Editors’ corner, 189

We are instituting a new system for contacting the journal editors to improve our communication with authors. General inquiries about the journal, initial requests for information about article submissions, and electronic submissions should be sent to ljunker@uic.edu and addressed to Laura Junker. Once articles are submitted, the assigned journal editor will notify you with their specific contact information for author queries. Mailed submissions should continue to be sent to: Asian Perspectives Editor Laura Junker, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago, M/C 027, 2102 BSB, 1007 W. Harrison St., Chicago, Illinois 60607-7139 U.S.A. Authors with large graphics files should send their submissions by mail or in several e-mails (5 MB maximum per e-mail) to avoid problems of file retrieval and electronic bounce-backs. We would like to emphasize that we encourage submissions from a broad range of theoretical perspectives. We also want to especially invite indigenous Asian archaeologists to submit manuscripts and, while we encourage all authors to use whatever resources available to produce clearly written English language papers, we are also happy to work with authors on English language issues to improve the peer review process. Please let us know if you would like to be added to our list of peer reviewers.

ARTICLES

Health and the Experience of Childhood in Late Neolithic Vietnam
Marc Oxenham, Hirofumi Matsumura, Kate Domett, Nguyen Kim Thuy, Nguyen Kim Dung, Nguyen Lan Cuong, Damien Huffer, and Sarah Muller, 190

The article aims to examine aspects of mortuary behavior in late Neolithic/early Bronze Age (Phung Nguyen phase) populations represented at the site of Man Bac in Viet Nam, specifically how mortuary behavior illuminates the role of children, and adult attitudes toward children. In addition, the authors discuss biological characteristics of the human sample, focusing particularly on the child burials, in order to explore aspects of childhood palaeohealth. The methodology includes combining various measures of health—including palaeodemography (childhood mortality), analysis of oral health (Early Childhood Caries or ECC), and analysis of physiological health (Cribra Orbitalia and LEH)—with studies of culturally defined mortuary practices to suggest that, while children clearly had significant health deficiencies and many suffered early deaths, their treatment in mortuary rites shows significant economic value and social esteem placed on children.
Keywords: Viet Nam, Neolithic, childhood, health, mortuary behavior, palaeodemography, bioarchaeology.

Settlement Patterns at Saqacengalj, a Slate House Settlement in Southern Taiwan
Maa-ling Chen, 210

The present work combines archaeology, historical analysis, and ethnography to examine historical continuities in village social organization and settlement patterns in southern Taiwan in the mid- to late second millennium A.D. The focus of the work is Kau-shi village, located in Mu-dan County, Pin-dong District, at the southern tip of Taiwan. Its residents belong to the Southern Pai-wan Group, one of Taiwan’s indigenous populations. Kau-shi people moved and established new settlements six times before they settled on the current village. Their oldest abandoned settlement, Saqacengalj, is located about 7 to 8 km from the current village, an archaeological site covering about 1.4 acres with more than 83 stone structures dated to 500–600 years b.p. (before present), known previously through mystical folktale and oral tradition, and only recently through archaeology. Archaeological mapping of site layout and structural features found that the Saqacengalj settlement shares certain characteristics with later Pai-wan settlements extending into the twentieth century. However, there are certain features distinctly Saqacengalj from these settlements. In addition, a significant percentage of the 83 structures at Saqacengalj have a unique arrangement of small structures within the larger structure not found in later villages. These initial archaeological analyses suggest significant historical changes in the cultural and social meaning of village settlement patterns of the Southern Pai-wan Group over this half-millennium.
Keywords: Pai-wan Group, Taiwan, oral history, historical archaeology, slate houses, settlement pattern, social organization, status symbolization.

