability in relation
to both localized and regional processes of state development. Chemical and
morphological analyses are employed to interpret patterns of continuity and
variability in the technical choices made by ceramic producers at Angkor Borei.
Results provide a nuanced perspective on the extent to which this important center
was participating in developing regional and inter-regional interaction
spheres, while also recognizing the importance and persistence of local
traditions and potential cases of innovation.
C7 Feneley, Marnie
University of Sydney
THE EVOLUTION OF THE KHMER DRAGON
A collection of lintels in the lexicon of Khmer imagery
feature the mythical beast called the Reachisey. The Reachisey, a dragon like
creature is uniquely Khmer, and its inclusion in the depiction of Vishnu
Anantaśāyin has arisen through
a Khmer interpretation of the Viúṇuite creation story. Its origins stem
from existing Khmer mythology fused with transmigratory influences, including
the Makara, the Gagasṃha of India and the Cham dragon. A crocodile
mythology, which may have predated Brahmanic influence, is evidenced through
local stories and artistic evidence. This mythology has over time been linked
to Vishnu most
famously at Prasat Kravanh and at Kbal Spean, where the crocodile can be found
among the carvings of the river bed. The 12th Century saw the popular use of
the Reachisey as a bed for the reclining Vishnu, co-existing with the Nāga, and affirming its place as a
powerful water symbol.
C7 Hendrickson, Mitch
University of Sydney
Industries
of Angkor: Material production at Preah Khan
of Kompong Svay
Preah Khan of Kompong Svay (PKKS) is both the single largest
Angkorian enclosed city and the purported centre of iron production for the
Khmer Empire. INDAP represents the first comprehensive investigation of the
history and production of industrial material (metal, ceramics) and settlement
(temples and landscape) at this important site. This paper presents initial
results of surveys and geophysical investigation within the city focusing
specifically on the distribution of iron production sites. More importantly,
this work re-examines the important role that the ethnic Kouy, Cambodia’s
traditional iron smelters, may have played in the placement and development of
PKKS.
C7 Heng Piphal
University of Hawai’i, Manoa
Chronology of Sambor Prei Kuk
This paper will focus on the date of the pre-Angkorian
capital of Sambor Prei Kuk–Isanapura. This is a critical topic regarding the
early state formation and development, which Chinese accounts termed Chenla
during the early 6th century A.D. Providing a chronology of the
capital would provide more insight regarding politics, economics, and ideology which
might have changed from the time of Bhavavarman I to Jayavarman II. The paper
presents a controversial issue regarding the role of ideology, religious to be
specific, structured within the
politics and economics of pre-Angkor Cambodia.
C7 Heng Sophady
Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia
Village 10.8
Iron Age
Cemetery in the Red Soil Plateau,
earthen of Mekong
River
Despite identifying many new sites in recent years, most
sites in the red soil area of eastern Kampong Cham remain a mystery and
under-researched. The archaeological site of Village 10.8 was surveyed and
excavated by the archaeological team of the Memot Centre for Archaeology
between 2002 and 2008. This work revealed approximately 40 burials, a wide
range of burial goods showing a possible link to the Dong Son culture, and
radiocarbon dates between around 400B.C. to 50 B.C. Village 10.8 may therefore
be an important transitional site between the Metal Age and the early historic
period. Future research is required to date and understand the function of
Village 10.8 before it is destroyed by agriculture and infract structure
development in the area.
C7 Im Sokrithy
APSARA, Cambodia
A Study of
Village Structures in the Angkor Area: Were they applying the Indian Treatise
of Urbanization when Indianization covered Ancient Cambodia?
This paper will demonstrate an approach of a study on the
structure of villages, where are known as prehistoric sites by scholars for
years, situated within Angkor area. These
villages classified as circular mound moat by their pattern. Based on
research work done by Professor Bruno Dagens on the Indian Treatise Mayamata
(Dagens 1970) and the research of Professor Jacques Gaucher on Angkor Thom
(Gaucher 2005), we examined the structure of ancient villages in the Angkor area. The findings show continuing occupation on
sites from the early in Cambodian history to the present. Villages are
spatially concentrated around a central point represented by wooden posts. Two
main roads, East-West and North-South, crossed each other at the central point
thus dividing the village into four quadrants. The paper will examine the
origin of this concept of spatial organization.
C7 Leisen, Hans
von Plehwe Leisen, Esther
University of Cologne
Hendrickson,
Mitch
University of Sydney
Secrets
within the Stone: Investigation of sandstone temples from Preah Khan of Kompong
Svay
The paper
presents a first overview of investigations on the sandstone materials used to
build temples within the Angkorian city of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Cambodia.
Part of the Industries of Angkor Project, the aims of this research is to
identify the different sandstone varieties by their petrographic and physical
properties, locate potential historic quarries, and formulate conservation
concepts for the temple. Current work has focussed on non-destructive
techniques in the field like macroscopic examination, water uptake measurements
and determination of the magnetic susceptibility. Future work will examine the
physical parameters of different stone varieties in the laboratory.
C7 Lustig, Eileen
University of Sydney
Cycles
of influence: An epigraphic study of rulers and elites in the Angkorian period
To
gain an appreciation of the control exercised by the Angkorian Empire, its
political economy is studied by analysing aggregated spatial and temporal data
from Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian period inscriptions. The success of the
pre-modern Khmer state depended in part on its long-established communication
and trade links and on an administration
decentralised through regional centres. The mode of control varied with
distance from the capital. Its political economy is marked by three
simultaneous cycles indicative of changing power relationships: cycles of royal
inscriptions; of non-royal inscriptions; and fluctuating control over
peripheral territories. Its processes and strategies were sufficiently flexible
for it to endure for approximately six centuries. At some stage from the 14th
century, key processes and strategies for maintaining its integrity as an
empire became less effective than before, marking the end of the cyclical
pattern.
C7 Miksic, John
National University
of Singapore
The
Bakong Kilns Near Roluos
A survey in the area near the Bakong temple in Roluos in
December 2007 conducted by APSARA and students from the Royal University of
Fine Arts, Phnom Penh, identified numerous kiln sites in that area. Two of
these were subjected to emergency excavation in January 2008, and a single
radiocarbon date was obtained. The sample size is small, so that conclusions
from these results regarding the course of Khmer ceramic evolution must be
provisional, but the finds here form an interesting contrast to those known
from other kiln sites in the areas further north, at Tanei and on Phnom Kulen
itself. The subject of ceramic studies in Khmer archaeology as practiced by
Khmers is evolving rapidly, and further insights into the role of ceramics in
ancient Khmer society, which in turn should eventually enable us to understand
the organization of production and the economy in the empire.
C7 Phon Kaseka
Institute of Culture and Fine Arts, Royal
Academy of Cambodia
CHEUNG EK CIRCULAR
EARTHWORK SITE AND CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
.The Cheung Ek circular earthwork, 770 m in diameter and
surrounded by a moat and earthen wall, located west of the Cheung Ek Lake, has been investigated. Two pre-Angkorian temple
foundations and three ancient water reservoirs were recorded and mapped. The
research found 61 kilns, two of them located in the area of the circular
earthwork, 11 temple foundations, and some habitation mounds. The Cheung Ek
circular earthwork is not an isolated site but has a connection to the Bassc River.
It has connection to neighboring sites such as Sre Ampil and Angkor Borei.
People of the Cheung Ek circular earthwork developed their living settlement
from a round village into a normal village. The cultural layer is very thin.
The habitation activity was not very long.
One of the kilns inside the circular earthwork was
investigated. The structure of the kiln was completely destroyed. Pottery was
collected as well as beads, glass and other animal remains. The two dates from
the northern and southern part of the kiln come out as 5th and 7th
century AD. According to the dating, the Cheung Ek kiln is the oldest kiln in
the history of Cambodia.
The paper will describe the investigations at the Cheung Ek circular earthwork
site.
C7 Federico Carò
Department of Scientific Research, The Metropolitan Museum
of Art
Janet G. Douglas
Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, Freer
Gallery of Art/Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
SCULPTURAL MATERIALS OF
THE ANGKOR PERIOD: PETROGRAPHY OF KHMER STONE
USED FROM THE 9TH TO THE 14TH CENTURY
Our research focuses on the stone materials used by the
Khmer in the production of sculptures during the Angkor
period, which ranges from the 9h to 14th centuries AD. At the beginning,
Mesozoic sandstone formations in Cambodia were employed principally
a source for cladding material, and these materials were subsequently extended
to use for sculpture in the round. Koh Ker sculptural production, confined in
time in the second quarter of the 10th century, appears to have been the first
in the Angkor period where the use of a new
and distinctive stone material emerged. About two centuries later during the
Bayon period, we see the appearance of another distinctive type of stone used
for sculpture. In order to illustrate changes in the sculptural artistic medium
through time and across geographical areas of Cambodia, petrographic data on
over a hundred provenanced and unprovenanced sculptures from the National
Museum of Cambodia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery, and the Musée Guimet are herein presented. A comprehensive
petrographic and geochemical study of stones used by the Khmers for sculptural
purposes would be a helpful tool for archaeologists, museum curators, and
others who are investigating the context and provenance of Khmer stone
sculptures from various perspectives.
C7 Stark,
Miriam T.
Morrison,
Alexander
University of Hawai’i Manoa
Changing
Agrarian Landscapes: Economic and Political Development in Cambodia's Mekong
Delta
Southeast Asian landscapes like the Mekong Delta were dynamic arenas of
change in the first millennium CE. Research through the Lower Mekong
Archaeological Project concentrates on Cambodia ’s Mekong Delta to explore
interrelated roles of settlement and landscape change from c. 500 BCE – 1000
CE. This research blends historical ecological and landscape approaches to
study interactions between human populations and their environment in a
longitudinal perspective. This paper investigates how geographical factors
influenced settlement and land use, and how those populations changed their
landscape as they reorganized into complex polities. Findings from the
2003-2005 field seasons are combined with contemporary land-use data to form
the empirical foundation of this paper, which particularly emphasizes the role
of changing agrarian strategies. Use of a multiscalar analytical strategy offers
insights on changing social, economic, and political boundaries within mainland
Southeast Asia during the first millennium
C.E.
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SESSION C8
C8
Blench, Roger
Kay
Williamson Educational Foundation, Cambridge
Seizing
back art history from the art historians: some case studies
The amount
of material on sculptural styles in the Indo-Pacific region and our
understanding of their distribution has increased markedly in recent years, but
their interpretation in terms of prehistory has apparently not kept pace. The
paper suggests that we should be able to correlate both iconic objects and
broad stylistic patterns with the language phyla of the region, especially in
the Pacific, where external interaction has been limited compared with mainland
SE Asia. To exemplify this idea, the paper
looks at two case studies, the art styles of New
Guinea and the bulul,
the seated figure with arms crossed, which is found at least from the Philippines to the Aru
islands and possibly further. In the case of New Guinea, the similarities
between art styles across the whole island suggest a type of convergence
analogous to the Papuan languages which are noted for their lexical diversity
and phonological uniformity. The bulul
are co-associated with the Austronesian expansion and can probably be mapped
against individual subgroups. The object is to suggest that we can use the
detailed studies of art historians to build a broader regional prehistory.
C8 Carlos, Jane
University of the Philippines
CANARIUM HIRSUTUM W. IN TERMINAL PLEISTOCENE TO
HOLOCENE PHILIPPINES:
IMPLICATIONS OF ANCIENT PLANT USE
Carbonized nut fragments were recovered from the
archaeological sites of Eme Cave in Cagayan, Northern Philippines and Ille Cave in
Palawan, Southwestern Philippines. Determined
as Canarium hirsutum, W., these were
found in layers radiocarbon dated from 10,000 to 1600 years ago. The presence
of this nut in the terminal Pleistocene to the Holocene at two different areas
of the Philippines
is indicative of its importance as a food resource in ancient times. It also
suggests the forested and warm palaeo-environment around the two cave sites and
the reliance of early people on forest resources.
C8 Dwyer, Daniel
Charles Darwin
University,
Australia
DONG SON AND ISLAND SOUTHEAST ASIAN BOAT TECHNOLOGIES: SOME
SIMILARITIES AND COMPARISONS
Noted and
discussed here are similarities between some maritime technologies of insular
Southeast Asia and the motifs displayed on Dong Son bronze artefacts from
northern Vietnam.
The island technologies are gathered from the archaeological record in the
southern Philippines,
bas-relief depictions at Borobudur in central Java, and ethnographic data
collected in eastern Indonesia.
Elements discussed include bipod masts, quarter steering oars, bow sweeps,
external lashings, and decorative designs. Also raised is an interpretation of
a tympanum motif as a double outrigger canoe. Acceptance of this interpretation
would make the motif the earliest known recording of double outrigger canoe
technology anywhere in Southeast Asia and
could reopen for debate the origins of sponsons and outriggers in the region.
C8
Goto, Akira
Nanzan University,
Nagoya, Japan
HOW
IS THE JAPANESE ARCHIPELAGO AN ISLAND? A
PERSPECTIVE FROM INDIGENOUS JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
Japanese
archaeologists, ethnologists and historians have used a concept of "kai-jin"
that means a maritime (=”kai”) people (=”jin”). The kai-jin
was pronounced as "ama" in Japanese classical literatures to
indicate fishing and salt-making people, and later it came to mean particular
maritime clans who were responsible for specialized fishing as well as for
piloting and naval war in the Yamato Dynasty. In recent usage, “ama”
means specialized diver-fishers. In this presentation, I will argue that the
"kai-jin" concept that has been used by Japanese
archaeologists, historians and ethnologists for years is useful for grasping
the maritime groups living in insular situation in Asia
and the Pacific. In addition to "sea nomads" who live in house boats,
I propose to include other type of groups in the concept of "kai-jin":
e.g. the group who has a permanent costal village but a part of the family
(usually men) emigrate for several months or even several years for the purpose
of fishing, craft and trade. An example comes from the maritime potter-trader
of Mare Island
south of Tidore, Northern Maluku. I do not
argue that the kai-jin concept is useful to grasp a particular ethnic
group. Instead, I argue that “kai-jin” originally
comprises multi-ethnic groups who adopted a common way of living or maritime
habitus. Comparative discussions will be made of the prehistoric maritime
groups such as Lapita and the Okhotsk
cultures.
C8, Higashimura, Junko
Kyoto University Museum, Kyoto,
Japan
THE INSULARITY OF WEAVING TECHNIQUES AMONG FORMOSAN
ABORIGINIES
Taiwan aborigines use foot-balanced back-strap looms for weaving.
Ethnographic studies show that there are variations in shapes of parts for
their looms.On the other hand in Japan
it is clear from archaeological and ethnological data that foot-balanced
back-strap looms became extinct for technical exchanges between East Asian
countries.It is supposed that weaving techniques of Taiwan aborigines have developed in
isolation for a long time.
C8 Ishimura, Tomo
Nara
National Research Institute for Cultural Properties
LOSS OF POTTERY IN OKINAWA AND OCEANIA
Prehistoric loss of pottery has been of interest to
archaeologists for decades, and this process has been observed both in some
parts of Oceania and the southern part of Okinawa (Sakishima
Islands), Japan. These two regions have many
common features in physical environment and material culture. The research of
aceramic sites in the Sakishima
Islands (2500-800 BP)
showed some evidences of a great mobility of the people, in the light of the
settlement setting and the material culture. This contradicts the notion that a
breakdown of exchange and interaction lead to a decline of pottery industry.
The example of the Sakishima Islands has some implication for understanding the
same issue in Oceania.
C8 Nakamura, Daisuke
Korea University
CHARACTERISTICS OF PREHISTORIC LIAONING PENINSULA
There is a
deep relation between the Liaodong and Shangdong peninsulas starting from 4000
B.C. when agriculture was brought from Shangdong to Liaodong peninsula. Later
on, in about 2000 B.C., almost the same Shangdong peninsula pottery style appeared
in the Liaodong peninsula. Then, while the pottery influence of the Shangdong
peninsula disappeared from Shuangtouzi third period in Liaodong peninsula, the
exchange was continued in the form of rice which was imported from the
Shangdong peninsula where it already had paddy fields.
However the people who lived in the southern part of the
Liaodong peninsula made cairns
as their traditional graves. These are different from the burial system of the
Shangdong peninsula throughout the period. In addition, the cairns and pottery of the Liaodong peninsula
do not spread past its northern and western boundaries. When the Liaoning style bronze
dagger came in from the north, ornamental pottery different from other areas
kept on being used in the southern part of the Liaodong peninsula. Agriculture
along with stone implements had diffused from Shangdong peninsula to the Korean Peninsula
via the Liaodong peninsula. The pottery style and burial system of the Liaodong
peninsula did not, however, influence other areas in contrast to agricultural
relations.
The fact that there were Yan and Han dynasty forts in the
Liaodong peninsula in the 3rd century B.C. shows the importance of this place
as a transit area to the east. However the people living in the Liaoning peninsula were
not cultural pioneers but intermediary traders for people living in areas
surrounding them. This is believed to be caused by the area’s unique
island characteristics.
C8 Sand,
Christophe
Institute
of Archaeology of New Caledonia and the Pacific
Iizuka,Yoshiyuki
Academia Sinica, Taipei
Russell Beck
New
Zealand
REWRITING THE
HISTORY OF THE KANAK “JADE CIRCLE”.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS ON NEPHRITE SOURCING IN NEW CALEDONIA
Ethnographic
studies about the origin of the stone adzes and axes produced by the Kanak
population of New Caledonia during the last 1500 years before European contact,
had built at the beginning of the XXth century, a simple scenario of adzes made
of “serpentine” and flat ceremonial axes made of “jade”, quarried on the outer
island of Ile Ouen in the southern part of the archipelago. Renewed studies on
the petrography of the artefacts and the geological sources of the stones have
started to show a much more complex story. Identification of the use of a
number of similar, but different stone types, mainly anorthite from Ile Ouen
and nephrite and semi-nephrite with diopside from at least one nephrite source
on the main Island of New Caledonia, shed a completely new light on the
pre-European stone production developed on this small remnant of Gondwanaland
in Southern Melanesia.
C8 Shibutani, Ayako
Department of Comparative Studies, the Graduate University
for Advanced Studies, Japan
CHANGES IN PLANT
UTILIZATION FROM LATE PLEISTOCENE TO MIDDLE HOLOCENE IN JAPAN
Japan has experienced major alternations
in forest distribution from late Pleistocene to middle Holocene. These
environmental changes affected human choices and access to food sources.
Especially, after temperate forests became more extensive, more settled
patterns of living spread northwards and hunting-gathering-fishing people began
cultivating vegetables and cereal crops. This paper shows changes in plant
utilization from the late terminal Pleistocene to middle Holocene, using
residue analyses of starchy tissues on early grinding stone tools in Japan.
The aim is to demonstrate a correlation between environmental impact and human
activities.
C8
Uozu, Tomokatsu
History Research Center, Otemae
University, Japan
THE INSULAR TECHNOLOGICAL COMPLEX AND ITS
CONTRIBUTION TO STATE FORMATION IN JAPAN: AN ANALYSIS ON METALLURGY
In Japan, recent excavations show that
iron tools developed rapidly in the latter Yayoi Period. Especially, in
Kyushu-district and the Sea of Japan coastal region, the ironware from Korean Peninsula
was introduced into the regional elite's burial goods. From the end of Yayoi
Period to the beginning of Kohun Period (AD 200-300), evidence which indicates the
existence of a large-scale smithery village is found at Hakata-wan coast in
north Kyushu. It's possible to assume that Hakata-wan
was made a relay place of distribution of the iron material and ironware from Korean Peninsula
to Japan.
This is also proved from the burial ironware by technology from Korean Peninsula
in early Kohun Period.
When this evidence is taken into consideration, it is suggested that ‘the
Ancient Harbor City (AHC)’ which becomes a distribution center of goods
(especially ironware and prestige goods) was indispensable for state formation
in Japan.
Simultaneously, the Ancient Kingdom Capital (AKC) is formed in the location of
hinterland. Such a combination of AHC and AKC must be an early stage of state.
In Asia, such processes seems quite common at coastal areas around China (and India).
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SESSION C9
C9 Sand, Christophe
Ouetcho, André
Bolé, Jacques
Baret, David
Institute of Archaeology
of New Caledonia
and the Pacific
Dotte, Emilie
Université
Paris I
CHRONOLOGY OF TRADITIONAL KANAK
SETTLEMENTS: ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA FROM THE TIWAKA
VALLEY (NEW CALEDONIA)
Over the past 20 years, a number of research
programs from our local Department of Archaeology have started to study
traditional Kanak settlement patterns in an archaeological perspective. Surveys
have shown an unexpected density of habitation and horticultural sites,
pointing to a significant intensification process before first European
contact, with the building of sometimes massive settlements, characterized by
large, high habitation mounds. This result has come in sharp contrast to
ethnographic descriptions of traditional society, and has prompted, amongst
other things, renewed questionings on the exact chronology of these settlements.
