The Contribution of South Asia to the Peopling of Australasia
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Study into Malay Peninsula Aborigines' Dental Differentiation
Other Project Documents
Seriation in hierarchical clustering
Latest publications
P. Soares, J.A. Trejaut, J.-H. Loo, C. Hill, M. Mormina, C.-L. Lee, Y.-M. Chen, G. Hudjashov, P. Forster, V. Macaulay, D. Bulbeck, S. Oppenheimer, M. Lin, and M. Richards. 2008. Climate change and postglacial dispersals in Southeast Asia. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25 (6):1209-1218.
D. Bulbeck. 2007. Where river meets sea: A parsimonious model for Homo sapiens colonzatin of the Indian Ocean rim and Sahul. Current Anthropology 48 (2):315-321.
C. Hill, P. Soares, M. Mormina, V. Macaulay, D. Clarke, P.B. Blumbach, M. Vizuete-Forster, P. Forster, D. Bulbeck, S. Oppenheimer, and M. Richards. 2007. A mitochondrial stratigraphy for Island Southeast Asia. The American Journal of Human Genetics 80:29-43.
C. Hill, P. Soares, M. Mormina, V. Macaulay, W. Meehan, J. Blackburn, D. Clarke, J.M. Raja, P. Ismail, D. Bulbeck, S. Oppenheimer, and M. Richards. 2006. Phylogeography and ethnogenesis of Aboriginal Southeast Asians. Molecular Biology and Evolution 23 (12):2480-2491.
V. Macaulay, C. Hill, A. Achilli, C. Rengo, D. Clarke, W. Meehan, J. Blackburn, O. Semino, R. Scozzari, F. Cruciano, A. Taha, N.K. Shaari, J.M. Raja, P. Ismail, Z. Zainuddin, W. Goodwin, D. Bulbeck, H.-J. Bandelt, S. Oppenheimer, A. Torroni and M. Richards. 2005. Single rapid coastal settlement of Asia revealed by analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes. Science 308:1034-36.
D. Bulbeck. 2005. The Late Glacial Maximum human burial from Liang Lemdubu in northern Sahulland. In S. O’Connor, M. Spriggs and P. Veth (eds.), The Archaeology of the Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia, pp. 255-94. Terra Australis 22. Canberra: Pandanus Press.
D. Bulbeck. 2005. The Gua Cha burials. In Zuraina Majid (ed.), The Perak Man and Other Prehistoric Skeletons of Malaysia, pp. 253-309. Penang: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Related sites
South Sulawesi Prehistorical and Historical Archaeology Project"The Contribution of South Asia to the Peopling of Australasia" project commenced in 2002 with funding from the Australian Research Council for five years' duration. The project was based at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University, before project funding ran its course in May 2007. Dr David Bulbeck (formerly first-named Chief Investigator and Australian Research Fellow with the project) and Dr Pathmanathan Raghavan continue their association with the project as, respectively, Visiting Fellow and Visiting Researcher, located at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology. Dr Nimal Perera, and Messrs Daniel Rayner and Michael Westaway, have also conducted PhD research at the School on projects essential to the project aims. Nimal Perera received his ANU doctorate in 2008 for his thesis titled "A Review of the Prehistory of Sri Lanka". The thesis by Michael Westaway is currently at an advanced stage of preparation.
A brief description of the goals of the project is given by our 100-word summary to the Australian Research Council.
This project focuses on the human fossil record from three regions critical to understanding the origins of our species, Homo sapiens. Australia is crucial in view of its diverse array of "gracile" and "robust" human remains of Late Pleistocene/early Holocene age. Equally important are South and Southeast Asia as they lined the tropical route between Africa, our species' Late Pleistocene homeland according to the Out of Africa theory, and Australia. Osteological and archaeological evidence of the selection pressures that operated on earlier hunter-gatherers will be employed to explain the observed patterns of morphological evolution throughout the study region.
For a fuller account of the project's goals see David Bulbeck, Daniel Rayner, Colin Groves and Pathmanathan Raghavan. 2003. "The contribution of South Asia to the Peopling of Australasia" and the relevance of Basel’s Naturhistorisch Museum anthropological collection to the project aims. Bulletin der Schweizerische Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie 9:49-70. *
*Please note that the reference to c. 70,000 year old Homo sapiens teeth in Table 3 derives from earlier information, before the startling claim of a new Late Pleistocene species, Homo floresiensis, at Liang Bua in Flores.
For further information on the project or this website, contact David.Bulbeck@anu.edu.au