Mortuary Treatment, Pathology, and Social Relations of the Jiahu Community
Barbara Li Smith and Yun Kuen Lee, 242

Funeral ritual is a projective symbolic system where the treatment received by a deceased individual does not necessarily reflect the social position of that individual when living. Study of past social relations based on mortuary treatment alone is potentially ambiguous. Because many diseases leave indelible marks on the skeleton, human bones provide independent information reflecting the health and behavior of the deceased. Integrating the studies of mortuary treatment and osteological pathology can achieve a fuller understanding of past societies. Equipped with this hybrid methodology, we tried to unravel the social relations of an early Neolithic community at Jiahu in central China. The considerable difference in the quantity and quality of grave offerings indicates the presence of competitive display in funeral practice. However, the individuals buried in richly furnished graves had higher rates of iron-deficiency anemia than those buried in poorly furnished graves, indicating that higher status at death was not inherited but achieved. Osteoarthritis rates in the females were lower than that of the males, suggesting that they were less engaged in mechanically stressful activities. This sexual division of labor is reflected in a differential mortuary treatment in that fewer females were buried in the communal graveyards and their graves were furnished with less material wealth. Yet, the females had lower iron-deficiency anemia rates, suggesting that playing a physically less strenuous role did not hinder their access to critical resources such as meat in the diet.
Keywords: China, mortuary practice, pathology, social reconstruction, projective ritual.

The Neolithic of Southern China—Origin, Development, and Dispersal
Chi Zhang and Hsiao-chun Hung, 299

According to direct evidence from archaeology and supporting evidence from comparative linguistics, the Neolithic cultures of the Yangtze alluvial plain played a significant role in the origins of rice cultivation and agricultural populations in East and Southeast Asia. The ultimate results of these developments, according to many authorities, were the dispersals of Austroasiatic and Austronesian-speaking peoples into Mainland and Island Southeast Asia. New archaeological discoveries suggest that some of the earliest pottery in the world also occurred in southern China. Therefore, the historical significance of this region cannot be overlooked. This paper provides a brief review of cultural developments and settlement histories in southern China from the early Neolithic (c. 11,000–8000 B.C.) to the terminal Neolithic (2000 B.C.). Geographically, we examine the middle and lower Yangtze alluvial plain, the Lingnan (southern Nanling Mountains) and Fujian region, and the Yungui Plateau of southern China. Against the backdrop of the waxing and waning of Neolithic cultures in the Yangtze Valley we plot the spread of material culture, rice farming and animal domestication out of the Yangtze region to the Lingnan-Fujian region and the Yungui Plateau, and later into Taiwan and Southeast Asia. This study suggests that the origins of rice agriculture and the process of farming dispersal were more complicated than previously assumed.
Keywords: Neolithic, southern China, Yangtze alluvial plain, farming, migration, dispersal.

Pre-Contact Arboriculture and Vegetation in the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia: Charcoal Identification and Radiocarbon Dates from Hatiheu Valley, Nuku Hiva
Sidsel Millerstrom and James H. Coil, 330

In order to address long-standing questions in the field of Pacific Island archaeology regarding the extent, timing, and causes of human-induced environmental change, as well as the deep history of the development of distinct regional agricultural and arboricultural adaptations, this study presents and discusses taxonomic identification data for 15 wood charcoal samples recovered from archaeological excavations in the Hatiheu Valley, Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands. This is some of the first archaeobotanical data collected and analyzed from this archipelago, and the only direct evidence of past distributions of economic and indigenous tree and shrub taxa in specific temporal and spatial contexts. The 14 native and Polynesian-introduced tree and shrub taxa identified are analyzed in view of their archaeobotanical and more modern distributions, as well as in consideration of radiocarbon dates obtained from five of the charcoal samples. Finally, these results are evaluated in regard to the degree to which they can provide useful cultural and environmental information relating to existing models of prehistoric Marquesan and broader Pacific Island settlement, economy, and environmental change over time.
Keywords: archaeology, archaeobotany, anthracology, charcoal, Marquesas Islands.

Flexibility and Creativity in Microblade Core Manufacture in Southern Primorye, Far East Russia
Trudy Doelman, 352

The purely typological approach to microblade technology often obscures the range of variability seen in the creative and flexible ways microblade cores were prepared and the reasons behind this variability. There is a real need to understand the situational context of microblade production and move the focus of investigation on to the microblades themselves, as these are the key components of an effective risk-reduction strategy. Combining a typological and technological approach to study standardization in core preparation and the resulting microblades made from volcanic glass within a known geological context has shown that key characteristics of both are vital to the successful implementation of this technological approach.
Keywords: microblade technology, typology, risk, volcanic glass, Far East Russia.