The paper will present a series of case studies on settlement patterns and the
results of chronological excavations from Kanak settlements in the Tiwaka
valley (northeast of New Caledonia’s ‘Grande Terre’), to start to better define
the detailed dynamics of traditional Kanak society in time and space.
C9 Ayres, William
University of Oregon
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVE ON MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE FROM POHNPEI, MICRONESIA
As
a venue for political action deeply embedded in hierarchical social status
differences, Nan Madol, Pohnpei, represents perhaps Micronesia’s most complex
ritually-focused administrative place, both in the distant and the recent past.
One purpose of archaeological research there has been to define changing site
function through archaeological survey and excavation programs. A goal has been
to establish how variation in monumental architecture and related
archaeological data can be used to understand interaction at the local,
community, and regional scales. Provenance of building materials, and other
artifactual remains, at Nan Madol indicates something of the social and
political catchment of early Pohnpeian leadership and community. As well,
evidence from Nan Madol and related sites provides a way to test the hypothesis
that the forms and the scale of mortuary expressions are positively related to
the social and political scale of ritual and social marking. A combination of
data from petrographic analysis of stone building materials, site
distributions, portable artifact types and styles, and architectural forms
provides a basis for testing hypotheses about the status of the site and its
evolution over time as a central place in Pohnpeian and eastern Micronesia. At
the same time, the archaeological and oral historical records provide another perspective
of heterarchical arrangements of political and social interaction.
C9 Peterson, John A.
Carson, Mike T.
Micronesian Area
Research Center,
University of Guam
Bayman, James
Kurashina, Hiro
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii
at Manoa
LATTE VILLAGES IN GUAM
AND THE MARIANAS: MONUMENTAL OR COMMUNAL
STRUCTURES?
The functions of latte structures in Guam and the Marianas have been treated in two significant
perspectives that deserve examination relative to their monumental character.
The classic ethnographic and ethnohistoric perspective interpreted latte
structures as part of village complexes with both residential and communal
functions. Materialistic interpretations, on the other hand, and more recently,
characterized latte structures as chiefly houses with size possibly denoting
relative power or rank among villagers and villages in the Marianas.
Recognition of postholes in current investigations of coastal sites in Guam suggests that wooden pile or stilt houses are much
more common than previously recognized, and this, along with other data,
suggests that the more visible remains at archaeological sites of latte
structures have biased interpretations of village proxemics. In the last two
decades considerable data have accumulated regarding both coastal and upland
latte villages. These suggest, as did much of the earlier ethnographic work in
the region, that latte sets were likely special use structures such as men’s
houses, women’s houses, or canoe sheds, and not simply “chiefly residences”. Recent ethnological studies also
suggest that power in Micronesian communities is often horizontal, not
vertical, and may not leave diagnostic markers in the material cultural record.
Based on this understanding, we propose a model for testing village proxemics
as illustrated by case studies in the Marianas and from current investigations
at the Ritidian Unit, Guam National Wildlife Refuge, in Guam.
C9 Cauchois, Hinanui
University of Hawaii at Manoa
MONUMENTALITY, INTERIOR
SETTLEMENT, AND DEFENSIVE PRACTICES IN PAPETOAI
VALLEY, MO’OREA, SOCIETY ISLANDS
This
paper presents the first results of an archaeological project conducted in the
main valley of Papetoai, Mo‘orea,
in the Society Islands (French Polynesia).
This research project, as part of a PhD supervised by Dr. Michael Graves (University of New Mexico), looks at the development of
inland settlement patterns in relation to expansion of agricultural systems and
defensive practices. Built upon archaeological and historical materials as well
as oral traditions, its goal is to develop a general model that will explain
how inland areas of the Society Islands
developed from remote uninhabited zones into areas where agricultural resources
were established and possibly defended, and ultimately used as refuge areas for
groups, seeking independence from political integration in the archipelago.
This model will also be compared with other regions of Polynesia (Samoa, Tonga,
Fiji, New Zealand and Hawaii) to look at different trajectories.
C9 Kahn, Jennifer G.
Bishop Museum, Hawaii
THE CONSTRUCTION, DEDICATION, AND FUNCTION OF AGGREGATE MARAE SITE COMPLEXES IN THE WINDWARD SOCIETY ISLANDS
Multi-marae or Aggregate Marae site complexes are ubiquitous in the ‘Opunohu
Valley, Mo‘orea (Society
Islands) but have not yet been dated at a fine scale. Such
concentrations of temple sites are considered material equivalents of
kin-congregations, where lineages proliferated and segmented through time. I
report on new mapping, excavations, and dating of ‘Opunohu Valley
aggregate site complexes to link marae
construction sequences to temple typologies, most notably, to date the
occurrence of ahu (altar)-bearing marae and the advent of aggregate site
complex construction. In many cases the nature of the temple construction fill deposits
indicate feasting events that took place at the time of temple construction,
allowing for precise construction events/ritual commemoration events to be
dated. Contextualizing the spatio-temporal sequence of temple construction in
relation to house construction allows for a more holistic view of Society Island
marae function to be offered in two
prehistoric socio-political districts in the ‘Opunohu Valley.
These data are then related to community and regional wide shifts in
socio-political organization, land tenure, and territoriality, most notably
occupational specialization and mechanisms for elites to establish and affirm
social difference and political domination.
C9 Maric, Tamara
Université de Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne &
Service de la Culture et du Patrimoine, Papeete
HIGH ALTITUDE
MONUMENTAL RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE: A COMPARISON OF PAPARA AND PAPENO‘O VALLEYS,
TAHITI, SOCIETY ISLANDS
This paper presents examples of monumental religious
architecture from the island of Tahiti (Society Islands),
and its link with the different social classes found within Tahitian society.
The marae were stone religious
structures, which were closely linked with the familial and social status of
their owners. Besides the religious function, they served as symbols of
landowning and territorial and social cohesion. Other types of marae were devoted to different
specialized purposes, in particular, subsistence activities (fishing, making
stone tools, healing, and so on).
Following ethnohistorical accounts
and previous archaeological studies, some architectural types of complex marae can be associated without much
doubt with the social elite, while the most simple types can correspond to
lowest social classes and/or specialized activities. I examine their
geographical location, spatial association with habitat and agricultural sites,
to aid in reconstructing the overall settlement pattern of the ancient
districts, the general spread of different social classes within the territory,
and their possible inter-relationships.
My case study focuses on the margins
of occupation in altitude, where agricultural sites are present. The types of
remains in those marginal areas are compared with settlement pattern in more
accessible areas: Are these agricultural sites representative of usual
production? Are there material indications of elites’ presence, or control on
production? I present examples from Papara, a locality of Tahiti with elites of
high political status, supposedly one of the highest ranking districts situated
in the Windward Islands. The territorial
limits of this locality allow for access to marine resources, large coastal and
fertile plains, and sectors of lands cultivated in central mountains of the
island. On the opposite side of the island, the archaeological remains of the
large Papeno‘o Valley are examined in relation to local resources, agricultural
sites, and basalt.
C9 Wallin, Paul
Gotland University
Solsvik, Reidar
Kon-Tiki Museum
TRACING RITUAL BEHAVIOR
AND TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS: CASE STUDIES FROM RECENT WORK ON HUAHINE, FRENCH POLYNESIA
In this paper we are going to present a case study recently
carried out at marae Manunu, Huahine,
French Polynesia, tracing ritual behavior on
the courtyard of this national temple. In combining phosphate analysis, not
previously applied to Polynesian ritual structures, with osteological analysis
of midden materials excavated at the site, and a detailed reading of
ethno-historical sources, we can gain a more comprehensive picture of ritual
activities carried out at the site. Discrete patterns on their own may in this
way become visible and meaningful. Another case study concerns how it is possible to approach
the dating of both architecturally complex and architecturally simple ritual
sites. We believe that an approach that considers the life cycle of ritual structures is essential in framing the
temporal longevity of marae sites.
Thus, the later phases of use and rebuilding is just as important as isolating
the first construction sequence, when trying to understand these structures/sites,
their history, and their location in the settlement and island landscape. We consider these methods useful for
future work on ritual structures in East Polynesia, but they may have an equal
high potential in studying simple ritual sites further west in the Pacific.
C9 Rolett, Barry V.
University of Hawaii at Manoa
EMERGENCE OF MONUMENTAL
ARCHITECTURE IN THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS (EAST POLYNESIA)
Marquesan monumental architecture may have emerged and
flourished in the context of social competition among relatively isolated
chiefdoms. Systematic survey and excavation of monumental architecture in Vaitahu Valley provides evidence supporting this
interpretation. Our Vaitahu study area contains a complex of sites including a
high-status residence and two nearby religious me‘ae, one of which yielded a set of four stone tiki. These sites were built and
occupied from the late prehistoric to the early historic era. Long term
patterns in the interisland exchange of basalt adzes help to reveal changes in
the degree of friendly interaction among separate chiefdoms. WD-XRF analysis of
adzes from the Vaitahu sites supports previous findings that interisland
exchange declined significantly after AD 1450. This change is best explained by
a late prehistoric contraction of interaction spheres, suggesting that
Marquesan monumental architecture developed in a setting of increasingly
competitive chiefdoms with hostile relationships that limited opportunities for
friendly exchange.
C9 West, Eric W.
NAVFAC Pacific
Rolett, Barry V.
University of Hawaii at Manoa
THE USE OF
ZOOARCHAEOLOGY WITH OTHER LINES OF EVIDENCE TO INTERPRET MONUMENTAL
ARCHITECTURE: A CASE STUDY FROM TAHUATA, MARQUESAS ISLANDS (EAST
POLYNESIA)
On Tahuata in the Marquesas Islands of East Polynesia
controlled excavations directly within monumental architecture have contributed
important information about the past. Radiocarbon dating and relative dating
indicate the monumental architecture of Vaitahu Valley was constructed and
occupied between the late prehistoric and early historic periods (ca. 1700-1900
AD), and confirms the Hanamiai Dune site on the coast was continuously occupied
from ca. 1025 AD to 1850 AD. Age data from pig teeth excavated at both research
areas reveals a pattern of selectively harvesting pigs before they became
adults to maximize production efficiency. The data presented from Vaitahu Valley was collected from a sample of
194 pig teeth excavated from four monumental architecture sites including high
status residential and ceremonial sites. Stable isotope data from the pig teeth
show pig diet changed over time from a combination of terrestrial and marine
protein sources, to a diet of strictly terrestrial protein. We interpret these
findings in the context of the emergence of Marquesan monumental architecture.
C9 Allen, Melinda S.
University of Auckland
VARIABILITY IN MEGALITHIC DOMESTIC
ARCHITECTURE AS A PROXY FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL CHANGE, MARQUESAS
ISLANDS
Variability
in domestic architecture offers an opportunity to track changing status and power
relations within and across communities. Domestic architecture in the Marquesas Islands is particularly well suited to this
endeavour, as stone pavements, terraces, and platforms were used for house
foundations by both elites and non-elites, with considerable variation in
structure size, raw materials, internal complexity, and spatial attributes. Of
particular interest in the Marquesan case is transformation from the ancestral
hereditary chiefdom to the contact-period situation, where the importance of genealogical
associations were reduced, leadership rights in varied realms contested amongst
elites at large, and the role of individual achievements elevated. The argument
is made that domestic structures should be particularly sensitive markers of
individual attempts to exert control over resources, other community members,
and more generally ideology. Specifically, changes in the character and
frequency of status markers in house foundations, and the character, abundance
and distribution of elite domestic sites within communities, are anticipated to
inform on when and why the socio-political structures observed at
western contact emerged.
C9 Stephen, Jesse
University of Hawaii at Manoa
McCoy, Mark
University of Otago
Ladefoged, Thegn
University of Auckland
Graves, Michael W.
University of New
Mexico
TRACKING CHANGES IN
MONUMENTAL RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE: MAUI AND
HAWAI‘I ISLAND
Recent archaeology in Hawaii has refocused attention on
traditional religious architecture (heiau)—its variability, identification as
such, patterns of spatial or directional organization on the landscape,
possible changes in architectural forms, and estimates of labor investment to
name but a few. This paper addresses the thorny issues of identification when
ethnohistoric or contemporary records are lacking, and the sometimes differing
views of archaeologists (consulting and academic) and Native Hawaiians on what
constitutes a heiau. Research in Kohala, Hawai‘i island will illustrate how we
have attempted to resolve this issue. We also report on our efforts to examine
co-evolutionary changes in heiau architecture as indicative of inter-group
interaction and the degree to which monumental forms serve to express
competitive ability on the island
of Maui.
C9 Morrison, Alex E.
University of Hawaii,
Manoa and International Archaeological Research Institute Inc.
Filimoehala, Chris
University of Hawaii,
Manoa
Bell, Matthew
International
Archaeological Research Institute Inc.
MULTI-SCALE REMOTE
SENSING APPROACHES FOR DOCUMENTING MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE ON RAPA, NUI, CHILE
The island of Rapa Nui
is perhaps best known for the more than 700 megalithic statutes located across
the island’s landscape. However, a diversity of other monumental archaeological
features exists on the surface of the island. This presentation explores a
variety of remote sensing techniques for recording monumental architecture.
These methods include low elevation aerial photography, blimp and kite assisted
aerial photography, and satellite imagery. 3 dimensional methods are also
discussed. Finally, the ramification of these recording techniques for heritage
management and archaeological research is considered.
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SESSION C10
C10 Field, Julie S.
Ohio State
University
Lape , Peter V.
University of Washington
PALAEOCLIMATES AND THE
EMERGENCE OF FORTIFICATIONS IN THE INDO-PACIFIC
A number of recent studies from Europe, China, North America, and Central
America have suggested correlations between climate change and
broad cultural responses including war, economic decline, and societal
collapse. The available palaeoclimatic data from the Indo-Pacific region are
compared to the frequency of fortifications constructed in the Holocene. The
results suggest that some regions experienced conflict during periods of
coolness that match the chronology for the Little Ice Age (AD 1450-1850) in the
Northern Hemisphere. Periods of storminess and drought associated with the El
Niño Southern Oscillation have less of a temporal correlation with the
emergence of fortifications in the Indo-Pacific, but the spatial distribution
of the most severe conditions associated with this cycle suggests a causal
relationship that requires additional study.
C10 Nunn, Patrick D.
Chandra, Reemal
Qolicokota, Kalivati
Sanjana, Shalni
Veitata, Sainimere
The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
CHRONOLOGY AND
SIGNIFICANCE OF INLAND, UPLAND SETTLEMENTS IN THE BA RIVER CATCHMENT, VITI LEVU ISLAND, FIJI: RESULTS FROM INITIAL
INVESTIGATIONS
The Ba River catchment occupies most of the northeast part
of Viti Levu Island
(Fiji).
Details of its prehistoric settlement history are almost completely unknown
although a number of fortified hilltop and cave sites are reported from here
and the adjoining Vatia
Peninsula. A study funded
by the Vetlesen Foundation began in March 2009 and focused on locating,
excavating, analysing and interpreting key sites in this part of Fiji.
The main research question is whether or not the majority of these sites, as
with those in the Sigatoka Valley (southwest Viti Levu Island), were
established and occupied only after the AD 1300 Event when a food crisis
(driven by sea-level fall) forced people away from island coasts and into
defendable sites in island interiors. This presentation will give details of
the preliminary investigations of the Ba River valley fortifications and
discuss future research plans.
C10 Veitata, Sainimere
University of the South Pacific, Fiji
Field, Julie S.
Ohio State
University
TRANSIT CAMPS OR EARLY
INLAND OCCUPATIONS? THE EARLY FORTIFIED SITES AT KOROIKEWA, NADRUGU (BA VALLEY)
AND TATUBA (SIGATOKA VALLEY), VITI
LEVU ISLAND, FIJI
The Ba and the Sigatoka
River valleys make up most of north
and west Viti Levu Island, the largest in the Fiji group. While there has been
extensive research conducted in the Sigatoka
River valley, no
prehistoric sites in the Ba valley have been described before this study
(funded by the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation). Excavations at Koroikewa, a 900-m
high ridge-top site above Nadrugu Village in the Ba valley, and Tatuba, a fortified
cave in the higher reaches of the Sigatoka valley, show that they were first
occupied by people 1500–2000 BP, much earlier than the majority of inland sites
on Viti Levu. Questions about the functions of
these early inland sites revolve around the question of whether they were
transit sites, perhaps for people crossing the island along these long broad
valleys, or genuine inland occupations by persons fleeing conflict and/or
undertaking subsistence activities in the immediate vicinity.
C10 Robb, Kasey
Nunn, Patrick D.
University of the South Pacific, Fiji
CHRONOLOGY AND
SIGNIFICANCE OF INLAND, UPLAND SETTLEMENTS IN THE BA RIVER CATCHMENT, VITI LEVU ISLAND, FIJI: RESULTS FROM INITIAL
INVESTIGATIONS
The Ba River catchment occupies most of the northeast part
of Viti Levu Island
(Fiji).
Details of its prehistoric settlement history are almost completely unknown
although a number of fortified hilltop and cave sites are reported from here
and the adjoining Vatia
Peninsula. A study funded
by the Vetlesen Foundation began in March 2009 and focused on locating,
excavating, analysing and interpreting key sites in this part of Fiji. The
main research question is whether or not the majority of these sites, as with
those in the Sigatoka Valley (southwest Viti Levu Island), were established and
occupied only after the AD 1300 Event when a food crisis (driven by sea-level
fall) forced people away from island coasts and into defendable sites in island
interiors. This presentation will give details of the preliminary
investigations of the Ba River valley fortifications and discuss future
research plans.
C10 Sanjana, Shalni
Robb, Kasey
University of the South Pacific, Fiji
FORTIFIED SETTLEMENTS OF THE VATIA
PENINSULA, NORTH-COAST VITI LEVU ISLAND, FIJI
Archaeological investigations on the Vatia
Peninsula, located on the north coast
of Viti Levu Island in Fiji,
have identified inland fortified hilltop and cave sites. Initial dating of
these fortified sites suggests they represent societal responses to the
climate-driven food crisis that affected the tropical Pacific during the AD
1300 Event. Although this study (part of a larger project funded by the G.
Unger Vetlesen Foundation) is still in progress, a description of all the sites
investigated thus far in this area will be given, with initial results
concerning their chronology and functions. The fortified sites along the Vatia Peninsula
sometimes exhibit different levels which may show the social hierarchal system
existing during the time of occupation.
C10 Bulbeck, David
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, The Australian National University
Ian Caldwell
University of Leeds, UK
THE HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY OF INDIGENOUS FORTS IN SIXTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURY SOUTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA
In the early twentieth century the Netherlands Indies
government imposed full colonial rule over southwest Sulawesi,
more than 350 years after the first European visit to the region. Indigenous
fortresses were constructed throughout these years, in response to at least
three identifiable factors. These were: (1) population density, (2) competition
for supremacy, and (3) military technology. (1) Towns and cities of up to
50,000 inhabitants arose throughout the lowlands in critical locations for
controlling agriculture and trade, mainly of rice and slaves. The Macassar port
was a cosmopolitan city throughout most of the period, and many smaller centres
experienced a similar stability; elsewhere there were major population shifts
in response to economic and political changes. (2) Possession of Macassar – the
peninsula’s main port – was the key to controlling the rice-growing lowlands by
virtue of its excellent harbour and fertile hinterland. In the seventeenth
century, possession switched hands from the indigenous Makasars to the Dutch,
who controlled the export trade, in partnership with the Bugis, South Sulawesi’s main ethnic group, who dominated the
rice growing regions of the peninsula. In Luwu, a broad coastal region north of
the Dutch-Bugis sphere of control, local rivalries continued unabated until the
early twentieth century. (3) The most solid fortresses and defensive walls of
brick and masonry were erected in Macassar and its environs, due to the
introduction of technological expertise, the city’s exposure to cannon fire,
and the focused massing of troops. Elsewhere, indigenous construction of forts
(varying in complexity from single walls to quadrangular enceintes) continued
to rely largely on earthen embankments and timber/bamboo palisades.
C10 Lape, Peter V.