Infant Death in Late Prehistoric Southeast Asia
Siân E. Halcrow, Nancy Tayles, and Vicki Livingstone, 371

Important information on demography, epidemiology, inter-population differences in growth, infant burial practices, and social aspects of the community can be gleaned from the study of perinatal bones. The increasing number of perinates unearthed from prehistoric sites in Southeast Asia provides a rare opportunity to investigate these issues. The high number of full-term infants represented at the site of Khok Phanom Di in Central Thailand (4000–3500 B.P.) remains an enigma. This is an important issue for bioarchaeologists as infant mortality patterns are sensitive barometers of the health and fertility of a population. This study investigated the perinatal age distributions of several chronologically spread sites in prehistoric Southeast Asia with differing subsistence modes and evidence of social complexity. Results show that the age distribution in the collection from Khok Phanom Di is different from the other skeletal samples, with a comparatively higher number of full-term perinates represented. Explanations including infanticide, issues of health and disease, and infant burial practices are considered. It seems likely that the age distribution results from different burial rites of pre-term infants as a consequence of social and cultural differences between Khok Phanom Di and the other sites. This study emphasizes the important contribution bioarchaeological research and the comparative study of infant burial rites can make in understanding aspects of social change in prehistoric communities.
Keywords: bioarchaeology, infant burial practices, perinatal age at death distributions, prehistoric mainland Southeast Asia, social organization.

The Use of Flaked Stone Artifacts in Palau, Western Micronesia
Michael Haslam and Jolie Liston, 405

This paper summarizes current research into flaked stone assemblages from the Republic of Palau, Micronesia. We review archaeological analyses of Palau’s flaked stone artifacts, examine ethnohistorical sources for descriptions and potential uses of lithic tools, and present the results of a recent microscopic use-wear and residue study of twenty flaked stone artifacts. We find that while a lithic technology based on bipolar reduction had emerged by at least the beginning of the first millennium B.C., the archaeological and ethnohistorical records demonstrate the relative obscurity of stone tool use in the final stages of prehistory. The artifacts analyzed for residues are associated with radiocarbon dates ranging from ca. 1120 B.C.–A.D. 1640, with the majority recovered from inland earthwork and village complexes radiocarbon dated to approximately two thousand years ago. Residue evidence for wood and bone/skin working is discussed in terms of past social activities and changes in settlement patterns, and in light of the perceived dominance of shell as a tool material on Palau. The potential for soil fungi to influence the interpretation of artifact residues is also considered. The study emphasizes the unique position of residue analyses in contributing to studies of artifact function in the Pacific, and suggests future directions for flaked-stone research on Palau.
Keywords: Palau, Micronesia, stone, residue analysis, microscopy.

SPECIAL ISSUE: MARITIME MIGRATION AND COLONIZATION IN INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY
Edited by Sue O’Connor and Atholl Anderson

Editors’ Corner, 1

ARTICLES

Indo-Pacific Migration and Colonization—Introduction
Atholl Anderson and Sue O’Connor, 2

In this Introduction we comment on issues raised by the present collection of papers as they appear relevant in thinking about the settlement of the Indo-Pacific from the Pleistocene to the late Holocene. Successful maritime migration across this vast region was obviously related to voyaging technology and colonizing behaviors. Here we critique earlier models that indicate simple unidirectional expansion and posit farming, or indeed any other single driver, for maritime expansion in the mid–late Holocene. It now appears that the development of interaction spheres in Wallacea, and perhaps connections with New Guinea, have contributed significantly to late Holocene societies in ISEA and Island Melanesia. Even in Remote Oceania where long-term colonizing success was dependent on a transported tropical horticultural complex, initial settlement strategies are likely to have been highly varied and to have had variable success. Nor is migration restricted to the founding events of island settlement; rather, it continued as a significant component of the formation and re-formation of island cultures up to the historical era and, of course, within the present day. Like the authors represented here we suggest that if we wish to make progress in understanding the motives, sources, mechanisms and results of colonizing migration, there will be greatest reward in exploring the complexity and variability that lie behind it.
Keywords: Maritime migration, Indo-Pacific, Island Southeast Asia, seafaring technology, voyaging strategies, Austronesian colonization, transported landscapes.

Pacific Seascapes, Canoe Performance, and a Review of Lapita Voyaging with Regard to Theories of Migration
Geoffrey Irwin, 12

The first part of this paper establishes in a general kind of way that the domain or seascape that Lapita sailors operated in was more demanding than that of Wallacea and Near Oceania, but markedly less so than that negotiated later by East Polynesians. The second part takes a look at the form and performance of canoes, the possible nature of Lapita craft, and suggests ways to improve modern estimates of prehistoric performance by mechanical and mathematical modeling. The third part considers the practicalities of sailing in the Lapita domain; it argues that the dispersal of Lapita was in a selected direction rather than a random one, and offers a glimpse of how these ambitious but relatively cautious sailors learned to navigate. The final aim of the paper is to summarize three theories of migration, which support each other in some respects, but which differ in others—especially in their views of prehistoric canoe performance.
Keywords: Pacific Ocean, Lapita, seascapes, canoe performance, colonization.

Examining Prehistoric Migration Patterns in the Palauan Archipelago: A Computer Simulated Analysis of Drift Voyaging
Richard Callaghan and Scott M. Fitzpatrick, 28

A number of recent genetic, linguistic, and archaeological studies have attempted to ascertain the origin of settlers to the Palauan archipelago, but it remains a complex and debated issue. To provide additional insight into colonization strategies and settlement patterns, we conducted computer simulations of drift voyages to the Palauan archipelago based on historically recorded winds and currents. Drift voyages were considered here as drifting before the wind when lost, a strategy documented for Pacific Islanders. The simulations suggest that peoples drifting before the wind from the southern Philippines would have had the most success in landfall. This finding supports the current hypothesis of human colonization to the islands of Palau.
Keywords: Computer simulation, drift voyaging, seafaring, colonization, Palau, Micronesia.

Edge-Ground and Waisted Axes in the Western Pacific Islands: Implications for an Example from the Yaeyama Islands, Southernmost Japan
Atholl Anderson and Glenn Summerhayes, 45

A flaked, ground, and waisted axe, discovered on Iriomote Island in the Yaeyama group, southernmost Japan, appears to be a unique find in Japanese prehistory. Its resemblance to waisted, edge-ground axes which, in Australia, are of Pleistocene age, and to similar artifacts of early Holocene age in New Guinea, as well as potential antecedents in the Pleistocene edge-ground axes of Honshu, invites questions about its significance. This is especially so because the Yaeyama Islands are regarded currently as having been first occupied by people during the Shimotabaru phase of Neolithic culture, beginning about 3800 B.P. Comparison with similar western Pacific artifacts, and consideration of the eustatic history of the Yaeyamas, suggest that the Iriomote example might be of early Holocene age, although its origin within the late Holocene cannot be excluded. The find raises questions about the human history of the southern Ryukyu groups that demand further research.
Keywords: Yaeyama Islands, Japan, polished waisted axe, Holocene colonization.

The Pigs of Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific: New Evidence for Taxonomic Status and Human-Mediated Dispersal
Keith Dobney, Thomas Cucchi, and Gregor Larson, 59

This paper undertakes a major survey of the genus Sus from Island Southeast Asia and specifically attempts to re-examine the taxonomic status of the pigs of Wallacea, in order to re-evaluate the complex evidence for human mediated dispersal. This was undertaken using the combined approach of tooth outline and mitochondrial DNA analysis. The data provide clear evidence for three dispersal events: The first involved domesticated pigs, originating from wild Sus scrofa stock in mainland Southeast Asia, being introduced to the Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands, to the Mollucas, New Guinea, and Oceania. Archaeological specimens clearly link these pigs with the Lapita and subsequent Polynesian dispersals. Since the pigs on New Guinea are specifically linked with this dispersal, it follows that the current wild populations of the island must be the feral descendants of introduced domestic pigs from mainland Southeast Asia, which came into New Guinea via the Lesser Sunda Islands. A second dispersal event also involved domesticated pigs (this time from wild Sus scrofa populations from mainland East Asia), introduced to the Philippines and Micronesia, while a third involved the endemic warty pig of Sulawesi (Sus celebensis), which data from Liang Bua cave shows was introduced to Flores perhaps as early as 7000 B.C.