University of Washington
COMPARING AND
EXPLAINING FORTIFIED SITES IN TIMOR LESTE AND EASTERN
INDONESIA
A number of fortified settlements have now been excavated by
the author and other scholars in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Although there is some evidence that many of them were initially constructed
during periods of climatic variability, environmental changes do not completely
explain the long term use history of these places, many of which remain
centrally important in contemporary SE Asian societies. This paper will review
data from several sites in Timor Leste and eastern Indonesia and propose avenues for
future investigations.
C10 Chao Chin-yung
Academia Sinica, Taipei,
Taiwan
Lape, Peter V.
University of
Washington,
USA
THE APPEARANCE AND
PERSISTENCE OF LATE PREHISTORIC DEFENSIVE SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN MANATUTO, TIMOR LESTE
A number of recent archaeological researches have proposed
diverse models to the origins of defensive settlement patterns in this region.
This paper suggests that causes for the initial appearance of defensive sites
could have largely varied from the persistent ultilization of these sites.
C10 O’Connor, Sue
Brockwell, Sally
The Australian
National University
da Silva, Abilio
Direcçãonacional da Cultura, Ministério da Educação, Timor
Leste
RECENT RESULTS FROM
INVESTIGATIONS INTO PREHISTORIC FORTS AND WALLED SETTLEMENTS IN TIMOR LESTE
The remains of fortified walled structures abound in remote
hilltop locations in the contemporary landscape of Timor Leste. Previous
investigations suggest that they began to be constructed about 1300 AD. Some
archaeologists have linked the emergence of fortified settlements in Timor
Leste with a period of rapid climate change, environmental variation and
reduced rainfall leading to resource scarcity and inter-group conflict (cf Lape
and Chao). In the light of more recent results from field work in 2008 and
2009, this paper presents a re-examination of the evidence. It describes a
recent collaboration between archaeology and anthropology to document the
nature and timing of cultural change in East Timor
over the last 1000 years, through a detailed investigation of the
fortifications. The results are tested against independent scientific data to
establish whether climate change was in fact a catalyst for cultural change, or
whether fortifications were the result of other social and economic factors. We
suggest that although some forts may have been occupied as early as the 14th
century, the peak of occupation was in the 15th-16th centuries, later than the
climate change indicators, which suggests that factors other than environmental
ones may have been responsible.
C10 Fenner, Jack N.
Sally Brockwell
Sue O’Connor
Archaeology and Natural History, Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University
BAYESIAN MUSINGS ON THE
DATING OF THE FORTIFIED SETTLEMENT AT MACAPAINARA, EAST
TIMOR
Investigators have proposed a number of alternative
scenarios to explain why people constructed and maintained fortified
settlements in East Timor. Some of these
scenarios involve climatic or social interactions that occurred at different
time periods, so establishing the foundation dates for a series of
fortifications would distinguish among the scenarios and reduce the
uncertainty. We investigate the foundation date for one such fortified
settlement at Macapainara, using Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon and other
data to assign specific probabilities to proposed initial occupation dates for
the site. We also provide an initial rough estimate of the marine shell
radiocarbon offset (ΔR) for eastern East Timor.
C10 McWilliam, Andrew
The Australian
National University
SOCIAL DRIVERS
AND FORTIFIED SETTLEMENTS IN TIMOR LESTE
Archaeologist's Lape and Chao (2008) have argued that defensive
fortified settlements emerged in East Timor
during the late Holocene (post 1000 years BP) due to severe and rapid climatic
events associated with ENSO variation. The key El Nino impact was
decreasing and variable rainfall leading to protracted droughts from1000AD with
a peak period 1300-1400AD. This in turn resulted in food scarcity and gave rise
to the construction of defensive fortifications particularly in areas
which had permanent water flows and which remained agriculturally viable during
drought. People built forts to protect themselves against others who lived in
more distant regions and who were suffering food shortages, or so the argument
goes. This paper draws on a range of historical and
archaeological evidence to suggest an alternative set of social
drivers for processes of
fortification. They comprise historically momentous
changes in social conditions that coincided with the advent of Portuguese
colonialism in the region from the early 16th Century (1500) and included four
key social drivers, namely, the introduction of trade in firearms and
gunpowder, the introduction of maize into Timorese
livelihoods, a boom in sandalwood trading from the late 16th century,
and a thriving trade in human slaves. Environmental effects have played an
important role in the development of Timorese livelihoods and residential
choices, but in the case of fortified defensive settlements, it looks like
socio-economic drivers rather than drastic climate change that deserve
attention.
C10 Villanueva, Zandro
V.
University of the Philippines
INVESTIGATION OF A
MOATED-FORTIFIED SETTLEMENT SITE IN LUBANG
ISLAND, PHILIPPINES
This paper explores the nature of culture contact experience
of the early historical polities in the Philippines. Most of the early
historical fortifications in the Philippines are natural formations
or Spanish church structures that served both as a place of worship and/or a
defensive construction against other hostile polities. The presence of
moated-fortified settlement sites in the Philppines are hardly found in the
islands. This study is an investigation of a moated site that served as a
fortification and settlement site by the local people and later on re-used by
Spanish colonial populations in Lubang
Island, Northern
Minodoro, ca. AD 1200- AD1800. The historical analysis and the
result of the archaeological excavation at Lubang Island allows us to reexamine
the entanglements of local populations against the colonial culture and how
these entanglements have been perceived, mediated, and even transformed by the
actions of native peoples in the past.
C10 Neri, Leee M.
University of
Philippines,
Philippines
SPANISH STRUCTURAL
RUINS FOUND IN THE COASTAL AREA IN NORTHERN MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
This paper is the result of the initial archaeological
survey conducted in2007 and 2008 along the coastal area of northern Mindanao,
particularly in the provinceof Misamis Oriental,
Philippines.
Seven visible structures of Spanish ruins were identified. Majority of these
ruins were already abandoned and only a number were preserved and protected.
These seven ruins are located in the municipalities of Initao, Laguindingan,
El Salvador, Opol, Jasaan,
Balingoan, and the city of Gingoog.
These ruins are very significant to our collective understanding of the past.
They are part of local histories that shape their respective towns and the
local community in general.
C10 Fife,
L. Ray
University of New
England, NSW, Australia
BACH MA: HISTORY AND
ARCHAEOLOGY AT A FRENCH COLONIAL HILL STATION IN CENTRAL
VIETNAM, 1930-1990
The character of French hill stations in Indochina
changed leading up to World War II as internal and external threats to French
colonial rule developed. An historical and archaeological study of Bach Ma Hill
Station near Hue in Central Vietnam suggests
that the French mountain holiday resorts were developing new roles during the
Japanese occupation of Vietnam.
The material fabric of Bach Ma also reflects the character of colonial social
interaction between different social groups. The history and the material
fabric of Bach Ma symbolise not only the character of French colonial rule, but
also Vietnamese resistance to it.
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SESSION C11
C11 Ulm, Sean
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, University of Queensland
Evans, Nicholas
Department of Linguistics, Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University
Rosendahl, Daniel
Memmott, Paul
Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, University of Queensland
MODELLING THE EMERGENCE
OF KAIADILT CULTURE IN THE SOUTH WELLESLEY ISLANDS,
GULF OF CARPENTARIA, NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Norman Tindale famously characterised the Kaiadilt people of
the South Wellesley
Islands as an ancient relict
population which had ‘stood apart from the general flow of people who, over the
last 50,000 years or more, have entered into Australia’. Indeed, the isolation
of Bentinck Island has been long been cited as a
major factor in the development of the distinctive biology, language and
material culture of Kaiadilt people. But when did this distinctive cultural
form emerge and how did it develop? We present a model for occupation and
cultural developments on the South
Wellesley Islands
based on new excavations which reveal occupation confined to the last 2000
years. These results are not only at odds with Tindale’s theorising, but prompt
a re-thinking of linguistic models which suggest initial occupation in the last
1000 years. Results are consonant with a period of major change documented in
Indigenous lifeways across northern Australia in the last 1700 years,
post-dating a major gap in the occupation of islands associated with increasing
frequency of ENSO events
C11 Sand, Christophe
Bolé, Jacques
Ouetcho, André
Baret, David
Institute of Archaeology
of New Caledonia
and the Pacific
THE RISE OF THE
“TRADITIONAL KANAK CULTURAL COMPLEX” IN NEW
CALEDONIA: INTENSIFICATION PROCESSES IN A SOUTHERN
MELANESIAN ARCHIPELAGO
Archaeological investigations conducted over the last two
decades in New Caledonia
have allowed us to profoundly reshape our understanding of the last 1000 years
of the cultural chronology, by highlighting a major intensification of land
use, associated with the emergence of what we have defined as the “Traditional
Kanak Cultural Complex”. This summary paper will focus on the different aspects
of intensification that can today be better studied through a whole array of archaeological
discoveries, ranging from the development of terraced taro pond-fields to large
settlements of raised house-mounds and long distance exchanges across the
archipelago.
C11 Specht, Jim
Australian Museum
CONNECTED OR CUT-OFF?
PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S
ISLAND PROVINCES DURING THE LAST MILLENIUM
Archaeological research in the island provinces of Papua New Guinea
has been dominated for the last 25 years by concerns with Pleistocene
colonisation, Holocene flaked stone industries and issues relating to Lapita
pottery origins and dispersal. In contrast, little attention has been devoted
to the last millennium of human history in this region. This is surprising, as
this period witnessed the emergence of socio-economic structures that became
the focus of much anthropological research during the 20th century.
Furthermore, it was a period during which the Indo-Malaysian archipelago was
drawn into the wider world economic and political systems through intense
interaction with various Asian and European agencies. The paper examines what
this interaction might have meant for the societies of the island provinces of Papua New Guinea,
outside interest in which appears to have started only within the last 200
years.
C11 Addison, David J.
Samoan Studies Institute, American Samoa Community
College
THE ORIGIN OF THE
POLYNESIANS: AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW
This paper discusses the last 1000 years in Samoa and Samoa’s influence in the region during this period.
Archaeological, linguistic, and oral historical data are used to explore the
idea that “Polynesians” arose in Samoa’s Manu’a Islands ~1500 years ago and
spread over the next centuries into West Polynesia profoundly changing the
region with more limited influence on islands farther west.
C11 Hunter-Anderson,
Rosalind L.
Anthropology Dept, University
of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico,
USA
LAST MILLENNIUM CLIMATE
CHANGES AND EVOLUTION OF ANCESTRAL CHAMORRO
CULTURE IN THE MARIANA
ISLANDS, MICRONESIA
Evolution of Ancestral Chamorro culture is associated with a
century-scale climate oscillation from the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) to the
Little Ice Age (LIA). Over the Last Millennium, seasonal tropical western
Pacific climates shifted from wetter to drier, and typhoons became more
frequent. These climatic changes had dramatic implications for agricultural
populations in small islands such as the Marianas.
Generally favorable agricultural conditions during the MWP (c. 1100-650 BP)
resulted in relatively reliable harvests and a rise in human population size
and social complexity. Less favorable climate for growing tropical crops during
the LIA (c. 650-100 BP) made harvests less reliable and provoked technical and
social changes reflected in the archaeological record. These include settlement
expansion from coastal to upland settings, more food and
water storage capacity (subterranean pits and larger ceramic vessels), and
contraction of social networks within the archipelago. A case study from Guam
and comparative settlement data from Rota, as well as compositional analyses of
ceramic data from the southern Marianas,
illustrate or manifest these adaptive responses.
C11 Sand, Christophe
Ouetcho, André
Bolé, Jacques
Baret, David
Institute of Archaeology
of New Caledonia
and the Pacific
Dotte, Emilie
Université Paris I
CHRONOLOGY OF TRADITIONAL
KANAK SETTLEMENTS: ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA FROM THE TIWAKA
VALLEY (NEW CALEDONIA)
Over the past 20 years, a number of research programs from
our local Department of Archaeology have started to study traditional Kanak
settlement patterns in an archaeological perspective. Surveys have shown an
unexpected density of habitation and horticultural sites, pointing to a
significant intensification process before first European contact, with the
building of sometimes massive settlements, characterized by large, high
habitation mounds. This result has come in sharp contrast to ethnographic
descriptions of traditional society, and has prompted, amongst other things,
renewed questionings on the exact chronology of these settlements. The paper
will present a series of case studies on settlement patterns and the results of
chronological excavations from Kanak settlements in the Tiwaka valley
(northeast of New Caledonia’s ‘Grande Terre’), to start to better define the
detailed dynamics of traditional Kanak society in time and space.
C11 Lilley, Ian
University of Queensland
ALL OR NOTHING – THE
LAST 1,000 YEARS IN REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE
The last 1000 years comprise the whole of the prehistory of
some societies in the Western Pacific, if New Zealand is included, and at least
around a third of the prehistory of those other parts of Remote Oceania in the
region, but this period makes up only the very last tiny fraction of the vast
human history of places first colonized in the Pleistocene. These significant
variations in temporal scale and thus in the historical dynamics under
consideration in this session require careful thought, because they underpin
some considerable differences in the patterns of emergence, development and
archaeological signatures of traditional indigenous societies in the region.
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SESSION C12
C12 Bestel, Sheahan
Monash University, Australia
RESIDUE ANALYSIS OF
PEILIGANG (8500-7000 BP) STONE SICKLES FROM NORTH CHINA
A selection of the characteristic stone sickles from three
Peiligang (8500-7000 BP) sites in central Henan of the Middle Yellow River
region were examined for plant residues. The sickles have always been assumed
to have been used as cereal harvesting tools, however no use-wear studies have
previously been carried out on this type of tool to confirm this hypothesis. An
examination of the residues from the tools has shed light on this debated
topic.
C12 Dai Xiangming
National Museum
of China
CHANGES OF SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL COMPLEXITY IN THE EASTERN YUNCHENG BASIN, NORTH-CENTRAL
CHINA
We carried out the full-coverage surveys from 2003 to 2006
in the eastern Yuncheng Basin, north-central China, and reconstructed the
process of the changes of settlement patterns from the Neolithic to the early
Bronze Age (ca. 5000-1300 B.C.). This process can clearly reflect the changes
of social organizations and the development of social complexity through time.
In general, the eastern Yuncheng
Basin witnessed a
long-term social evolutionary process, from simple and egalitarian societies to
hierarchical complex societies. It may have represented a typical trajectory of
social development in central China.
C12 FANG Hui
Shandong University, China
CINNABAR REMAINS IN NEOLITHIC AND
EARLY BRONZE AGE CHINA:
A PERSPECTIVE ON RITUAL AND POWER
Through observing cinnabar remains in archaeological
excavations, the author points out that cinnabar were used in three different
ways mainly during Neolithic and Early Bronze Age China: daubing on holy
objects such as special pot or wall, sprinkling to express religious ceremony
and ritual, and laying out under body of death. All these three methods could
be traced back to 6,000 years BP, and the third one, laying out at bottom of
burial, was gradually developed into an irrepealably step on nobles’ funeral in
Longshan period and continued till the late Bronze Age.
C12 Ford, Anne
The
University of Otago, New Zealand
STONE TOOL
PRODUCTION-DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS AT HUIZUI,
CHINA
The Erlitou culture (1900-1500 BC) has been postulated as
the earliest state-level society in China, with evidence for social
stratification, palatial/temple remains, craft specialization and elite good
production. Whilst much attention has been focussed upon the production and
distribution of elite goods, in comparison, little is known of the utilitarian
items. This paper will focus upon the evidence for stone tool production and
distribution during this time period by investigating raw material procurement,
production and distribution for five tool types at the site of Huizui, located
in Henan Province, China.
C12 Fullagar, Richard
Scarp
Archaeology and University of
Wollongong, Australia
Li Liu
La Trobe University, Australia
Sheahan Bestel
La Trobe University,
Monash University, Australia
Duncan Jones, Wei Ge, Anthony Wilson,
Shaodong Zhai
La Trobe University, Australia
STONE TOOL-USE EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE THE
FUNCTION OF GRINDING STONES AND DENTICULATE SICKLES
Within
a broader study of early Chinese agriculture, stone tool-use experiments were
undertaken to document usewear on sandstone and tuff implements used to process
Quercus acorns, Avena oats and Setaria
millet. Other experiments examined usewear on denticulate slate sickles used to
harvest Quercus acorns, Poaceae grass and Typha reeds. Results support other studies that indicate different
patterns of abrasive smoothing, striation formation and polish development
together provide a basis for distinguishing some of these tasks. This research
is aimed to establish a database for functional analysis of grinding stones and
sickles from the early Neolithic Peiligang culture. More controlled experiments
are required to identify critical variables (e.g. silica in husks) that affect
usewear patterns.
C12 GE Wei
The University of Science and Technology of China
FOOD FOR THE ANCESTORS
OF QIN: STARCH ANALYSIS OF FUNERARY VESSELS FROM LIXIAN, GANSU
Starch grains have been found in many archaeological
contexts and can provide significant evidence concerning the use of plants in
the past. Starch residue analysis was applied to artifacts excavated from the
Xishan site in the southeast of Gansu
province, China.
The site dates to the western Zhou dynasty (1100-771 BC). A total of 475 starch
granules were recovered from 7 stone tools and 8 pottery containers. These
starch granules were preliminarily assigned to six different genera. The
results suggest that the people in the kingdom of Qin
cultivated and consumed a variety of plants in the late Zhou dynasty.
C12 Hung Ling-yu
Washington University
in St. Louis
Jianfeng Cui
Peking University
A PRELIMINARY
INVESTIGATION OF POTTERY PRODUCTION AND EMERGING SOCIAL HIERARCHY AT THE LATE
NEOLITHIC LIUWAN SITE, QINGHAI, NW CHINA.
The Liuwan cemetery is a large and well-preserved
prehistoric site located in the upper Yellow River
region. Great quantities of painted pottery vessels have been unearthed from
this cemetery; however, some graves were furnished with many more vessels than
the others. Based on new evidence attained from our firsthand observations and chemical analyses, this paper
addresses how the increasing demand for vessel quantity from commoners and
emerging elites was fulfilled in terms of pottery production and exchange.
C12 Jones, Duncan
La Trobe University, Australia
CORRELATING
EXPERIMENTAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL USE-WEAR PATTERNS ON GROUND STONE TOOLS: A CASE
STUDY FROM THE EARLY HOLOCENE SITE OF SHANGSHAN,
CHINA.
Excavations at the site of Shangshan, Zhejiang
province, have produced abundant ground stone tools whose function has been
postulated as potentially either or both cereal and nut processing activities.
In order to test these hypotheses, experimental use-wear studies have been
undertaken on replicated ground stone tools, and patterns of wear produced in
these controlled experiments compared with those recorded from archaeological
ground stone tool samples. These comparative results are then discussed as part
of a larger microresidue and use-wear analytical collaborative project on early
Holocene tool use in south China.
C12 Li Xinwei
Institute of Archaeology,
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
China
THE EMERGENCE OF
EXCHANGE NETWORK OF SACRED KNOWLEDGE AROUND 3300 BC IN EASTERN
CHINA
The establishment of exchange networks of prestige goods and
sacred knowledge has long been regarded as one of the most important
leadership-strategies in complex societies. The exchanges link elites in
different societies, and the act of exchange validates their relationship as
equals and at the same time reinforces their superior status within their
respective societies. Through the procurement of exotic wealth goods and sacred
knowledge by long-distance exchange, elites could claim universal powers which
were essential to prove their divinity and nonlocal legitimacy. The years
around 3300 BC witnessed the wide diffusion of ancient cosmology related
objects and designs in eastern China,
such as jade objects conveying cosmological knowledge (the jade turtle, bird,
hook-cloud object, pit-dragon etc.) and the octagonal star design on jade
objects and white pottery. This demonstrates that exchange networks of
cosmological knowledge might have emerged and played an important role in the
development of complex societies in different cultural regions in eastern China.
The exchange networks were also crucial for the formation of the‘Chinese
interaction sphere’ described by K.C. Chang.
C12 LIU Li
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Xingcan CHEN
Institute of Archaeology,
Beijing
ACORN EXPLOITATION AND
TRANSITION TO SEDENTISM IN EARLY HOLOCENE,
CHINA
The development of sedentism during the early Holocene in China
was a long process with great temporal and spatial variation, and was closely
associated with the technology of processing and storing starchy foodstuffs,
particularly nuts, tubers and cereals, mostly as wild plants. Based on
information from residue analysis and experimental archaeology, we investigate
one type of plants, acorn, which appears to have been intensively exploited by
early Holocene populations, leading to increased sedentary way of life in many
parts of China.