Pacific Bananas: Complex Origins, Multiple Dispersals?
Jean Kennedy, 75

This paper reviews recent genetic evidence for the origins of the traditional cultivated bananas of the Pacific, and shows that they are unexpectedly complex. Current assumption of their prevailing west-to-east spread from Southeast Asia into the Pacific thus needs modification. Although bananas are widely assumed to have been part of the set of crops transported to Polynesia at first settlement, the linguistic evidence on which this is based underestimates the diversity of bananas in the New Guinea region and is suspect. Archaeological evidence of bananas is so far very tenuous. Recent genetic evidence of the parentage of most groups of cultivated bananas shows that the primary step toward edibility occurred in the Philippines–New Guinea region. Early movements westward across Island Southeast Asia must have occurred, and the complexity of hybrids makes regionally dispersed development likely. There is no demonstrable link with Taiwan or the adjacent coast of China. There is no evidence that the genetically distinct lineages of bananas found in Polynesia were brought together in the putatively ancestral Lapita crop assemblage of the northern New Guinea region. The complex phylogeny of the cultivated Pacific bananas may thus suggest multiple prehistoric introductions of bananas to Polynesia. If bananas were part of the founding set of crops of Remote Oceania, the question “which bananas?” is currently unanswered.
Keywords: Indo-Pacific migration and colonization; banana domestication, taxonomy, and genetics; Pacific plantains, Fe‘i bananas, New Guinea archaeobotany, banana phytoliths.

Northern Vanuatu as a Pacific Crossroads: The Archaeology of Discovery, Interaction, and the Emergence of the “Ethnographic Present”
Stuart Bedford and Matthew Spriggs, 95

Northern Vanuatu is a significant crossroads region of the Southwest Pacific. This paper outlines current archaeological research being undertaken in the area, focusing on defining initial human settlement there some 3000 years ago and subsequent cultural transformations which led to the establishment of the ethnographic present. The study to date has contributed to a more detailed picture of inter- and intra-archipelago interaction, settlement pattern, subsistence, and cultural differentiation. The research contributes to regional debates on human colonization, patterns of social interaction, and the drivers of social change in island contexts.
Keywords: Northern Vanuatu, interaction, contact and exchange, cultural transformation.

Ongoing Archaeological Research on Fais Island, Micronesia
Michiko Intoh, 121

The third season of archaeological research was carried out on Fais Island in the Caroline Islands at the end of 2005. A deep cultural deposit (more than 3.3 meters) was excavated along the southern coastal deposit from which a number of potsherds, shell artifacts, bone artifacts, and various kinds of natural remains were found. The constant recovery of artifactual remains supports the previous supposition that the island was continuously inhabited since the time of the first colonization. Pigs and dogs (and possibly chickens) have definitely existed on the island since about A.D. 400 afterward. Two charcoal samples obtained from the earliest cultural deposit were securely dated as A.D. 230–410 (Beta-21306) and A.D. 240–420 (Beta-213061). These are the earliest dates obtained for the coral islands in the central Caroline Islands. The continuous appearance of potsherds and natural food remains throughout the culture sequence indicates that Fais was permanently settled for the last 1700 years and was not just occupied for a short period of time. On the basis of introduced pottery and domesticated animals, maintaining cultural contacts with high islands could have been a significant way to survive on such small coral islands with limited resources.

The Changing Role of Irrigated Colocasia esculenta (Taro) on Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands: From an Essential Element of Colonization to an Important Risk-Reduction Strategy
David J. Addison, 139

This paper proposes that, on the Marquesan island of Nuku Hiva, wet cultivation of Colocasia taro was important in initial colonization because it was the most energy-efficient and fastest-producing crop. In later periods its caloric contribution was eclipsed by breadfruit, but irrigated taro played an important risk-reduction role.
Keywords: Agriculture, archaeology, intensification, risk-reduction, irrigation, Polynesia.

Excavation in Peva Valley, Rurutu, Austral Islands (East Polynesia)
Robert Bollt, 156

The Peva dune site on Rurutu, Austral Islands, excavated in 2003, has yielded a rich archaeological assemblage containing artifacts and both vertebrate and invertebrate fauna from two distinct stratigraphic layers. The lower layer dates from the East Polynesian Archaic period (c. A.D. 1000–1450), and the upper layer from the Classic period (c. eighteenth and nineteenth centuries A.D.), during which time the site was a ceremonial marae. The two layers are entirely distinct, separated by a thick deposit of sterile beach sand. This article analyzes the major temporal trends in Rurutu’s artifact and faunal assemblages, and discusses them in terms of both the general efflorescence of East Polynesian culture, and the more specific emergence of a uniquely Austral culture, which impressed early European visitors as being quite unique.
Keywords: East Polynesia, Austral Islands, Cook Islands, Rurutu, colonization.