C12 MIN Rui
Yunnan Provincial Institute of
Cultural Relics and Archaeology,
China
EXCAVATION OF THE HAIMENKOU SITE IN JIANCHUAN, YUNNAN
The recent excavation at the
Haimenkou site in 2008 has revealed much information about this important
settlement. The cultural deposits are divided to three phases, including late
Neolithic (5300-3900 BP), early Bronze Age (3800-3200 BP), and middle to late
Bronze Age (3100-2500 BP). In addition to some 4000 wooden poles, which were
parts of pile-dwellings, we also uncovered human burials, bronze, hearths,
rice, millet and wheat. These discoveries provide new evidence for
understanding settlement patterns, bronze metallurgy, and agricultural
development in southwest China.
C12 ZHANG Chi
Peking University
HUNG, Hsiao-chun
Australian National
University
THE ORIGINS AND SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE IN SOUTHERN CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
The Yangtze Valley is widely assumed to have been the origin
region for the earliest rice agriculture in Southeast Asia.
However, due to the rarity of reported rice remains and reliable C14 dates, the
progress of agricultural development in southern China
proper, south of the Yangtze
Basin, remains poorly
understood. This article reviews recent discoveries of rice remains from
archaeological sites in Lingnan-Fujian-Taiwan and Southwest
China. It is suggested that the expansion of rice agriculture from
the Yangtze Valley occurred via separate coastal and
inland routes at different times, into Fujian-Guangdong and Guangxi
respectively, as well as by different processes of introduction.
C12 Schepartz, Lynne A.
Florida State University, USA
Miller-Antonio, Sari
California State
University at Stanislaus, USA
Fang Hui
Shandong University, PRChina
RITUAL, SHANG IDENTITY
AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY AT DAXINZHUANG, A MIDDLE-LATE
SHANG (1300-1100 BC) SITE
IN SHANDONG PROVINCE
Three cemeteries dating from the middle to late Shang
culture yielded 61 human skeletons and a rich collection of grave goods
including bronze and pottery vessels, weapons, and jade and shell ornaments.
Analysis of the mortuary patterns reveals significant variation in body positioning
and tomb architecture that appears to be the key way that social distinctions
were expressed. Different burial circumstances include pits (rectangular or
rounded), graves with a platform at the head, graves with a full platform (ercengtai), and graves with multiple
platforms surrounding inner and outer wooden coffins. The standard burial
position was supine with the legs extended, the hands on the pelvis or at the
sides, and an underlying waist pit containing a dog skeleton. Other positions
included prone, on the side, or irregular limb placement. Individuals buried on
their side or in irregular positions are most often ‘accompanying’ individuals
interred with another individual in the standard position. They were also
recovered from tomb platforms which they shared with numerous dog skeletons.
Some irregularly positioned individuals have cutmarks across their skull base
and cervical vertebrae, and as a group, their dental health was poorer.
Although lacking the clear status differentiations exemplified by the huge
sacrificial pits of the Shang cemeteries at Anyang, the Daxinzhuang site provides
evidence for important social distinctions that affected the life and health of
the population.
C12 Yao Ling
The University of Science and Technology of China,
China
STARCH GRANULES ON
STONE ARTIFACTS FROM XIAOHUANGSHAN REVEAL EARLY PLANT USE IN ZHEJIANG,
CHINA
As an analytical technique in archeology, the extraction and
analysis of starch grain from the unearthed artifacts has been widely used in
the gathering and reconstruction of the original information of the
archaeological sites. Although such work is just beginning in China, starch grain as an important
plant residue, has already been extracted and studied from a variety of
archeological materials. By using this technique, we performed extensive
research on the unearthed stone artifacts from Xiaohuangshan archaeological
site in Zhejiang
province, which could date back to the time between 6000 B.C. and 7000 B.C;
they have been widely accepted as milling stone tools or their pieces which
were used in grain processing. After careful extraction, large numbers of
starch granules were found on the surface of the stone tools. By comparing with
the samples from modern plants under microscope, many species of the starch
were identified including grasses (Oryza and
Coix L.), beans (Vigna), nuts and tubers. However, there were still a variety
of the starch granules that remained to be identified. Furthermore, the results
showed that starch grains of some species were
dominant in quantity, but they did not include
rice. Based on the results, we proposed that, although rice appeared in the
diet, it was not yet a major source of food for ancient people settled in
Xiaohuangshan. This period should be just at the beginning of the transition
from a wide range plant gathering to an agricultural society which relies on a
few plants, such as rice cultivation.
C12 Zhang Juzhong
Yin Lai
The University of Science and Technology of China,
China
DYNAMIC RESEARCH OF
PREHISTORIC ECONOMY IN JIAHU ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
In the book of WUYANG JIAHU, based on the study of
production tools from Jiahu site in Henan province in China, it has been
proposed that rice cultivation is the main form
of Jiahu primitive agriculture, accounting for
about a quarter in local economical productive activities while the other
three-quarters are hunting and fishing. In the seventh excavation of Jiahu
archaeological site in 2001, a large number of plants and other specimens have
been found in flotation samples. The results indicate that rice was grown as
early as 8000 years ago, while the economy was mainly based on hunting and
fishing. In other words, the rice cultivation is only a secondary supporting
production activities compared with fishing and hunting. The Jiahu site
represents an early models in the process of the
formation of rice farming in China,
which shows a ‘farm-like non-agricultural' stage. In the seventh excavation, an
interesting phenomenon is also noticed that the majority of funerary objects,
excavated from Phase III tombs in the southwest region, are farm implements
while the other graves mainly contain fishing and hunting tools. Could it mean
that at the same settlement different human groups are likely to pursue a
variety of production modes, or that they have different economic divisions of
labor? By studying these production tools by different area, period and group,
it is known that in each period economic and productive activities are engaged
in a slow change in various human groups which are distributed
in Jiahu settlement during 1000 years; it also could be seen that primitive
agriculture shows a development trend and that the economic structure reflected
by the burial lagging is behind the phenomenon of buildings.
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SESSION C13
C13 Jin, Zhengyao
University of Science
and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, Anhui
Province, China
Yan, Lifeng
Hefei National Laboratory for
Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of
China, Hefei 230026, Anhui Province, China
Tian, Jianhua
Li, Ruiliang
Department of History of Science and
Technology and Archaeometry, University
of Science and Technology of China, Hefei
230026, Anhui Province, China
Cui, Jianyong
Isotope Laboratory, Beijing Research
Institute of Uranium Geology, Beijing 100029, China
A COMPARETIVE STUDY ON ALLOY AND LEAD
ISOTOPY DATA OF BRONZES FROM ROYAL AND NOBLE TOMBS IN YIN RUINS
It is no
doubt that the Yin Ruins bronzes is very important for the study of bronze
metallurgy during the Shang dynasty (16th - 11th century BC). The royal and the noble bronzes unearthed from the
metropolitan region of the Shang Kingdom show us a unique beauty and power, and
reveal that ancient metal casting has reached its first high stage in the
Anyang era. Lead isotope and element composition analyses have been carried out
on bronze artifacts from the royal tomb No.1004, the Fuhao tomb and a noble
tomb No.160 at Yin Ruins by thermal ionization mass spectrometry and
inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), we will
attempt to discuss the results by comparison in this paper.
C13 Wang Changming
Jin, Zhengyao
Department of History of Science and
Technology and Archaeometry, University
of Science and Technology of China, Hefei,
Anhui, China
Hwang, Jiann-Yang
Michigan Technological University, USA
ESTABLISHING PB AND CU ISOTOPE
SIGNATURES OF SOME NATIVE COPPER SOURCES IN NORTH AMERICA:
IMPLICATIONS FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROVENANCE STUDIES
14C dating indicates that native copper
had been utilized by American Indigenous people since 6800 BP. The use
continued until European smelted copper entered North
America in the 17th century. Archaeological studies show that
native copper is the only material made into copper artifacts in North America. Understanding where native copper
originated in artifacts provides critical information regarding trading routes
and indicates the interaction of cultures as well as the exploitation and use
of copper mines. This paper presents the results of a pilot study of Pb and Cu
isotope using thermal-ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) and
multiple-collector plasma-source mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) and assesses the
potential of these two new geochemical techniques for native copper provenance
research in North America.
C13 Zhu, Bingquan
Key Laboratory of Isotope
geochronology and Geochemistry, Chinese
Academy of Sciebce, Guangzhou
510640, Guangdong Province,China
Jin, Zhengyao
University of Science
and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, Anhui
Province, China
GEOCHEMICAL
EVIDENCES FOR NORTHWARD TRANSPORTATION OF RESOURCES IN BRONZE AGE CHINA
Based on
Pb isotopic mapping diagram of East Asia and Pb isotopic data of bronzes, the
unearthed bronzes in North China mostly show the features of Yangtze, Cathysia
or high radiogenic lead resources, and the bronzes showing lead isotopic
features of local lead resources only occur in the four sites. However, the
unearthed bronzes in the Yangtze and Cathysian areas all show lead isotopic
features of local resources. Thus lead resources for making bronzes or
themselves in North China were mostly
transported from the Yangtze or Cathysian areas. The major Cu resources in North China are located in the Zhongtiaoshan area;
however there are short of tin and lead resources. There are abundant Cu and
lead resources in the middle and lower course of Yangtze, but still short of
tin resources. The major tin resources only occur in the Cathysian area.
There
are 5 large MVT lead deposits with isotopic compositions of high radiogenic
lead in the northeastern Yunnan,
and numerous native copper and Cu-sulfide deposits distribute in all this area.
There are abundant tin resources in the southern Yunnan. Therefore, the resource group
occurred in Yunnan, Southwestern
China, probably is a predominant candidate for making the Shang
bronzes with high radiogenic lead. These resources or products were also northwardly
transported to the Chengdu basin, North China and middle-lower course of Yangtze.
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SESSION C14
C14 Mizoguchi, Koji
Graduate School
of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu
University, Japan
THE CENTRALIZATION OF
POWER AND THE GENERATION OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL: A NETWORK APPROACH TO THE KOFUN
(MOUNDED TOMB) PERIOD OF JAPAN
This paper reveals by applying social network
analysis-derived methods that the centralised hierarchy that emerged at the
beginning of the Kofun (mounded tomb) period in Japan can be explained by the
geographical locations that the polities to be hierarchised occupy and the
differences in the topological potentials that these locations generate. The
paper argues that the topological structure of a social network itself can be a
significant cause of its own hierarchisation, and that the formation of devices
for supporting emergent network hierarchy often involves the generation of the
transcendental as the supreme referential point for hierarchized
decision-makings.
C14 Tanizawa, Ari
Graduate School
of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu
University, Japan
THE EXCHANGE SYSTEM OF
LATE YAYOI PERIOD NORTHERN KYUSHU OF JAPAN AS
SEEN FROM GLASS BEADS
This paper examines the exchange system of Late Yayoi period
northern Kyushu as seen from glass beads,
which abruptly became major grave goods in the Late Yayoi period. In recent
studies, thanks to the progression of the analysis of the chemical composition,
Late Yayoi glass beads have been convincingly classified and their
distributions have begun to be revealed. However, how they were
exchanged/distributed, and what meanings/implications the exchange/distribution
generated have not been investigated. By examining the distribution patterns of
the Late Yayoi glass beads of the northern Kyushu region, this paper has
revealed the following: 1) the outcome does not show the simple,
from-centre-to-periphery-type distribution patterns; 2) the patterns rather
show that glass beads were exchanged through multi-layered and multi-centered
networks; 3) in the areas around the Sefuri mountain range, standardized beads
in terms of their color and size appear to have been strategically distributed
in large quantity, and it might have contributed to the stratification and
maintenance of the inter-communal relations across the areas; 4) In the
north-western coastal region, small amounts of various types of beads appear to
have been exchanged through a reciprocal exchange-based network.
C14 Nakamura, Daisuke
Korea University, Republic
of Korea
Nagatomo, Tomoko
Osaka University, Japan
THE POLITY GROWTH OF
PROTO-THREE KINGDOM SOCIETIES AS SEEN THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP OF YAN AND
LELANG
The Han dynasty looked on more favorably to Wa (prehistoric Japan) more than Byun Han and Jin Han from the
view point of analysis in grave goods which came from China in the 1st century B.C. There
are two reasons for this. One is the geographical character of Wa in that it is
the farthest from China
among the Dongyi states (Okamura 1999). The other reason is the possibility
that Byun Han and Jin Han were in the vicinity of the Lelang Commandery and
accepted Wiman-Josun hegemony and hence became the enemy of Han. The largest
difference between Byun, Jin Han and Wa is whether they had accepted iron
weapons or not from Wiman-Josun. It is suspected that the existence of iron
weapons became a main cause of double diplomacy for the southern part of the
Dongyi area. The historical literary documents and archaeological material show
that the Han dynasty was more favorable to Wa in the Later Han period, with
this situation continuing until the Kofun period in the Japanese archipelago.
On the other hand, states in the Korean peninsula had come to indirectly resist
the governing polity in China,
and directly resisted the Lelang Commandery, just as the Han dynasty predicted.
C14 Lee, Sungjoo
Department of History, Kangneung
National University,
Republic of Korea
TECHNOLOGICAL
INNOVATION AND CRAFT-SPECIALIZATION IN CERAMIC PRODUCTION OF THE PROTO-THREE
KINGDOMS PERIOD IN SOUTH
KOREA
The proto-historic period in South Korea witnessed technological
innovation in ceramic production technology. In this paper, I suggest that
during the innovation process which took place at this time, specialized labor
and equipment came to be re-organized since a new type of production system was
required in order to put this new technological system into operation. In
considering the relationship between technological innovation and change in the
production system, focus is put upon changes in the production technology of
globular jars. With regard to the Dojil production system, the innovative forming
techniques which made it possible to produce various vessels in large
quantities can be identified as the most important technological achievement.
It was only when this technological innovation was successfully accomplished
that a new production system suitable for further innovative technology appears
to have been re -organized.
C14 Lee, Boram
Kim, Youngji
Shim, Jinsoo
Department of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, Chonbuk National
University, Republic of Korea
A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON
IRON PRODUCTION DURING THE STATE FORMATION PERIOD IN THE SOUTHWESTERN REGION OF
THE KOREAN PENINSULA
This paper presents new insight into the nature of iron
production and exchange during the State Formation Period in southwestern Korea.
The Baekje state centre, which was located in the Seoul area, witnessed an increase in the
quantity and diversity of large-scale iron production around third to fifth
century AD. The nature of iron production and distribution in the Baekje
peripheries at this time, on the other hand, has been difficult to asses due to
lack of evidence. However, excavations recently carried out at regional locales
have produced material which may shed new light on the manufacture and
distribution of iron products beyond the Baekje centre. Of particular interest
is the fact that these iron production sites, such as Wanju Sangwoonri, Iksan
Saduk, and Kongju Jangwonri, contained evidence of iron smithing but did not
yield any material pertaining to the smelting process. In addition, these sites
also evidenced iron artifacts linked to the production process, as well as iron
anvils which suggest that smithing took place on site. This evidence, along
with the archaeological context, can be taken to suggest the secondary
production of iron using half-finished products, such as iron bars, and their
distribution by regional elites.
C14 Miyamoto, Kazuo
Graduate School
of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu
University, Japan
STATE FORMATION PROCESS
OF DONGYI AREA VIEWED FROM THE INTERACTION SPHERE IN EAST
ASIA
In this paper I focused on the state formation process of
Fuyu in DongYi Area. First of all, the chronology and development of the
antenna type bronze swords which originated from northern bronzes would be
analyzed based on the typology and their distribution. These results indicate
that the Ⅱc-type antenna type sword dating from
the 2nd century B.C. and the antenna type of Ⅴ-type
irons swords dating from 1st century B.C. are distributed only in the Jichang
region, and developed as iron swords that symbolized the Fuyu at the time when
Fuyu become politically united. And the mortuary analysis at the Laoheshen
cemetery indicates the three clusters which are divided into three segments of
the social structures. A patriarchal society developed based on paternal decent
and the differences in rank of the clan units are evident from the three
clusters of cemetery. The highest rank graves which consist of male graves also
have the prestige goods such as helmets, Han mirrors and “fu” cooking vessels.
The grave goods like Han mirrors indicate the relationship between Fuyu and the
Han dynasties, and “fu” cooking vessels elucidates the relationship between
Fuyu and northern bronze cultures. Given the hierarchical relationships at the
Laoheshan cemetery and the evidence of Ⅴ-type antenna type bronze swords, the
establishments of sovereignty in Fuyu most likely goes back to the 1st century
B.C.
C14 Cho, Daeyoun
Jeong, Hyun
Lee, Kyeonghee
Department of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, Chonbuk National
University, Republic of Korea
POTTERY PRODUCTION AND
SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION DURING THE KOREAN NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE
The pottery production sites of the Korean Peninsula
provide a rare opportunity for the detailed examination of changes in
production technology from the Neolithic Period to the Bronze Age. This period,
in particular, witnessed change in pit kiln structure: Neolithic pit kilns
paved with small stones came to be replaced by simple pits without stones in
the Bronze Age. In this paper we present the results of our study which
examines diachronic change in the pottery-making process. Based on the
archaeological evidence from production sites such as Kimcheon Songjookri
(Neolithic) and Boryeong Kwanchangri (Bronze Age), we first examine the nature
of change in firing structures. In addition, the results of experimental work
in which the two types of pit kilns were reconstructed and vessels were fired
in order to compare firing parameters, such as firing temperature and firing
atmosphere, are presented. Based on this, we discuss the nature of diachronic
change in pottery production techniques, which will enable a better
understanding of how technological change may be linked with social and
economic change.
C14 Kim, Minkoo
Yun, Hyena
Kwon, Kyongsuk
Department of Anthropology, Chonnam
National University,
Republic of Korea
ARCHAEOBOTANY OF
PYEONGGEO-DONG, JINJU, SOUTH KOREA
Agrarian settlements would inevitably exert influence on
surrounding vegetation, but its tempo and intensity may vary in relation to
agricultural practices and local environmental conditions. Analysis of wood
charcoal that was conducted as a part of interdisciplinary project at
Pyeonggeo-dong, Jinju, South Korea, indicates transition
from a Quercus-dominant primary forest to a secondary forest in the vicinity of
the site. However, this change postdates almost by a thousand years the
earliest evidence of large-scale agriculture, which is visible in the form of a
large extent of prehistoric agricultural fields. Alternative explanations are
proposed as to why charcoal data bear relatively late sign of human impact on
vegetation.
C14 Tsujita, Jun'ichiro
Kyushu University
THE TRANSFORMATION OF
THE MORTUARY RITUAL IN THE 'PERIPHERAL' AREA IN THE JAPANESE ARCHIPELAGO FROM
4TH TO 5TH CENTURIES.
In Japanese archipelago, the keyhole-shaped tumuli
(Zenpokouenhun) appeared in the middle of the 3rd century, and the broad
Chiefdom confederacy was formed. Although there were many kinds of mortuary
facilities, the long wooden coffin (and covering facility) was most highly
ranked. Since the ways of mortuary ritual and the kinds of grave goods were
quite common, they became the indicator of the actual conditions of the
Chiefdom confederacy. The prototype of the ways of mortuary ritual was invented
at neaby Kinki region, the central place of the confederacy, but the mortuary
ritual was transformed and the new mortuary facility was introduced through the
latest 4th century to the earliest 5th century, not in the central place but in
the northern Kyushu rigion, the 'peripheral'
area of the confederacy. This study will research the historical meaning of
this transformation from the long-term perspective.
C14 Kim, Jongil
Department of Archaeology, Seoul
National University,
Republic of Korea
INDIVIDUALITY,
MASCULINITY AND POWER
This paper aims at examining the significance of the use of
bronze objects in terms of the emergence of individuality in the Korean Bronze
Age. In particular, it is stressed that the emerging individuality associated
with individual burials and various kinds of bronze objects including dagger,
spearhead, etc., is closely related with masculinity and masculine body, and
power itself. This paper attempts to explore the transitional process toward
complex society based upon gender relationship and ideology rather than the
‘simplistic and naïve’ account of the emergence of class and elite.
C14 WAKABAYASHI, Kunihiko
Doshisha University Historical Museum, Japan
THE NATURE OF COMPLEXITY IN YAYOI
SETTLEMENTS AND TOMBS, JAPANESE EARLY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY
Middle-Late
Yayoi society, BC1-AD2C, had been regarded as chiefdom society in Japanese
archaeology. But in fact, those aspects varied. It is true that in plain area
where we can see many huge and core settlement sites or clusters of mounded
tombs, which varies in each area, does show a certain leveled stratified
society. But in most areas, there was no buried individual with special status
goods like an established chief. In the area where we can see only one huge and
core settlement site in it, simple and established hierarchy can be seen
through relationship between settlements and each groups, but those situations
didn’t continue so long. Furthermore, there are many small areas where we can’t
see any evidence for stratified society. So, as a whole, Yayoi society was not
a simple stratified society called chiefdom, but this deficient general
structure of stratifying was an important social factor in Middle-Late Yayoi
society in Japanese archipelago. In the next stage, after AD3C, people needed
new wider system to conceal such imbalanced situation between each area. This
is the reason why societies with huge and patterned tombs called Kofun were
established.
C14 MATSUGI, Takehiko
FORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION PROCESS OF UNITED CHIEFDOMS IN
PROTOHISTORIC JAPAN
The Kofun period ranges from the third to seventh centuries,
after the collapse of the Asian archaic world system centred on Han dynasty in
mainland China.
In the first half of this period, from 3rd to 5th centuries, chiefs achieved
economical power and cultural prestige by taking control over long-distance
trade mainly for iron materials which had not been supplied within Japanese
archipelago. Judging from similarity in their burials, they are considered to
have built an alliance crowned by Daio (paramount chief) who was buried in a
gigantic keyhole-shaped tumulus usually as large as 3-400m in length in Kinai
district. During the fifth and sixth century, skilled craftsmen were invited
from China and Korea
by chiefs to introduce the techniques of domestic production of stoneware,
horses and their trappings, ornaments and iron etc., which had previously been
obtained from overseas by chiefs. Although this economical change undermined
traditional authority of chiefs as heroic introducers of foreign culture longed
by people, the chiefs acquired new power as promoters of manufacture.
Furthermore, Buddhism was introduced to demote chiefs from gods or their
mediators within indigenous religion to one of the powerful believers of the
world religion, making them buried in a tunnel-style chamber with a small mound
same as commoners. From late sixth to early seventh centuries, they established
new power by dominating religious and administration system based on written
scriptures and legal codes. It marked the appearance of the early medieval
kingdom in Japan.
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SESSION C15
C15 Proske, Ulrike
University of Bremen
Hannebuth, T. J. J.
University of Bremen
HOLOCENE VEGETATION
HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN MEKONG RIVER DELTA:
RECONSTRUCTING THE ENVIRONMENT OF PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENTS
Numerous archaeological sites of predominantly Bronze to
Iron Age are found throughout Long An Province, northern Mekong River Delta. So
far, causes for choice of these specific locations as well as extent of human
impact on the environment during this phase remain unclear. We aim to provide
some initial answers to these open questions by combining the information of
sedimentary facies, macro-charcoal records and the palynological signature of
five study sites and relating these signals to palaeoenvironmental records from
Cambodia
and the outer Mekong River Delta.
C15 Hope, Geoffrey
Australian National
University, Canberra
C15 Van der Kaars,
Sander
University of Göttingen
SWAMP IMPACTS: TWO CASE
STUDIES FROM KUTAI, INDONESIA,
AND LAKE INLE, MYANMAR
Archaeological site interpretation is difficult where rapid
peat growth may conceal evidence for prehistoric settlement. The Kutai lowland,
a large equatorial peatland in east Kalimantan (Borneo)
that burnt substantially in the 1997-98 El Nino, provided an opportunity to
extract cores and charcoal needed to date past occurrences of fire. The peat,
which is generally 4-10m thick but can exceed 16m, began to form ca. 8000 BP,
after shallow flooding of the basin by the Mahakam River.
The earliest vegetation, a Pandanus swamp, grades upwards to peat forest
dominated by dipterocarps. As the peat expanded laterally, rivers maintained
narrow courses through the swamp, which grew vertically in balance with river
accretion. Fire was rare in areas remote from rivers until 3000 BP and only
became common ca. 1000 BP., while, in areas near waterways, floodplains burnt
to the water table or below, forming extensive lakes, before 5000 BP. The
disparity suggests that human agency is important, acting in concert with
periodic droughts.
The palaeoenvironments in which early human or hominid
settlement took place are integral to the human history of another key region –
Myanmar,
where prehistory is just commencing. Inle
Lake occupies a large sedimentary
basin at 885m altitude on the east margin of the Shan Plateau in central Myanmar.
Surrounding slopes are cleared but should support evergreen mixed oak and
montane rain forests. A 5m core from the lake margin, spanning ca 12,000 years,
records early burning under shallow lake conditions, followed by development of
oak and pine forest with little charcoal or clay reaching the lake. Circa 2600
BP fires increased and the forest became more disturbed; clearance was advanced
by ca. 1000 BP, and a reed bed began to build out from the side of the lake.
These preliminary results indicate that intensive settlement and agriculture
started rather late in this part of Myanmar, in contrast with higher-altitude
areas in Yunnan, where disturbance began by 6000 BP and widespread clearance
took place ca. 1500 BP .
C15 Allen, Jane
International Archaeological Research Institute, Inc., and University of Hawai‘i,
Honolulu
CONTINUING
GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES AND EVIDENCE FOR SIGNIFICANT COASTAL CHANGE AT EARLY
PENINSULAR THAI AND MALAYSIAN TRADE SITES
The results of ongoing soil and geomorphological field and
laboratory studies has suggested for some time that many segments of the west
Peninsular Malaysian and east Peninsular Thai coastlines have built outward
dramatically since early sites involved in oceangoing trade flourished there.
Trade sites as far south as the Muar River mouth in Malaysia and as far north
as Chumphon, Thailand, all land-bound today, were very likely coastal or
estuarial between 500 B.C.E. and C.E. 1500, when the sites were most active.
C15 Calugay, Cyril
University of Hawai‘i
at Mānoa, Honolulu
Peterson, John A.
Micronesian Area
Research Center,
University of Guam
NEW EVIDENCE FOR LATE
HOLOCENE COASTAL CHANGE IN CEBU,
PHILIPPINES
Buried paleosols discovered along the coast in Cebu suggest environmental effects that coincide with
Pacific-wide sea-level changes related to the transition period from the Little
Climatic Optimum to the Little Ice Age. The short-lived Tropaquept soils reveal
a mangrove environment between the 11th and 13th centuries A.D. that was
abbreviated by global temperature and sea-level fall at around AD 1300. This
paper reports on recent dates for late Holocene environmental changes in Cebu and implications for associated archaeological
artifacts.
C15 Lewis, Helen
University College
Dublin
USING SOIL
MICROMORPHOLOGY TO UNDERSTAND CULTURAL DEPOSITS IN SOUTHEAST
ASIAN CAVES:
SOME RESULTS FROM STUDIES IN MALAYSIAN BORNEO, THE SOUTH
PHILIPPINES AND NORTHERN LAO PDR
This paper looks at some ways in which the application of
soil micromorphology has changed our understanding of certain cultural deposits
in caves in Southeast Asia, including deposits sometimes considered to be
speleothem layers, along with how certain cave deposits have challenged typical
soil micromorphological interpretations developed from open-air sites, for
instance of 'trampling' deposits. Examples are shown from a variety of studies,
mainly in press, including the Niah Cave complex in Sarawak; Ille and Tabon Caves,
along with caves in Bataraza, all in Palawan;
and cave sites in Luang Prabang province, Lao PDR.
C15 Mijares, Armand
Salvador B.
University of the Philippines,
Diliman, Quezon City
Lewis, Helen
University College
Dublin
UNDERSTANDING CAVE
SITE FORMATION: SOIL MICROMOPHOLOGY OF CALLAO CAVE
At Callao
Cave, three periods of
human occupation were unravelled. A 3.3 ka layer with ceramic, flake tools,
spindle whorl, animal remains and human burials was excavated. Below this layer
was a hiatus, followed by a 25ka human occupation seen macroscopically and
microscopically through a hearth represented by abundant charcoal and burnt
sediments, associated in the field with chert flake tools. The lowest cultural
horizon is an older breccia layer containing animal bones and possible bone
tools and a hominin metatarsal found dating to 66.7 ka. Soil micromorphology
among other approaches was used to understand deposition and post-deposition
history of the cave sediments and elucidate in the understanding of human
occupation.
C15 Faylona, Pamela G.
University of the Philippines,
Diliman, Quezon City
EXCAVATED ANCIENT GIANT
CLAMS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AS POTENTIAL RECORDERS OF ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY
This paper introduces the potential of excavated ancient
giant clams in Southeast Asian archaeological sites as recorder of
environmental history. Giant clams or the Tridacnas are the largest bivalve
mollusk that has high growth rate and long lifespan. Because of these
characteristics, Tridacna provides annual to multicentury records of climatic
variations. This was proven by several studies using geochemical analyses;
thus, this paper presents the issues and challenges in using Tridacna for
paleoenvironmental reconstructions.
C15 Morrison, Alex E.
University of Hawaii, Mānoa, and International
Archaeological Research Institute Inc.
Cochrane, Ethan E
University College
London
RECONSTRUCTING THE
PALEO-LANDSCAPE OF A LAPITA SITE: GEOMORPHOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS ON TAVUA ISLAND, FIJI
In 2006 and 2009 extensive archaeological and geomorphologic
research was conducted on Tavua Island,
Fiji.
Archaeological investigations revealed the presence of dentate stamped pottery,
abundant faunal material, and formal lithic tools within a well developed,
stratified deposit. The geomorphologic research documented extensive changes in
both the terrestrial and marine environments since initial occupation of the coastal
plain. These environmental changes provide context for interpreting broader
scale cultural patterns. Methods discussed include 3 dimensional landscape
modeling, subsurface coring, and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL)
dating.
C15 Chandra, Reemal
University of the South Pacific, Suva
de Biran, Antoine
University of the South Pacific, Suva
ANTHROPOGENIC
INFLUENCES ON FIJI’S RIVER
DELTAS: NEW INSIGHTS INTO PREHISTORIC HUMAN IMPACT ON ISLAND
LANDSCAPES
Two of the largest river deltas on Viti Levu (the largest
island in the Fiji Group) are the Ba River delta on the northwest coast and the
Sigatoka River delta on the southwest coast.
Although both deltas existed long before people first arrived in Fiji
(about 1100 BC), these deltas underwent significant change subsequently, far
more than has been generally realized. A climate-driven food crisis around AD
1300 led to the inhabitants of Fiji’s
coasts moving inland for the first time in large numbers. The sea no longer
remained their primary source of food; they became upland agriculturalists,
which resulted in large areas of forest being burnt and cleared. In the
Sigatoka Valley, this process gave rise to the development of the deltaic
sand-dune field, while in the Ba Valley it caused sediment accumulation on
offshore reef platforms like that of Tavuca Island. The Ba Valley project is
continuing as part of a wider research effort funded by the G. Unger Vetlesen
Foundation.
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SESSION C16
C16 Christie, Annalisa
C.
University of York
EXPLORING THE SOCIAL
CONTEXT OF MARITIME EXPLOITATION ALONG THE EAST
AFRICAN COAST
FROM THE 12TH-18TH C. AD: RECENT RESEARCH IN THE MAFIA ARCHIPELAGO, TANZANIA
Existing archaeological and historical evidence suggests
that the communities living on the East African coast were maritime societies,
with the implication that the maritime nature of these societies was based on
their role in long distance trading networks, and to a lesser extent the
presence of a maritime based subsistence economy (e.g. Horton and Mudida;
Msemwa; Kleppe). Although more recent studies (Pollard, Breen and Lane) have
examined these communities within an explicitly maritime framework, situating
them within a broader maritime cultural
landscape (Westerdahl 1992), additional factors should be considered.
Anthropological studies within maritime societies suggest that the question of
what a maritime society entails is more complex and goes beyond mere proximity
to the sea and the presence of a maritime-based subsistence economy (factors
often implicitly used to define maritime societies within maritime
archaeology). This paper evaluates the social context of maritime exploitation
within the Mafia Archipelago, Tanzania,
by examining the faunal assemblages recovered during recent excavations at the
site of Kua Ruins on Juani
Island within a maritime
anthropological framework, to elucidate the influence of social status on
resource accessibility, and to evaluate changing patterns of resource
exploitation over time. As the site is situated within the Mafia Island Marine
Park (MIMP), established in 1995, this research has the potential to inform marine
resource management strategies, by providing an historical perspective on the
influence of the sea on the socio-cultural organisation of maritime
interactions including exploitation.
C16 Amesbury, Judith R.
Micronesian Archaeological Research Services, Guam, USA
PELAGIC FISHING IN THE
MARIANA ARCHIPELAGO: FROM THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD TO THE PRESENT
Analysis of fish bones from archaeological sites in the
Mariana Archipelago has revealed that the original
inhabitants, known as the Chamorro, fished not only for reef fishes but also
for large open-ocean fishes, such as mahimahi and marlin. Pelagic fishing
continued throughout the 3,000-year long Prehistoric Period (c 1500 BC to AD
1521) and for nearly 150 years after European Contact in 1521. Early Spanish
Period writers praised the sailing and fishing skills of the Chamorro. However
shortly after Spanish colonization in 1668, the Spanish put a stop to
open-ocean fishing by waging war against the Chamorro, burning their villages
and canoes, and forbidding them to go offshore. By about 1750, the Chamorro
people no longer built the ‘flying proa.’ In the late 1700s and early 1800s,
Refaluwasch people from the Caroline Islands to the south took over the
responsibility for inter-island travel in the Marianas.
The Chamorro people did not engage in pelagic fishing for about two hundred
years (c. 1750-1950). In the early twentieth century, the Japanese in Saipan
and Americans in Guam became involved in
fishing. After World War II, the availability of boats brought about a
renaissance in pelagic fishing in the Marianas.
C16 Campos, Fredeliza
Archaeological
Studies Program, University of the Philippine
INVESTIGATION OF EARLY FISHING
PRACTICES IN BATANES, NORTHERN PHILIPPINES
The analysis of fish bones from Batanes, northern Philippines
expounds on the broadening research in early marine subsistence and strategies.
This is highlighted by the presence of the dolphinfish (Coryphaenidae), a taxon
rarely found in archaeology. The recovery propels investigation on possible
correlations with neighboring regions, particularly Taiwan and the Pacific, where its
occurrence has also been observed.
C16 Carter, Melissa
THE PROBLEM WITH POLYMESODAS: ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY OF
SUBSISTENCE SHELLFISHING IN NW SANTA ISABEL
AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE POLYMESODAS (GELONIA) SUBGENUS
Malacologists have long struggled with accurately
distinguishing between Polymesoda erosa and
Polymesoda expansa – the two most
profilic species of the Polymesoda (Gelonia) sub-genus in the Indo-Pacific.
The apparent high degree of similarity between shells and the failure of
scientists to establish consistent criteria for species identification are
apparently responsible for this problem. Through recent ethnoarchaeological
investigations of contemporary shellfishing in northwestern Santa Isabel in the
Solomon Islands,
new information on Polymesoda spp.
shell morphology and distribution within the mangrove habitat has come to
light. It is suggested that the longterm archaeological deposition of Polymesoda
spp. shell in NW Isabel combined with the substantial body of traditional
ecological knowledge available for the species provide a valuable resource for
improving the identification and sustainable management of the poorly
understood, heavily exploited Polymesoda
(Gelonia) subgenus.
C16 Fitzpatrick, Scott M.
North Carolina State University, USA
Osamu Kataoka
Kansai Gaidai
University
LONG-TERM TRENDS IN PREHISTORIC
PALAUAN FISHING STRATEGIES
Previous research at the Chelechol ra Orrak site in Palau, Micronesia suggested that fishing
may have declined prehistorically over the past two thousand years. Here we
discuss the analysis of an additional suite of archaeofish remains recovered
from the site is triple the size of the previous collection. This provides a
more robust interpretation of early subsistence strategies in Palau and changes that occurred
here over time.
C16 Goto, Akira
THE OCEANIC
ECOUNTER WITH THE JAPANESE: AN OUTRIGGER CANOE-FISHING GEAR COMPLEX IN THE
BONIN ISLANDS AND HACHIJO-JIMA
ISLAND
This
paper examines outrigger-fishing boats used in the Bonin Islands and Hachijo-jima Island,
south of Tokyo.
The Bonin Islands that lie in the north of the Mariana Islands had been
influenced from Micronesia
in prehistory. After hundreds of years of isolation, the immigrants finally
came from the Hawaiian kingdom to the islands in 1830: they consist of 5 whites
and 15 Pacific Islanders, and they brought with them several Polynesian
cultural elements including Hawaiian type single-outrigger canoe. The canoes
already had a western type of rectangular sail with a gaf. Canoes were later
introduced to the Hachijo-jima
Island. Then several
innovations have been made: e.g. (1) a dugout hull originally
made of Hernandia sonora came to be made of cedar planks adopting
Japanese fishing-boat making, (2) the canoe was used for fishing with Japanese
type fishing gear, (3) a scull came to be used like a Japanese fishing boat,
instead of a Pacific type paddle (in Hachijo-jima Island), and so on. Thus the
outrigger-fishing boats of this area show a unique combination of the
traditions of the Pacific, Europe (or America), and Japanese.
C16 Guse, Daryl
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, RSPAS, ANU
MACASSAR TREPANG FISHERMEN AND
INDIGENOUS COASTAL EXPLOITATION IN THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES ALONG THE ARNHEM LAND COAST
OF AUSTRALIA:
IMPLICATIONS FOR NATURAL AND CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Archaeological evidence
from Macassar fishermen Macassar trepang (beche de mer) processing sites from
the 18th and 19th Centuries located on the north Australian coast have revealed
potential industrial impacts on local Australian marine and terrestrial
ecologies. The resultant Macassar fishermen and Indigenous exchange and
resource use of local marine environments in Arnhem Land
may have significant implications for conservation and management by local
Indigenous Ranger groups trying to demonstrate historic baseline ecological
data for the region. Macassar trepang fishermen travelled to the Australian
Arnhem Land coastline over several centuries and developed relationships
with local Indigenous Australian communities which had significant cultural
impacts. Shell harvesting and exploitation appears to have intensified during
this period of occupation. According to recent scientific research into trepang
fisheries, the Goulburn
Island area still has
significantly diminished trepang numbers compared to the archaeological and
historic records. Indigenous natural and cultural resource management regimes
are being implemented in various Indigenous Protected Areas along the Arnhem Land coastline. Initial archaeological research
has highlighted the potential impact that major trepang processing and
collection strategies in the Goulburn
Island region may have
been more severe than originally documented. This is particularly significant
for local Indigenous natural and cultural ranger land management programs which
are attempting to implement pre-contact environmental management strategies in
the local area.
C16 Gusev, Sergey V.
Russian Research Institute for Cultural and
Natural Heritage, Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation
THE OLD WHALING
CULTURE IN THE NORTH PACIFIC: NEW RECORDS
The discovery of Old Whaling culture in Alaska in 50-60 by
G.L. Giddings and D.D. Anderson resulted in heated debates: Did whale hunting
exist at the edge of II-I thousands BC? It is very important problem, because
the appearance of whale hunting is principle for studying of Arctic prehistory.
Beringean expedition had discovered in 1997 and then had investigated in 2003,
2005, 2007-2008 the settlement of sea mammal hunters Un`en`en in Eastern Chukotka. This site is situated at terrace 22-28 m above sea level. Cultural
deposit was dated by end II – beginning I millennium BC (wood samples). In 2007
during joint excavation with team from University
of Alaska (Fairbanks), it was found the unique walrus
tusk with carvings. The tusk, length 49 sm was designed as a ringed seal. The
images of people, sea and inland animals, birds, constructions, boats and some scenes
of everyday life had been carved on both sides of tusk. Among them are the
images of whale hunting from boats – umiak, hunter in kayak. The manner of
hunting and design of boats are similar to proto-eskimo tradition. These images
are unique for Euroasian and American Arctic. It shows the world of ancient sea
mammal hunters, having left the message to XXI century, as a carvings on walrus
tusk. Special features of tools, ecofacts, and images proves the existence of
specialization of sea mammal hunting at the end of II millennium BC. Thus the
date of appearance of sea mammal hunting becomes older then thousand years. The
stone tool complex has some analogues in cultures of subarctic and arctic zones
of Northern America. The most related
population was at Cape
Krusenstern (Old Whaling
culture). In excavated area it was discovered the floor made of wood pieces,
pavement of big and medium size crude stones. The pavement made of walrus
skulls may indicate the sacred nature of construction. Cultural deposit is full
of walrus, ringed seal and bird bones. Rarely it was found the antler and
mussel shells. The special features of this complex are the points with T-form
base and symmetrical side notches. Indeed, the stone tool manufacture has such
special feature as polishing of striking platform. Such manner is unique for
Northern Pacific.Now it is impossible to determine the region of origin and
genesis of Old Whaling culture, oriented to maritime economy, but some features
indicate its southern origins.