Editors’ Corner, iii

ARTICLES

The Contingencies of State Formation in Eastern Inner Asia
J. Daniel Rogers, 249

Three key themes consistently play a role in the study of early state formation in eastern Inner Asia. First, scholars have frequently argued that China exerted a disproportionately strong influence on steppe polities, serving as a source of goods and ideas for neighboring pastoralist societies. Although Chinese states did very significantly influence steppe polities, interactions were complex and highly variable. Rather than being dominated by Chinese states, exchanges and interactions were often on a level of parity or were under the control of the steppe polities. It is frequently argued that the fragility of the pastoralist economy required steppe polities to acquire agricultural products, which in turn fostered a dependency on agricultural societies in the south. New evidence, however, suggests that the traditional distinction between pastoralist and agriculturalist economies may be insufficient to characterize the complex sets of interactions. Second, steppe polities are often described as short-lived entities that succeeded each other in rapid succession. This description deemphasizes the economic and cultural continuity that transcended the rise and fall of individual political entities. The third theme concerns the construction and maintenance of order. How, in other words, did rulers legitimate their power and maintain political and organizational control of populations and territories? Most interpretations argue that steppe polities looked to neighboring states for the cultural knowledge that allowed them to create and maintain order. That knowledge, however, came from multiple sources—especially the internal traditions that linked successive steppe polities.
Keywords: state formation, empires, Inner Asia, social theory, power relations.

Geological Sourcing of Volcanic Stone Adzes from Neolithic Sites in Southeast China
Barry V. Rolett, Zhengfu Guo, and Tianlong Jiao, 275

This study uses XRF (X-ray fluorescence) and ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) analyses to determine the chemical composition of raw material used in stone tool production. The goal is to identify where stone adzes, which are common in Neolithic sites on the coast of Mainland China, were produced and if they were transported from the production areas to other places. Our study focuses on adzes from three Neolithic sites located on the Fujian coast of Mainland China, opposite Taiwan. The sites date to between 6500 and 3500 B.P. All of the adzes we sampled are made of volcanic rock. A diverse selection of raw materials, including basalts, andesites, and dacites, was used in manufacturing the adzes, indicating that they are made of rock deriving from many different geological formations. None of the adzes have identical chemical signatures. There is no evidence of specialized centers for adze production. Some of the adzes were probably produced locally, while others were obtained through exchange. This project sets the stage for future research to trace the development and the extent of southeast China Neolithic exchange networks.
Keywords: China, Neolithic, stone tools, adzes, production techniques, archaeometry, exchange.

New Evidence for Southeast Asian Pleistocene Foraging Economies: Faunal Remains from the Early Levels of Lang Rongrien Rockshelter, Krabi, Thailand
Karen Mudar and Douglas Anderson, 298

This study reports on analysis of a sample of animal bones from Pleistocene levels of Lang Rongrien Rockshelter, Thailand. Analysis identified small proportions of marine and/or freshwater fish bone, freshwater/terrestrial snail shells, and bird bones, as well as large proportions of tortoise, turtle, and mammal bones. Comparison with three other faunal assemblages underscores salient characteristics consisting of a high proportion of turtle and tortoise and an absence of pigs in the Lang Rongrien sample. Analysis of the faunal assemblage suggests that, in contrast to other sites such as Niah Cave and Moh Khiew that were occupied on a long-term basis, the Pleistocene levels of Lang Rongrien were intermittently occupied by foragers who may have been practicing a seasonal round that involved transhumance from interior to coast.
Keywords: Pleistocene, faunal analysis, climate reconstruction, pigs, subsistence, Thailand, Southeast Asia.