C16 Hashimura, Osamu
National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
THE HISTORY AND CULTURE
OF MARINE RESOURCE USE: CASE STUDY OF THE DOLPHIN FISH (CORYPHAENA HIPPURUS) IN JAPAN
AND EAST ASIA
The maritime culture of exploiting dolphin fish (Coryphaena hippurus) is widely distributed
in East Asia (including Japan),
Oceania (e.g., Polynesia including Hawaii) and
South America (e.g., Costa
Rica), and this paper has aimed to inquire
into the answer ‘why did/do we capture the dolphin fish from the past to
present days?’. This report will firstly report about (1) the regional
distribution of Tsuke (payao) method or FAD (Fish Aggregative Device) and food
culture for the dolphin fish among the Japan Sea to East China Sea, and then
discuss widely about (2) the historical transition of dolphin fish fisheries
and cultural system for the food distributions of dolphin fish among Japan,
Hawaii, Costa Rica, by comparative culture-historical analysis of the
interactions between dolphin fish and human.
C16 Morrison, Alex E.
University of Hawaii,
Manoa
WHAT CAN A HISTORICAL ECOLOGY PERSPECTIVE TELL
US ABOUT MARINE RESOURCE USE AND/OR THE HISTORY OF MARINE AREAS/ PERSPECTIVES
FROM THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
While the archaeological record provides a
record of the pre-contact use of marine resources and marine environments,
interpretations of these patterns can be difficult because of multiple interrelated
processes that may have occurred simultaneously. Some of these processes
include direct effects on prey species caused by human predation, natural and
human-induced environmental change, site formation processes, and a variety of
cultural factors. Can a historical ecology approach help to disentangle these
factors and create better explanations for patterns in the archaeological
record? Examples from several Pacific
Island case studies are
discussed.
C16 Ono, Rintaro
Australian National
University
Intoh, Michiko
National Museum of
Ethnology, Japan
WHAT HAPPENED TO TUNA?: PREHISTORIC FISHING AND TEMPORAL
CHANGE OF PELAGIC EXPLOITATION IN FAIS, MICRONESIA
We present the result of fish bone analysis and prehistoric
fishing on Fais in the western Caroline Islands, Micronesia. In total 18 marine fish
family (26 taxa) were identified including two families of sharks
(Caracharhinidae and Lamnidae). Our analysis with use of vertebrae for
identification reveals that the total MNI (Minimum Number of Individual) of
inshore fish and outer reef to pelagic fish species is almost even in Fais from
early settlement through to late prehistoric times (A.D. 400 to 800) due to a
drastic increase in tunas. However, the number of tunas dramatically decreased
after A.D. 1200. The increase of tunas could be related to possible changes in
fishing technology, population, or climatic change, while its drastic decrease
seems more directly related to accessibility of marine resources due to
climatic change particularly between A.D. 1200 and 1500. Based on this
assumption, we further discuss why tunas were dropped after A.D. 1200 in Fais
as well as other islands in Oceania.
C16 Ono, Rintaro
Australian National
University
Addison, David
American Samoa Community
College
600 YEARS OF MARINE PROCUREMENT
ON ATAFU ATOLL, TOKELAU
This paper discusses the historical marine ecology
implications of trends in long-term fishing on the Tokelau atoll of Atafu. Fish
and shell remains from excavations 2008 and 2009 are combined with modern
ethnography and historic data in an effort to understand the long term patterns
of marine resource use on Atafu Atoll. Traditional conservation mechanisms from
modern and historical contexts are discussed and compared to the archaeological
data in an effort to understand long-term management strategies. Atafu is
compared with nearby Fakaofo Atoll where a different marine environment may
have results different cultural and traditional management practices.
C16 Ponkratova, Irina Y.
Northeastern State
University, Magadan, Russia
Kuzmin, Yaroslav V.
Institute of Geology &
Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy
of Sciences, Novosibirsk,
Russia
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF
MARITIME ADAPTATION AND SEAFARING IN NORTHEAST ASIA:
RESULTS AND PROBLEMS
The issues
of the emergence of maritime adaptation and seafaring in Northeast Asia
(including the Russian Far East, Japanese
Islands, Korean
Peninsula, and Northeast
China) are considered on the basis of direct evidences of the
consumption of marine food resources and remains of marine transport (boats).
To date, the earliest proof of the use of marine resources
in Northeast Asia is the finding of salmon bones in cultural layers 7 and 6 of
the Ushki site cluster on the Kamchatka
Peninsula (layers are
dated to ca. 14,000–11,000 BP and ca. 11,000–10,000 BP, respectively). The
first trace of marine food use in Japan – salmon bones found at the
Maeda Kochi site on Kanto Plain – has a similar age (ca. 13,000 BP). Therefore,
the earliest use of marine food resources is dated to the Late Glacial.
Beginning at ca. 9500 BP, the gathering of marine molluscs is known in Japan, and since ca. 6500 BP shellmiddens
appeared on the continental Northeast Asian coasts: in Primorye
Province of the Russian Far East, Korea, and Northeast China.
In the Holocene, the consumption of marine fish, molluscs, and mammals is known
for all of Northeast Asia, especially since
the Holocene Climatic Optimum. It seems that the adoption of marine resources
as food in Northern Asia was a gradual process
determined by both developments in economy (tools for catching, collecting, and
processing the sea food) and natural conditions (for example, oyster banks in
the shallow brackish estuaries which appeared during the post-Glacial
transgression and the appearance of indented coastlines).
As for the origin of seafaring in Northeast
Asia, the data are scanty. The earliest wooden boats are found on
the eastern coast of China
(Kuahuqiao site, boat remains are dated to ca. 7000 BP), in the southern Korean Peninsula
(Bibong-ri site, ca. 6800 BP), and in the Japanese Islands
(Kamo site, ca. 5300 BP). Data exist about the procurement and transportation
of obsidian from Kozu-shima Island, located off the eastern coast of Honshu Island,
to the Kanto Plain of Honshu. This activity had begun by ca. 30,000 BP, and the
strait between Kozu-shima and Honshu was never
narrower than ca. 50 km.
Another line of evidence is information about the presence of obsidian from a
source on Kyushu Island
on the southern coast of Korea
opposite Kyushu at ca. 26,000–19,000 BP. The Tsushima Strait between these territories existed
throughout the Late Pleistocene, and at that time it was as wide as 20 km or even more. Thus, the
crossing of relatively large open water obstacles was practiced in Northeast
Asia in the Upper Palaeolithic, although it is
unclear how regular such journeys were.
C16 Suda, Kazuhiro
Hokkaigakuen
University,
Japan
MARINE RESOURCE USE IN
TRANSITION: TRADITIONAL AND MODERN FISHING IN TONGA,
WESTERN POLYNESIA
In Ha’ano Island of Kingdom of Tonga, subsistence fishing
was still main activity for getting animal protein, although outboard
motorboats and modern fishing gear such as nylon nets and lines were
introduced. Based on my quantitative analysis, catches from their main fishing
activity, or line fishing, were mainly allocated to self-consumption and
reciprocal exchange. However, catches from the costly stationary net, which was
newly introduced by returnees from migrant work, were sold within the village.
It means that those who have more capital invest more cash in the fishing gear
and therefore get more. In prehistoric times, marine resources might very
important as a protein source for the initial immigrants to the islands of Oceania, where terrestrial animals had been extremely
scarce.. Anthropological and archaeological studies of fishing in Oceania have mainly focused on the classification and
distribution of traditional fishing equipments, and the reconstruction of
traditional fishing methods and resource uses. These studies elucidated that
the islanders had a wealth of knowledge about the ecology of marine biotopes to
efficiently exploit them. After the intrusion of Europeans to this area,
however, subsistence activities had dramatically changed. Imported foods such
as tin fish and corned beef have become more important as the protein source.
In accordance with such change of socio-economic circumstances of this area,
the role of marine resources had varied, and I would discuss the present
problem of the utilization of marine resources based on the case of Ha’ano
Island in Tonga.
C16 Szabó, Katherine
School of Earth
and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong
THE SELECTION OF RAW
MATERIALS FOR SHELL ARTEFACT PRODUCTION
Shell is one of the most commonly encountered classes of
cultural remain in Asia-Pacific archaeological sites. Whilst much of this
material pertains directly to past subsistence practices, shell artefacts and
associated production debris are widespread. Given the prevalence of shell in regional archaeological
sites, and the sheer number of species available in the Tropical Indo-Pacific
marine province, how closely do selection patterns for shell destined to be
modified converge with shellfish selected for consumption? How important is geographic
propinquity in the selection and use of particular species as raw materials?
Using a variety of case studies from Island Southeast Asia and the southwestern
Pacific, this paper will investigate these questions and seek to contextualise
these answers within the broader framework of the nature and status of shell as
a raw material.
C16 Vitales, Taj
Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines / National
Museum of the Philippines
BEYOND SUBSISTENCE:
CULTURAL USAGES AND SIGNIFICANCE OF BAILER SHELLS IN PHILIPPINE PREHISTORY
Bailer shells (/Melo /spp.) have a long history of
exploitation in the Indo Pacific world as demonstrated from the archaeological
record. These shell remains were usually found associated with shell middens
along coastal or near coastal archaeological sites, particularly in Australia
and Island Southeast Asia. Bailer/ /shell remains in the archaeological record
also form a ubiquitous presence in Central and Southern Philippines, in which
they are mostly found in cave sites. This paper will explore and discuss the
significance of their presence in these sites. Recent analysis revealed that
bailer/ /shells found in Philippine sites seem to be collected primarily not
for subsistence but rather for artifactual purposes. Other sites in the Indo
Pacific with presence of bailer shells will also be explored for their
significance in the sites. Its implications will be discussed as we try to understand
the role of bailer shells in the bigger picture of marine shell exploitation in
Indo-Pacific prehistory.
C16 Zayas, Cynthia Neri
Center
for International Studies, University of the Philippines, Diliman
BATO, ATOB AND TAUN – THE
METAMORPHOSES OF STONE TIDAL WEIRS IN OCEANIA
Atob
‘stone tidal weir’ and bato ‘stone’ are related words that have undergone
metathesis. A colleague has suspected taboo to be the reason for such
inversion. An atob is a gentle fish trap copied from the principle of a natural
pool where piled up stones are used to form a natural basin. Designed to trap
fish during low tide, it is built on gradually sloping reef sides within the
inter-tidal zones. The height of the wall is especially fashioned so as to
enable the fish to enter at high tide. As the tide ebbs, the fish are slowly
trapped within the walls. At the deeper end of the stone wall or barricade is
the ‘mouth’ of the weir called taun in Sebuano spoken in Gigantes, Central Philippines. It is built be non-return valve sort
of trap. A non-return valve fish basket called bubu (*AKL PMP) is the term for
a stone trap in Kiribati
island. Stone tidal weirs are widespread in Oceania specifically in the islands
within and on the western rim of the Pacific Ocean.
Based on my field research in Southern Japan, the Pescadores
and the Central Philippine Islands, I would like to enumerate the various ways
the stone fish trap relates these islands to each other, e.g. linguistic
analysis, and ethnographic comparison of trapping and the system of ownership
of the said gear. Based on these comparisons it may be said that the stone
tidal weirs are of Austronesian origin.
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SESSION C17
C17 Spriggs, Matthew
Australian National
University
FROM MENDANA TO
RIESENFELD: EARLY ACCOUNTS AND SPECULATION ON TARO IRRIGATION IN THE ASIA PACIFIC AREA
The earliest written account I have come across about taro
irrigation in the Asia Pacific area comes from Mendana's voyage to the Solomon Islands in 1567, where irrigation
systems on Guadalcanal are described. In the
next 400 years, prior to serious archaeological investigation of such systems,
there was much further description and speculation as to the history and
origins of such systems. Members of Captain Cook's expeditions in the 1770s
were impressed by taro irrigation systems they saw in the Hawaiian Islands,
Tahiti and New Caledonia.
Early accounts by visitors to other island groups also mention the presence of
taro irrigation: John Williams described the practice as it was on Rarotonga in
1823, Wilkes reports it from the Fijian archipelago during the US Exploring
Expedition of 1838 42, while the missionary John Geddie mentions taro
irrigation in an account written soon after he settled on Aneityum Island in
Vanuatu in 1848. These accounts and what they tell us are the subject of this
presentation.
C17 Sand,
Christophe
Ouetcho, André
Bolé, Jacques
Baret, David
Institute
of Archaeology of New Caledonia and the Pacific
“FROM THE
SEASHORES TO THE UPPER HILLS”: DIVERSITY AND CHRONOLOGY OF TARO IRRIGATION IN NEW CALEDONIA
Since the first descriptions by Europeans, the taro
cultivation systems of New Caledonia
have been known for their extent and diversity, placing especially the terraced
taro pondfields of Grande Terre amongst the most complex planting systems in
the Pacific (Kirch and Lepofsky 1993). Relying on the last decade of studies on
this topic, the paper wishes to highlight the diversity of the planting
environments identified through archaeological surveys. We will also present a
set of new C14 dates that have been obtained from prehistoric taro sites, in
order the refine the chronology of this intensified cultivation technique in
Southern Melanesia.
C17 Pollock, Nancy J.
Victoria University
of Wellington, New Zealand
THE TASTE OF
TARO
The taste of taro has been improved over time to meet
the gastronomic preferences of communities in the Pacific. Vegetative
propagation allowed farmers to select for attributes such as sweetness, i.e.
Less acridity, colour, mouthfeel, firmness and size. Cooks expressed their
satisfaction with certain plants that met their criteria for satisfying food, both
filling starchy substance, and leaves as a complementary dish, or puddings.
Taro replaced rice in the Pacific islands as the main starchy food that could
be adapted to both social and environmental conditions. Many varieties have
resulted in a range of choice across island communities.
C17
Matthews, Peter J.
National Museum
of Ethnology, Japan
Agoo, E. M. G.
De LaSalle University, Manila
Tadang, D. N.
Madulid, D. A.
Philippines National
Museum, Manila
ETHNOBOTANY
AND ECOLOGY OF WILD TAROS (COLOCASIA ESCULENTA) IN THE PHILIPPINES: IMPLICATIONS FOR
DOMESTICATION AND DISPERSAL IN THE PAST AND PRESENT
The cultivated species of taro, Colocasia
esculenta (L.) Schott, appears to be naturally occurring in the Philippines,
as evidenced by the presence of wild, flowering and fruiting populations.
However, not all wild, self-propagating taro patches are natural in their
establishment. The wild plants are also a common-property resource that is
occasionally moved and planted by people, and they occupy a variety of ruderal
to apparently natural habitats. Wild taros are a major source of leaves (blades
and petioles) used in popular forms of cooking in the Philippines. They are also used as
a source of fodder for pigs. The present variation, use and selection of wild taro
varieties may provide a useful analogy for thinking about the domestication and
dispersal of taro in the past, and its eventual incorporation into
privately-controlled gardens as a starchy root crop.
C17 Caillon, Sophie
CNRS,
Montpellier
WHY SO MUCH TARO? PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION
OF COLOCASIA ESCULENTA IN A MELANESIAN VILLAGE
(VANUATU)
Taro
in the village of Vêtuboso (Vanua
Lava Island,
Banks group) is at the same time the staple and the main cultural food. Each
person eats a mean of 0.43 kg of dry matter every day, which represents an
annual village consumption of 95.7 t (for 610 inhabitants). The hill village of Vêtuboso is surrounded by taro
pondfields (20.6 ha, of which 13.6 ha are cultivated), that range between 40
and 240 meters above sea level. Four of them were set up by their cultural
hero, Lakakêris, who also brought different types of taro and related plants,
such as medicinal and magical plants (e.g. Cordyline).
Two other pondfields have been created by the elders and are therefore “man-made”.
As the population increases, more and more abandoned pondfields are restored:
ponds are flattened, channels are cleaned, and dams are rebuilt. Whether they
work on the hero’s, elders’ or contemporary pondfields, farmers use the same
knowledge, practices and planting materials. Thanks to unique practices of the
Pacific, such as alternations of dry and wet periods of ponds, the whole
village is able to produce 66 t of dry matter per year (7.1 t/ha for 9.3 ha).
Taros cultivated in swamps and managed rivers are even more productive
(respectively 10.2 and 20.1 t/ha) but are less abundant (0.6 and 3.7 ha).
Cultivated in ponds, swamps or rivers, 146.5 t of taros are produced each year
in Vêtuboso. Knowing what people need to fulfill their annual consumption and
what they can produce, farmers from Vêtuboso cultivate an excess of 48.8 t
every year. Why do they plant so much taro? A large amount of it is meant to
“feed” a complex and rich exchange network which could be either “official”
(birth, wedding and death ceremonies, etc) or “unofficial,” as people exchange
cooked and uncooked food on a daily basis. Exchanges occur both inside and in
between villages, especially with those that cannot cultivate taro because of a
lack of rivers. By producing large quantities of big taro corms, inhabitants of
Vêtuboso are also thanking their cultural hero.
C17 Chazine, Jean-Michel
CNRS/CREDO Marseille
WET TARO CULTIVATION
ON ATOLLS: A TECHNICO-CULTURAL PARADOX?
Low islands are by themselves a
natural paradox: a tiny surface of a mere few square kilometres floating up to
7 meters upon the ocean, a basic soil made of coral debris scattered upon a
calcified beach rock, no visible fresh water resources and an exceptional
isolation. They present nothing, on first appearance, which would support or
incite any human settlement. This is probably the reason why the first European
visitors, staggered by the aspect of the islanders, thought they were just lost
survivors of wreckages or outcasts rejected from high islands. In fact, archaeological
surveys in the Tuamotu atolls have revealed a rather complex distribution of
holes and trenches dug into the coral sand and pebble substrate and spread over
hectares. Oral tradition and collected memories, at least in the Tuamotus, have
shown that these structures were cultivation pits in which different varieties
of taro were grown. Then the reconstruction of cultivation techniques and
social structures associated with these elementary food resources has been
confirmed by observations of still-living systems in the Cook Islands and the
atolls of Micronesia,
especially Kiribati.
They proved that a very considerable knowledge of the natural resources of low
islands had been observed and used; for example, the practice of mulching with
material from specific trees or creeping plants thus providing phosphates or
other necessary nutrients. And most important, they had observed that a thin
fresh water lens was present almost everywhere on any motu (islet), which provided moisture for cultivation pits and drinking
water for the islanders. Therefore the origin of the very first settlers of
atolls has still to be sought elsewhere than adjacent high islands and is more
probably towards the most western islands of the Pacific.
C17 Bayliss-Smith, Tim
University of Cambridge, England
Hviding, Edvard
University of Bergen, Norway
TERRACED TARO AND THE INTENSIFICATION OF
SOCIAL RELATIONS IN SOLOMON
ISLANDS: INSIGHTS FROM RUTA
CULTIVATION, PAST AND PRESENT, IN MAROVO, NEW GEORGIA
In
the context of the Sahlins (1958) model of social stratification in Polynesia, which Kirch (1989) later supported from
archaeological data, the Melanesian islands present a paradox. The larger
Melanesian islands appear to have had all the pre-conditions for large-scale
social stratification and the emergence of centralized chiefdoms, but despite
having similar origins in Lapita culture, their social development over the longue
durée has been strikingly different from that of equivalent Polynesian or
Fijian island groups. In the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu
the reconstructions of prehistory suggest persistent, perhaps even growing,
cultural diversity, intricate regional exchange systems, the co-existence of
big-men and small-scale chiefs (sensu Sahlins), and agricultural
intensification as a rather localized phenomenon. For example, in the New
Georgia group of the western Solomons many of the ingredients were in place for
the development of large, centralized Polynesian-type chiefdoms, but over three
millennia this was not the outcome. In this paper we explore the evidence from
the Marovo Lagoon area for the emergence in prehistory of intensified exchange
relations of considerable scale based on taro production from irrigated
terraces (ruta). We can reconstruct ruta from archaeological,
botanical and ethnographic sources (Hviding & Bayliss-Smith 2000;
Bayliss-Smith et al. 2003). We interpret the inland agricultural populations
that developed ruta cultivation as being connected in somewhat
hierarchical ways with coastal populations practicing predatory inter-island
warfare and headhunting. These interactions involved an exchange system through
which fish and shell valuables moved inland in exchange for taro, nuts and meat
that were derived from ruta terraces, groves of Canarium trees
and hunting, respectively, as well as seasonal tribute whereby inland people
provided taro for large feasts on the coast. We identify constraints on the
expansion of this system, which might have escalated towards the formation of
expanded chiefdoms and radically transformed landscapes (as in Fiji or Polynesia),
but instead seems to have undergone a constrained and perhaps unsustainable
development path. We discuss various factors that may explain the paradox of
large islands, high potential for expanded surplus taro production, but no
evidence for strong political centralization. These are (1) epidemiological
constraints (particularly endemic malaria); (2) environmental problems (the
hyper-humid climate); (3) persistent inter- and intra-island warfare; and
perhaps (4) a pre-Lapita heritage that encouraged the co-existence of diverse
Papuan and Austronesian languages and cultures.
C17 King, Trevor
Vitokoni ni Vuci-Friends of Vuci, Fiji;
and International
Pacific College,
NZ
FLUCTUATION IN COLOCASIA CULTIVATION AND LANDESQUE
CAPITAL IN NAVOSA, FIJI
Navosa
is a seasonally-dry leeward climate region of central Fiji. Doko (dalo, taro,
Colocasia esculenta) has been grown there with the aid of landesque capital
(terracing, pondfielding, aquaducting) as a principal crop for perhaps 1000
years, but slowly declined during the 20th C. The reasons for decline will be
evaluated, with a focus on two previously overlooked processes: damage
associated with the intrusion of ungulates
and the accumulated effects of soil erosion in gully environments. Some of the
degradation can be ameliorated and renewed development of landesque capital has
occurred, now stimulated by the recent surge in food commodity prices and
demand for doko.
C17 Lepofsky, Dana
Simon Fraser University,
Vancouver
Kahn, Jennifer G.
Bishop Museum, Honolulu
SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS OF ANCIENT MA‘OHI
PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
Discussions about people’s roles in shaping and interacting
with Pacific island ecosystems, as elsewhere in the world, tend to be
dichotomized, in part depending on the source of the data informing the
discussion. On the one hand, archaeologists and paleoecologists focus on
detrimental human-induced landscape changes associated with colonization and
subsequent elite-driven demands on production tied to the development of
dryland and irrigated taro cultivation. On the other hand, ethnobiologists
working with indigenous peoples today focus on traditional ecological knowledge
and the sustainability of human interactions with the land and sea. In the Society Islands, archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence supports both models of
human-landscape interaction. In this presentation, we explore the evidence for
these ideas and present a model of the social and ecological interactions between the elite and
non-elite based production systems of the Society Islands,
including the development and intensification of dryland and wetland terrace
systems and arboriculture complexes
C17 Graves, Michael W.
University of New
Mexico
McCoy, Mark D.
Otago University
THE EXPANSION OF
IRRIGATED AGRICULTURE INTO KOHALA, HAWAI‘I ISLAND
Recent archaeological field and archival research
has revealed the development of irrigated agriculture in the major valleys and
gulches of the northeastern portion of Hawai‘i Island.
Previous research from the valleys of Honokane and Pololu that mapped the
surface agricultural terraces has now been matched with chronometric dates
showing agricultural development as early as AD 1200. New field work in four of
the smaller gulches to the west dates agricultural expansion to about AD 1300,
with irrigated terraces distributed wherever alluvial flats were located and
also in many side gulches. Water from the middle and upper elevations of the
gulches was diverted through a series of irrigation ditches along moderate
slopes to the ridge tops where historic maps show agricultural complexes were
located. Water from these ridge top complexes was drained in some cases into
ditches that fed back in to the lower portions of the gulches where stream flow
was less secure but where the largest agricultural complexes are located. The
technological innovation illustrated by the network of gulch ditches and
agricultural complexes likely occurred after AD 1650 and brought new lands
under permanent cultivation. This fits well in time with a period during which
there was the largest increase in the dryland field system on the more arid
western slopes of Kohala. Together these likely form an integrated wetland and
dryland cultivation system, unrivaled in Hawai’i
for its geographic scale and overall productivity.
C17 Addison, David J.
RISK MANAGEMENT AND SURPLUS PRODUCTION IN
POLYNESIA: THE CONTRASTIVE WET TARO (COLOCASIA
ESCULENTA) SYSTEMS OF SAMOA AND THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS
This
paper contrasts the wet taro (Colocasia
esculenta) systems of the Marquesas Islands and Samoa.
On Nuku Hiva Island
in the Marquesas, wet taro was traditionally grown in pondfield terraces and
its primary role appears to have been for daily consumption and risk management
during droughts. In Samoa, documented wet taro cultivation systems are limited
to the eastern islands (Tutuila, Aunu’u, and
the Manu’a Group). In these systems modified wetlands are used to grow taro in
raised beds surrounded by networks of reticulate water channels. Food from
these systems was traditionally used for daily consumption and for
socio-political and cultural events. This paper describes the systems of the
Marquesas and Samoa, their productive
potential as components within larger production systems and the
socio-political and cultural ramifications of their divergent developmental
paths.
C17 Field, Julie S.
Ohio State University, USA
King, Trevor
International Pacific College, NZ
TESTING THE CHRONOLOGY OF IRRIGATED DALO CULTIVATION (COLOCASIA
ESCULENTA) IN THE SIGATOKA VALLEY, VITI
LEVU, FIJI
Archaeological
investigations in Hawai‘i have exemplified a series of field methods for the
investigation of prehistoric irrigated taro (Colocasia esculenta). These
methods utilize GPS-based field mapping and terrace configuration to examine
the construction sequence and extent of field systems, and excavation beneath
walls has retrieved samples of organic matter that have returned sequences of
absolute dates. We present a plan for future research in the Sigatoka Valley,
Fiji that incorporates these methods with geoarchaeological analyses of terrace
soils. The goal of our research is the determination of the chronology of
irrigated cultivation in the region, and the inclusion of these data into
recently developed socio-political and demographic trajectories. We will also
propose a plan that will examine the evolution of mixed dryland and wetland
agricultural systems in the Sigatoka
Valley, and the
transition of these systems in the late pre-historic and historic period. The historic investigation will center on lineage and settlement in
relation to field systems, with recourse to indigenous knowledge and
environmental factors such as changes in land use, vegetation and climate.
C17 McElroy, Windy K.
Garcia and Associates, Hawai’i
APPROACHES TO DATING
WETLAND AGRICULTURAL FEATURES: AN EXAMPLE FROM WAILAU
VALLEY, MOLOKA‘I ISLAND,
HAWAI‘I
The dynamic environment of wetland agricultural systems
presents unique challenges for dating. As water and sediment move through the
system, charred plant material is transported as well, thus scattered charcoal
collected from pondfield deposits may have originated from anywhere upslope. My
paper considers several alternative approaches for assessing the age of wetland
agricultural features, including wall superposition and abutment analyses,
re-use of wetland terraces for non-agricultural purposes, the presence of
historical material and introduced plant taxa, and radiocarbon dating charcoal
from beneath wall foundation stones as termini ante quem. These
techniques were used to estimate the age of 19 wetland systems in Wailau Valley,
Hawai‘i, and the utility of each approach will be assessed here.
C17 Acabado, Stephen
University of Hawai’i, Manoa
TARO BEFORE RICE TERRACES: IMPLICATIONS OF
RADIOCARBON DATES, ETHNOHISTORIC RECONSTRUCTIONS, AND ETHNOGRAPHY IN DATING THE
IFUGAO TERRACES
Dating
their construction through conventional radiocarbon determination will not
settle debates on the antiquity of the Ifugao rice terraces, northern Luzon, Philippines.
It is a fact that the nature of agricultural terracing technology would
generate chaotic stratigraphy, and thus, intermixing of datable materials. This
paper presents a Bayesian model that addresses this difficulty in determining
the construction chronology of Bocos, Banaue, Ifugao terrace system. This paper
also discusses the probability that taro terraces could have preceded rice
terraces, at least in Banaue, Ifugao.
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SESSION C18
C18 Higashimura, Junko
Kyoto University Museum,
Kyoto, Japan
BACK-STRAP LOOMS IN THE
YAYOI AND KOFUN PERIODS
This paper focuses on
recent research into loom technology in Japan. Based on firm archaeological
evidence, the research indicates that stick back-strap looms were used in the
early Yayoi and late Kofun periods. Our research also shows that frame
back-strap looms were imported into Japan in the late Kofun period
thereby enabling weavers to produce longer cloths than previously woven.
C18 Meacham, Bill
University of Hong
Kong
A CAUTIONARY TALE: THE RESTORATION OF
THE TURIN
SHROUD WAS A CONSERVATION AND SCIENTIFIC DISASTER.
In 2002 the Shroud of Turin was subjected to a radical
intervention aimed at ridding the relic of carbon dust and charred material
said to pose a serious threat to the image. Patches that were applied in 1534
to cover holes from fire damage were removed. Vacuuming was done of portions of
both sides, and other remedial measures were taken to optimise the appearance
of the relic. This aggressive operation was in stark contrast with modern
precepts of conservation, and resulted in important scientific data being lost,
along with great opportunities for sophisticated testing and sampling. The
long-term negative impact of the intervention is feared to be substantial; the
underlying premise, that the image was threatened, has been shown to be false.
C18 Quizon, Cherubim A.
Seton Hall
University,
New Jersey, USA
Cameron, Judith
Australian National
University
THE BANTON CLOTH
This paper discusses the Banton Cloth, a 13th century cloth
housed in the National Museum of the Philippines
which is understood to be the earliest extant abaca cloth found to date in the Philippines.
Initial observations on how this ikat-patterned cloth relates to other extant
Mindanao abaca ikat textiles from the 1880s to the contemporary times will be
presented both from a technical/stylistic standpoint, as well as from the
perspective of their cultural meanings and patterns of use. In addition, the
breadth and variety of textile and fibre use in the Philippines and contiguous regions
from the early historical period will be briefly assessed in relation to the
Banton cloth, including how the funerary and non-funerary use of ikat and/or
bast fibre textiles in comparative contexts can be actively brought into
consideration when analyzing this archaeological material.
C18 Guse, Daryl
Australian National
University
INDONESIAN TEXTILES AND
THEIR POTENTIAL INFLUENCE ON INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN ROCK ART
Textile introduction to Indigenous Australia occurs in the
18th Century through culture contact with Indonesian trepang (beche de mer)
fishermen along the Arnhem Land coastline of northern Australia. Trepang fishermen
exchange many items including textiles which not only served a functional use,
but also were incorporated into religious and ceremonial significance to
Indigenous people. It has been suggested that designs found in the rock art of
the Wellington Range of Arnhem Land, northern Australia may have been influenced
by motif designs from Indonesian textiles introduced by the trepang fishermen.
This suggestion is significant as this influence in rock art motif design may
be a proxy indicator for a longer period of culture contact between Indonesian
maritime communities and Indigenous peoples of northern Australia extending beyond the 17th
Century.
C18 Nguyen Viet
Centre for
Southeast Asian Prehistory, Vietnam.
NEW FINDINGS ON DONG SON TEXTILE
TECHNOLOGY.
This paper presents the results of recent analyses of Dong
Son textiles. The textile fragments come from the sites of Chau Can and Dong Xa
in the Red River Valley and Go Que in Quang Ngai province.
Based on SEM, FTIR and chemical experiments, the results show that the Dong Son
used three different fibres (ramie, hemp and silk) in textile production.
Analysis also shows knowledge of two weaving techniques (plain weave and double
weave) and the combination of both techniques in some samples. Embroidery is
also evidenced. These techniques were also popular in Dian clothing.
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SESSION C19
C19 Pham, Charlotte
Ecole Française d’Extrême Orient, Centre for maritime
archaeology Southampton
MARITIME ETHNOGRAPHY
AND ITS APPLICATION IN VIETNAM
In the absence of archaeological evidence, extensive
historical or iconographical data, it is possible to rely on maritime
ethnography to study ancient watercraft and early seafaring in Vietnam.
By approaching contemporary vessels and through their accurate recording, it
may be possible to draw parallels with past conceptions and methods of
construction. In the wake of maritime archaeology in Vietnam, such an approach may
provide a baseline from which to draw basic knowledge on boat culture and
boatbuilding tradition and will provide experience for future excavations and
finds interpretation.
C19 Kimura, Jun
Flinders University
REMAINS OF THE
YUAN/MONGOLIAN EXPANSIONISM IN TWO DIFFERENT MARITIME CULTURAL LANDSCAPES
This presentation will show a linkage of thematic maritime
archaeological project between the Bach Dang Site (Vietnam)
and the Takashima Underwater Site (Japan) within the framework of the
Mongolian invasion.
C19 Sasaki, Randall
Texas A&M
RESULTS OF THE
INITIAL SEASON OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH AT THE BACH DANG BATTLE SITE
The Battles of Bach Dang, where the Vietnamese fought
against the invaders at multiple occasions, have a significant implication to
the history and to the people of Vietnam. Particularly in 1288 C.E.,
General Trang Hung Dao planted wooden stakes along the river to prevent the
Yuan (Mongolian) fleet and destroyed their ships. These wooden stakes have been
found in the now silted rice fields. This archaeological project was initiated
to solve where the battle was fought by identifying the stakes and aims at
finding the remains of the battle, including the ships that were
involved.
C19 Girard, Michel
& Bui Thi Mai
Archeo-palynologists, CNRS-CEPAM
THE POLLINIC ANALYSIS
OF OLEORESINS USED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THUYÊN THÚNG, BASKET BOATS OF CENTRAL VIETNAM, AN INTER-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH
The use of vegetal resins for boat caulking is an ancient
method. The analysis of a caulking sample found on a shipwreck in Brunei,
dated to the 15th century yielded pollens of Dipterocarpus and of Shorea
trees. Nowadays, in Central Vietnam, such
oleo-resins are still used to caulk basket boats. The analysis of these pollens
coupled with observation on the field of its collection and preparation
provides information on how ancient vessels may have been prepared to go to
sea. Such a study is an example of how archaeopalynological and ethnobotanical
data may participate in building knowledge about ancient seafarers and their
boatbuilding traditions and demonstrates the multi-disciplinary approach
possible within that field.
C19 Staniforth, Mark
Maritime Archaeology Program, Flinders University
TEACHING AND RESEARCH
IN MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY: NEW APPROACHES TO COLLABORATION IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
REGION
It is clear that the bringing into force of the 2001 UNESCO
Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage in January
2009 will provide considerable challenges to the way in which research and
teaching in maritime archaeology will be conducted in the future. The Maritime
Archaeology Program (MAP) at Flinders
University has developed
innovative, collaborative approaches to teaching and research in maritime
archaeology in recent years. In early 2009 MAP introduced the Flinders
University Intensive Program in Underwater Cultural Heritage Management (UCHM)
as a model for the implementation of Articles 19 and 21 of the UNESCO
Convention 2001. It is hoped that this collaborative model will be adopted by
other countries and organizations in the Asia-Pacific region. This should lead
to increased numbers of ratifications of the Convention as well as providing
the basis for effective collaboration and co-operation in both the training of
maritime archaeologists and in conducting maritime archaeological research in
the Asia-Pacific region.
C19 Delgado, James P.
President, Institute of Nautical Archaeology
THE INSTITUTE OF
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS IN NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL
RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND PRESERVATION
Founded in 1973, the Institute
of Nautical Archaeology is based in
the U.S. and in Turkey,
but works around the world on cooperative projects to locate, scientifically
excavate, conserve, analyze and preserve shipwrecks and other nautical sites.
INA subscribes to the UNESCO guidelines for underwater cultural heritage as
part of its mission. Another important part of INA's mission is scholarly
publication and public outreach through partnerships with museums and media.
INA has worked on over 160 projects in dozens of countries, and recently joined
a cooperative effort in Vietnam
to study the sites of the naval battles at Bach Dang.
C19 Nugent, Anna-Maria
Southampton University
CAMBODIAN WATERCRAFT:
FROM THE BAYON TO PRESENT
The water-going traditions of the Cambodian peoples are far
reaching and embrace a deep history. Maritime settlements such as Oc Eo
belonged to a trading network that, by the middle of the first millennium AD,
had extended to India
and the Mediterranean world beyond. The internal lake and river system of the
Ton Le Sap along with the Mekong
River running through the
country worked to shape the history of the Khmers and transform them into a
maritime-centred culture, a culture surpassed in more recent times by the
dominance of agriculture. However, much remains still of this maritime
heritage. It is the focus of this study to look at the watercraft of Cambodia
in the historical and archaeological record while at the same time undertaking
an ethnographic comparison with contemporary boats. Through this approach we
will see the parallels that can be drawn from the traditional practices, the
intangible cultural heritage and beliefs, and the records of history.
C19 Orillaneda, Bobby
C.
Underwater Archaeology Section, Archaeology Division of the National Museum
of the Philippines
EMERGENCE, DEVELOPMENT
AND CURRENT STATE
OF UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PHILIPPINES
The archipelagic nature of the Philippines
and its strategic maritime location between early great civilizations such as China in the east and India
and the Middle East in the west indicates the
country’s significant underwater cultural heritage. The creation of the
Underwater Archaeology Unit (UAU) under the National
Museum of the Philippines in 1979 signalled the
start of archaeological excavations which, thus far, excavated, exhibited and
published numerous indigenous and foreign trade vessels stretching back to the
11th century C.E. However, the practice of underwater archaeology as an
academic discipline is still to be realized. Inadequate government financial
support, weak law enforcement and lack of qualified personnel are cited as some
of the reasons. As such, the advance of underwater archaeology to a purely
academic practice and its increasing role in the preservation and protection of
the country’s underwater cultural heritage remains a challenge.
C19 Hanh Duong Bich
UNESCO Ha Noi
SAFEGUARDING OUR SHARED
HERITAGE: THE 2001 CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION OF THE UNDERWATER HERITAGE
A significant part of humanity’s shared heritage lies
underwater. Shipwrecks, sunken cities and other traces of human existence have
much to reveal about voyages that linked countries together and how our
ancestors lived and worked. If properly managed and interpreted, this heritage
can bring history alive to our children and future generations. The development
of tourism around underwater archaeological sites and related on-site museums
can provide long-lasting economic benefit to local communities and national
governments.
However, this valuable heritage is
under increasing threat from modern technology which has made the bottom of the
sea more accessible to treasure hunters and exploiters of sea-bed resources.
These threats compelled UNESCO, from 1993 onward, to take legal and practical
action to assure better protection of underwater cultural heritage. After a
long and intense negotiation with Member States, the Convention on the
Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage was adopted by UNESCO’s General
Conference in 2001.
To assist in the protection of this
heritage and with the financial support of the Government of Norway, UNESCO is
implementing a project to build regional capacity to protect and manage
maritime archaeology through the establishment of an Asia-Pacific Regional
‘Centre of Excellence’ in underwater cultural heritage in Thailand. The project shall provide
professional training, promote conservation standards, monitor the state of
conservation of underwater archaeology and encourage regional cooperation to
conserve the heritage.
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SESSION C20
C20 Junker, Laura Lee
Debra Green
Department
of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago)
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF
WARFARE AND CONFLICT IN MAINLAND AND ISLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA
Historians
of Southeast Asia have produced a number of significant works on the politics,
social aspects, ideological underpinnings, economic ramifications,
technological developments, and demographic consequences of warfare and
maritime raiding in the pre-colonial kingdoms and chiefdoms of Southeast Asia. However, archaeologists have lagged
behind in examining warfare in the region from a material perspective that can
add evolutionary depth, provide details of social and cultural context and
human agency that are often missing in the political propaganda of historical
accounts, and tie conflict to landscape use, trade, population movements, and
other behaviors materialized in the archaeological record. The paper provides a
general overview of the ways in which archaeologists recognize and
contextualize evidence of warfare, using methods ranging from regional
settlement analysis, to studies of fortification construction techniques,
forensic analysis of skeletons, innovation in weaponry, and material emblems as
a means of warrior group integration. We also emphasize that social conflict
arises and develops out of differing political, social, and ecological
conditions in different regions of Southeast Asia, and that differing
strategies of warfare in mainland and island Southeast
Asia produce varying archaeological signatures.
C20 Keeley, Lawrence
Department
of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago
FORTIFICATIONS AND WARFARE TACTICS: A
CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE AND APPROACHES
Comparative, cross-cultural studies of pre-modern
fortifications suggest that analysis of the scale and complexity of
fortifications and their construction techniques can tell us a great deal about
warfare tactics, mobilization and organization of labor, and ultimately the
nature of political landscapes in ancient societies. In the recent excavations
at Co-Loa by a joint Vietnam Institute of Archaeology-UIC archaeological team,
reconstruction of the building sequence and the forms of the fortifications are
revealing in terms of not only military strategies and the nature of the
“enemy” force and technology, but also how leaders used monumental works as
statements about political authority.
C20 Kim, Nam C.
University of Illinois
at Chicago
FORTIFICATIONS AND SOCIAL
COMPLEXITY AT THE CO LOA SITE
A recent collaborative investigation was undertaken by
American and Vietnamese archaeologists at the site of Co Loa, Vietnam’s ancient capital. The
project sought to examine the conditions associated with the emergence of a
state-level polity centered at Co Loa sometime during the second half of the
first millennium BC. Specifically, excavations were focused on understanding
and dating the site’s monumental system of earthen ramparts, which would have
required significant political centralization, labor, and materials for
construction. Given ongoing debates regarding the cultural identity of the
site’s builders, project results will have broad implications for Vietnamese
history, as well as for anthropological theories on social evolution and state
formation.
C20 Lai Van Toi
Vietnam
Institute of Archaeology
CO LOA TILES COLLECTION EARLIER IN CO
LOA
The Co Loa site has long been at the center of much debate
among researchers who have speculated about when the capital site was first
founded and constructed, and by whom. This paper presents new evidence that
addresses these ongoing debates. Ground surveys and recent excavations at Co
Loa have uncovered significant amounts of stylized ceramic roof tiles and
bricks. These artifacts have been found stratified within Co Loa’s rampart
walls and in the earliest cultural layers of its central area. Recently
available radiocarbon analysis thus helps to establish and refine the
chronology for production, thereby providing clues as to when the citadel was
first founded and by whom.
C20 Pham Minh Huyen
Vietnam
Institute of Archaeology
MATTERS CONCERNING CO LOA AND KING AN
DUONG VUONG
According Vietnamese legend, Co Loa was the capital of the
Au Lac polity built by King An Duong. Nowadays, the remains of the citadel’s
three earthen ramparts still stand at Co Loa. Although there have been many
archaeological excavations conducted in this area, there are still conflicting
opinions regarding the actual builders of this citadel as well as the role and
characteristics of Co Loa. During the excavation of Den Thuong (Thuong Temple)
in 2004 and 2005, we discovered that the Den Thuong site was close to the foot
of the south-west corner of the central rampart wall, and at the Den Thuong
site had many bronze casting work stations, mainly for bronze arrows.
Roof-tiles, bricks, ceramics and bronze artifacts found in this area have many
different characteristics in comparison to the same found in the place of
Nanyue kings in Guangzhou, China. It is more possible that Den
Thuong site occurred in the period of Qin-early Western Han. Two C14 dates of
Den Thuong site supported this opinion. Based on the early dates, it is
possible to conclude that Co Loa was a big political and cultural center of an
early state, the Au Lac of King An Duong.
C20 Nishimura, Masanari
Kansai University,
Osaka
Pham Minh Huyen
Vietnam Institute of Archaeology
NEW RECOGNITIONS ON THE
CO LOA PERIOD AT THE BAI MEN SITE OF THE CO LOA CITADEL
The Bai Men site is located at the elevated mound across the
Hoang Giang River
in front of the eastern wall of the Co Loa site’s inner rampart. In 2002 and
2003 we carried out an initial excavation in total more than 500m2. The
excavation revealed the prehistoric habitation and burial layer of the Late
Neolithic and Bronze Age and confirmed that during the Co Loa citadel period,
the upper part of the mound was leveled for construction work. From the two
excavation pits, many archaeological features were revealed such as child
burials, foundations for pillars and residences, and hearths and furnaces for
metals. In addition, a large man-made feature, which is probably oval or
circular-shaped and at least 12m in diameter, was unearthed from the eastern
edge of the mound. This earthwork was once dugout like a Chinese pan and
intentionally buried rapidly immediately. The deposit layers inside the feature
were composed of the several different pounded earth. While it is still
questionable about the function of this feature, it would be key to understanding
the function of the Bai Men mound in the context of the Co Loa citadel. Based
on the excavated artifacts we consider the date of the archaeological features
of the citadel period could be early second or late third century BC.
C20 Kieu, Chan Q.
HEADHUNTING IN THE DONG SON CULTURE
Headhunting has been widely reported throughout South East Asia especially during colonial times. However
none of the writings refer to Vietnam.
The author reviews headhunting as practiced in many populations and its
meaning. On Dong Son artifacts – drums, situlae, and weapons - unearthed during
the last 15 years, there is clear evidence of warriors in various stages of
headhunting. Besides the archeological findings, the Katu ethnic minority of Central Vietnam who engaged in headhunting as a powerful
ritual until the 1960’s, provides further anthropological support. Yet there is
no relevant mention in the Vietnam
mythology nor popular literature, except for recent brief references to the
custom. The article seeks to explain the silence shrouding the headhunting
custom among the Dong Sonian tribes.
C20 Nguyen Viet
Center for Southeast Asian Prehistory, Vietnam
Yang Yong
Institute of Archaeology,
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
THE SOUTHWARD MOVEMENTS
OF THE XI OU (TAY AU) AND OU LOU (LAC VIET) IN
THE 3RD AND 2ND CENTURIES BC
In 1976-78 and 2000, the excavations at KeLe (Guizhou, China)
discovered more than 200 aboriginal burials of the KeLe Culture, dated to
the Warring States and Qin-Han periods. The term “Kele
Culture” was first used by Yang Yong. In Vietnam, recent research using metal
detectors in the Lang Vac area has produced many Dong Son bronze objects,
including about 50 swords of KeLe type (Ba-Shu type: bronze handle in the
shape of a boat, and an iron blade). This study compares the Lang Vac swords
with those from KeLe and looks for parallels in the associated burial findings
between KeLe and Dong Son Vietnam.
It is postulated that there was a migration of Xi Ou-Ye Lang military chiefs
with Dong Son material culture from Guangxi and Guizhou
into the Red river delta in the 3rd
century BC, joining the Lou Yue chiefdom there to form the Au Lac (Ou Lou)
kingdom with its capital at Co Loa. Under pressure from Nam Yue,
these military chiefs then moved southwards by the mountainous route
passing Ninh Binh (Dong Noi cave) to reach Thanh Hoa and the Hieu river area
(Lang Vac), where according to the Chinese historical document Hou Han shu
(Eastern Han Dynasty) there existed the Ye Lang tribe in the 1st – 2nd
centuries AD. Continuing southward migration took them to the Sa Huynh culture
area and into central Vietnam, especially the Tay Nguyen Plateau, Kontum
province, western Binh Dinh and Binh Duong Provinces, and onwards into eastern
Cambodia, where Dong Son drums occur dated from the 2nd century BC - 2nd
century AD.
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SESSION C21
C21 KIM, Byung Mo
Professor Emeritus, Hanyang
University,
DOLMEN AND RICE CULTIVATION IN KOREA
There are more than 30,000 dolmens in the Korean peninsula and more than
90% of them are found in the area of the Youngsan River
which is the southwestern part of the peninsula. This area is warmest in the
country that is most suitable for rice cultivation. According to the C-14
dates, dolmen appeared in Korea
in around 6-4th century BC. So it is assumed that the technique of rice
cultivation in the paddy which originated from somewhere in tropical or
subtropical zones in Asia appeared in Korea with the tradition of dolmen.
C21 Ha, Moonsig
Sejong University Department of
History, Republic
of Korea
THE DOLMEN CULT OF THE NORTHEAST PROVINCE
IN CHINA
This study aims to investigate some worshipped dolmens in Liaoning Province among the dolmens distributed
mainly in the Northeast of Asia. Many people have been interested in dolmens in
Liaoning Province since their discovery. The
ritual of worshipping dolmens has been held according to the traditional
belief. The results of this study are as follows: First, the dolmens related to
the ritual of worshipping among dolmens in Liaoning Province
are in places which everyone can see easily. Second, cap-stones supported on
stone props are a physical feature of the dolmens. Third, a distinguishing
characteristic is that the cap-stones overhang the stone props: the northern
eaves of Shipengshan dolmen is 325cm in length and appears very grand. Fourth, the
Taizei dolmen and Shipengshan dolmen with shrines and in temples have become
the object of worship in the memory of the ancient people. Fifth, the worshipped
dolmen looks like a table; the memorial tablets, products made of clay and
incense burners lie in the chamber tomb. Sixth, In front of the Xianrentang
dolmen is the stone board used for killing pigs needed for the ritual, which
may be reminiscent of the practice of sacrifice for the departed.
C21 Handini, Retno
Center for
Prehistoric and Austronesian Studies, Jakarta
THE MEGALITHIC TRADITION IN EAST NUSA TENGGARA: CONCEPTUAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
GEOGRAPHICAL ASPECT AND MIGRATION ROUTES
In the distribution of megalithic remains in Indonesia,
East Nusa Tenggara is recognized as one of the outstanding places. A number of
areas in the province, such as Flores, Sumba, and Timor (West
Timor) are loaded with megalithic remains, some of which are
beyond the theoretical boundary of prehistoric period and the tradition still
survives until now. Based on geographical map and the migration routes of the
people who bore the megalithic tradition, this area is like a cul de sac, or a dead end, because it is
located at the south-east trip of the Indonesian archipelago. This is an
interesting factor of the megalithic remains in East Nusa Tenggara, which is
also characterized by the magnificence of living megalithic tradition that can
be easily found in some of its main islands.
This paper will discuss megalithic
remains in East Nusa Tenggara, both dead megalithic culture and living
megalithic tradition, and will try to find the relationship between the
geographical aspect and the mechanism of migration of the bearers of megalithic
culture. This is based on the dominance of megalithic tradition, which is still
deeply rooted in one of the cul de sacs in the Archipelago. In this context,
the megalithic culture of this area will be compared to similar traditions that
are still practiced in other parts of Indonesia, for instance at Nias (North
Sumatra) and Tana Toraja (West Sulawesi), to find out the position of the
megalithic of East Nusa Tenggara within the scope of the megalithic tradition
in general in Indonesia.
C21 Hiragori, Tatsuya
Pusan National
University Museum, Republic
of Korea
THE FEATURES OF DOLMENS IN JAPAN
OF NORTHEAST ASIA
The paper aims to examine the features of the dolmens in Japan located in the southernmost part of
distribution of dolmens in northeast Asia.
Dolmens in Japan
were diffused from the Korean peninsula to the northern Kyusyu region in early
Yayoi Period when the agrarian society was formed in the Japanese Archipelago
with the spread of rice farming culture. In other words, it is a new cultural
factor which simultaneously appeared with the emergence of Yayoi culture. For
this reason, there is a deep community relation in the dolmens between the Korean
peninsula and the northern Kyusyu region. The culture of an agrarian society as
well as the structure of the grave were diffused at the same time. It is
evident in the burial customs of burnished red pottery and tubular green jade
beads.
There are three different factors
which constitute dolmens in Japan.
1. Factors which
have the beginnings in the Korean Peninsula - burial customs of ground stone
arrowhead, tubular green jade bead and pottery; 2. Factors which were not diffused to Japan
like the stone dagger; 3. Factors which are not found in the dolmens in the Korean Peninsula
- Jar-coffin type. These had the regional character from the emergence in
northern Kyusyu region. It is obvious that it was not diffused unilaterally
from a specific region in the Korean
Peninsula, but diffused
plurally in temporal and spatial reference. Several spots in the south coastal
region of the Korean Peninsula could be presumed because there are
compositive factors of the Korean Peninsula as the origin of dolmens in Japan.
It is a feature that considerable acculturation was shown from the time when it
emerged in Japan
first in the form of dolmens as main part of burial custom. It is a fine case
which shows an acculturation form of the dolmen culture which crossed the waters.
Legend and tradition related to dolmens put down roots and they became a
subject of worship as well.
C21 Lam Thi My Dzung
Vietnam National
University
STUDIES ON MEGALITHS IN VIETNAM
Having been found all over
the world, megalithic sites have great significance that express the human
desire – for authority, power, properties or strength. In Việt Nam,
megalith sites were found at Hàng Gòn (Đồng Nai), Đông Phổ
(Quảng Ngãi), Chư Pa (Gia Lai), Hưng Yên (Nghệ An),
Vũ Xá (Bắc Giang), Lam Kha mountain (Bắc Ninh), Bản Thảnh
(Cao Bằng), Nấm Dần (Xín Mần, Hà Giang), and recently Mẫu
Sơn mountain and Chóp Chài (Lạng Sơn), Tả Van Giáy (Lào
Cai), Sóc Sơn (Hà Nội). which
have not been excavated except Hàng Gòn, Mẫu Sơn and Tả Van
Giáy. Of those mentioned sites, Hàng Gòn is the only one site that has
sufficient data to date; the dates for others are yet to be determined. Similar
to some Asian countries, the megalithic sites in Việt Nam do not exist separately but in
assemblages with various functions and diversified forms such as dolmens,
menhirs, flat stones with carved marks. However, the most popular type is the dolmen.
C21 Lee
Hoen Jai
Gyeonggi Provincial Museum,
Republic of Korea
DOLMENS OF CHITTOOR DISTRICT - ANDHRA PRADESH, SOUTH INDIA
We have been conducting fieldwork to study
the megalithic monuments and the ethnographic myths on the dolmens from the
villages of Tavanampalli, Eguvakanathalacheruvu, Mallayipalli and Midimalla in
the Chittoor District of Andra Pradesh state in South
India. Each of these sites except Mallayipalli has numerous
megalithic dolmens showing varied characteristics. Local mythology relates
these monuments to the Pandavas and the Pygmies. We can classify the Dolmens as
Type-I: Dolmens with porthole; Type-II: Dolmens with porthole and slab circle;
Type-III: Dolmens with slab circle and anthropomorphic statues; Type-IV: Boulder dolmens with
supporting stones on three sides; Type-V: Dolmenoid cists. Some of these
dolmens compare well with the ones from West Asian regions and a few types even
compare well with the Southeast Asian types. Another interesting feature
noticed with some of the dolmens is the association of anthropomorphic statues.
Such statues were noticed at Midimall and Eguvakanathalacheruvu. The paper
discusses the features of these monuments and their comparison with other
regions.
C21 Lee, Young-Moon
Mokpo National
University Department of History and Culture (Archaeology), Republic of Korea
NAME, LEGEND AND BELIEF OF DOLMENS IN KOREA
There are over 30,000 dolmens in Korea, one of the most-densely
distributed in the world. They are mainly near ocean regions. Dolmens in Korea
can be classified into Table type, Go-table type and Capstone type. One of the
most specific character of Korea
dolmen has one chamber and one Capstone, densely distributed group of the
dolmens and huge scale dolmens.
There are many remains on the name of
regions and legend, with oral tradition of native people worshipping on dolmens
until now as follows: 1. Name of Dolmens: “Baumace”, “Rock ground”, “Quandol”,
“General rock”, “Turtle rock (Kingrock)”, “Seven star rock” dolmen. 2. Village
name from dolmen: “Jisokri”, “Quandol village”, “Ship type village”, “Turtle
rock village”, “Seven star rock village”. 3. Civilian belief in relation to
dolmen: “Seven star belief”, “Turtle belief”, “and Dangsansin ”,“ Cup-marks
belief”. 4. Legend in relation to dolmen construction: General with strong
power story, Mago grandmother legend.
There were a lot of names and legends
about Korean dolmens. It is very significant material and a comparative study
of name and legend of the dolmen in East Asian region can look into mutual
relations through megalithic culture. Also, we need to study their connection
with Ocean culture and astronomy, with dense distribution near the ocean and a
lot of names related to ships. We need to co-study and exchange material on the
megalithic culture.
C21 Pham Quang Son
Vietnam
NEW EXCAVATIONS AT HANG
GON MEGALITH
Hang Gon Megalith is located in Long
Khanh Town,
Dong Nai province (Southern Vietnam). The
monument was uncovered and excavated in 1927 by French scholars. During two
years 2006–2007, the surrounding surface of this monument with a total area of 5ha
was surveyed. Over 1000m² were excavated. The results of these excavations have
contributed considerably to the understanding and interpretation of important
technical and cultural issues of this monument such as evolution of the strata,
process of construction and related religious aspects and burial rites.
Problems of dating and the historical context of Hang Gon megaliths also have
been resolved to some extent because of the recent work.
C21 Prasetyo, Bagyo
The National
Research Centre of Archaeology, Jakarta
SOME PROBLEMS OF INDONESIAN MEGALITHS
As an archipelago, Indonesia is an important area for
megalithic research. Almost all of the region has megalithic remains, as shown
by the number of sites and various kinds of megaliths exemplified there. The
remains consist of sarcophagus, dolmen, stone cist, stone chamber, statue,
menhir, stone vat, stone terrace, stone alignment. Some scholars have carried
out research in various sites from the points of view of technology, belief,
settlement, and environment. However, a numberof problems are still unsolved, e.g.
when the megalithic culture came to Indonesia and who were its bearers.
The diffusionists assumed that megalithic culture was brought to Indonesia in
the Late Neolithic Age together with Quadrangular Adze Culture by the
Austronesian speaking people (2500-1500 BC), and then continued in the Early
Bronze-Iron Age together with the Dongson Culture (4-3 BC). But until now, no
absolute date supports those arguments. Instead recent research yielded some
C14 dating of megalithic activities in Christian Era, together with the
Hindu-Buddhist Culture, which arrived from Asia
mainland. Several megalithic populations formed enclaves in the region of the
Hindu-Buddhist Empires, such as Sriwijaya, Mataram, and Majapahit. The
question, then, is whether or not those populations were parts of the Empires.
C21 Rao, K.P.
Department of History, University
of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India
SUN AND STARS IN THE
MEGALITHIC TRADITION OF INDIA
India is one of the regions with a prolific
megalithic presence. The megalithic monuments and some of the engravings
affiliated to this culture show definite indications of their relationship with
celestial objects like the Sun and the stars. The alignments, the burial pit,
the port-hole, the laying of the skeletons, etc. show some orientational
preferences, which are dictated by the direction of the Sun. At some of the
megalithic sites it has been observed that the alignments are arranged in such
a fashion that particular rows of menhirs come in line with the rising or
setting Sun on the days of solstice. Since, the solstice is an indicator of the
impending change in the season, it appears that the megalithic people used
these alignments to track the ‘progression’ of the Sun to know the seasonal
changes. This must have played important role in their economy, as agriculture
was largely dependent on seasonal climatic changes. Further, the temporal knowledge
obtained through study of the ‘progression’ of the Sun also must have dictated
their fairs and festivals. Their advanced knowledge in astronomy is also
suggested by one of the depiction showing ‘Ursa Major’ constellation on a stone
planted among a group of stone circles. It is interesting that the two stars,
stars, Merak and Dubhe, which in the star constellation always point towards
the north are very faithfully depicted in the same manner. Thus it appears that
the megalithic complex at Mudumal is an astronomical observatory to study and
track the celestial objects. On the whole the evidence gathered from several
megalithic sites indicate a strong link between megalithic monuments and
celestial objects.
C21 Song, Hwa Seob
Jeonju University,
Republic of Korea
GEOMETRICAL PATTERN
AND MEGALITHIC CULTURE OF BRONZE AGE IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA
The remains of Bronze Age in the Korean Peninsula
have various geometrical patterns. The remains are divided into two types;
Bipahyung bronze sword and Saehyung bronze sword. It is known that the culture
of Bipahyung bronze sword was developed around Liaoning
first and it was developed as the culture of Saehyung bronze sword later mainly
in the Korean Peninsula. The culture of Saehyung
bronze sword developed around 4th to 3rd centuries BC and is called Korean
style culture of bronze sword. The representative bronze wares of Korea
are bronze sword, bronze mirror, bronze bell, bronze spear, bronze arrow,
bronze ax and odd implements. The odd implements are Gumpa type bronze wares,
shield type bronze wares, shoulder type bronze wares and bronze bells. The
bronze bells are Paljuryung, Ganduryung and Ssangduryung. They had very
delicate patterns.
The representative patterns are sun
pattern, cross pattern, saw pattern, circle pattern, symmetrical swirl pattern
and bracken pattern. Dong Son culture, a Vietnamese culture of bronze ware has
the same patterns and the culture appears in Malaysia,
Indonesia and South China. A representative remains of Dong Son culture
is Dongson Drum. Dongmo, Donggua, Dong sword, Dongbu in Dong Son culture are
silmilar to out bronze wares. It has bronze wares such as Bipahyung bronze
sword. Sun pattern, cross pattern, saw pattern, circle pattern, symmetrical
swirl pattern and bracken pattern in Vietnamese bronze wares are basically the same
as the patterns in Korean bronze wares. The Giha patterns appear on dolmen,
menhir, columns of traditional architectures, and clothes of minority races.
According to the remains of Bronze Age and Giha rock carvings, it is assumed
that Dong Son culture and Dolmen culture of South East Asia came to the Korean Peninsula
in Bronze Age.