Trade Ceramics from the Gotō Islands (Japan), Circa Sixteenth to Early Seventeenth Century: The Yamami Underwater Site (Ojika) and Related Issues
Barbara Seyock, 335

Underwater archaeology is still a new development in Japan, and to date only a few sites have experienced significant investigation. One of them is the recently surveyed Yamami underwater site on the Gotō Islands, which yielded sixteenth- to seventeenth-century trade ceramics from Thailand and Vietnam, as well as from the Jingdezhen kilns in China. After an introduction to the subject of ceramic trade and underwater archaeology in East Asia, the article reviews the ceramic pieces of the Yamami site in detail and links them to comparable finds from various sites in western Japan, such as from the main ports of Hakata and Nagasaki, along with examples from different international museum collections and wreck finds from the South China Sea. After also consulting historical sources, such as the Kai-hentai, the study develops a fresh interpretative approach toward the Yamami find, and—in a broader perspective—suggests strong bonds between the late medieval and early modern Japanese markets and the lively networks of the South China Sea.
Keywords: Japan, trade ceramics, underwater archaeology, medieval period, early modern period, porcelain, stoneware, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, maritime trade, Hakata, Nagasaki, Gotō Islands.

Debating Jomon Social Complexity
Richard Pearson, 361

People of the Jomon period (currently dated from about 14,000 B.C. to the first millennium B.C.) began to make lacquer ornaments as early as 7000 B.C. and by the fourth millennium B.C. were creating elaborately decorated, low-fired pottery vessels that appear to have been used for feasting. In the Final period of the Jomon, grave goods appear in a substantial percentage of burials. Without reliance on agriculture, Jomon people appear to have achieved a high level of social complexity. However, the evidence from a few case studies concerning lacquer, elaborate pottery, and burials seems to show that while part-time specialization provided a wealth of rich material culture, sustained hierarchy was not achieved and there was an emphasis on exchange and solidarity, as in other middle-range societies. This article reviews new material and debates.
Keywords: Jomon, Japan, social complexity, lacquer, ceramics, burials, craft production, complex hunter-gatherers.

Inter- and Intraregional Variation in the Austronesian Painting Tradition: A View from East Timor
Sue O’Connor and Nuno Vasco Oliveira, 389

This article reports on the discovery of a new rock art site from East Timor that is located inland on the southern flanks of the central mountainous spine of the island. One particular painted motif, a socketed axe with haft, indicates that at least some of the motifs were painted c. 2000 B.P. This date and the stylistic and technical features of the art would place it within the later body of painted art associated with the Austronesian Painting Tradition (APT) elsewhere in the western Pacific. This later phase is characterized by greater diversity in style, color, and placement of motifs than is found in the earlier APT. Comparison with the other known art sites in East Timor shows significant differences between the rock art of the eastern and central parts of East Timor, indicating that these areas comprised separate stylistic regions.
Keywords: Austronesian Painting Tradition, rock art, Timor, Island Southeast Asia, western Pacific, iconography.

Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan: Archaeology and History of an Epochal Thousand Years, 400 B.C.–A.D. 600
Song-Nai Rhee, C. Melvin Aikens, Sung-Rak Choi, and Hyuk-Jin Ro, 404

This is a study of Korean contributions to cultural changes in ancient Japan as it developed agriculture and increasing social complexity and finally formed the Yamato state over the course of a thousand years, between 400 B.C. and A.D. 600. Central to this study are three broad themes, supported primarily by archaeology but importantly informed by historical texts. First, key cultural features and technologies that were essential to increasing social complexity in Yayoi period Japan and to formation of a centralized state in the sixth century A.D. entered the archipelago directly from the Korea Peninsula. Second, a dominant factor behind the infusion of Korean cultural features was the movement, in several waves, of peninsula residents into the Japanese archipelago. While trade moved peninsula goods to the archipelago all throughout the formative period, Korean technologies, skills, ideologies, and cultural systems moved with people, including permanent immigrants, temporary residents, and official envoys. The Korean immigrants in particular were impelled initially by explosive population growth in Korea fueled by the spread of agriculture there and later by increasingly tumultuous political and military events that unfolded in the peninsula as rival polities contended for power during several hundred years of war. Third, a number of Korean immigrants emerged as powerful technocrats and political functionaries during the Kofun period, providing important organizational experience and service to the Yamato court during the process of state formation in Japan.
Keywords: Korea, Japan, China, Mumun, Songguk-ni, Jomon, Yayoi, Kofun, Koguryo, Baekje, Kaya, Yamato, Buddhism, Soga, Muryeong, Shotoku.

Editors’ Corner, 1

ARTICLES

Toward a Political Ecology in Early South India: Preliminary Considerations of the Sociopolitics of Land and Animal Use in the Southern Deccan, Neolithic through Early Historic Periods
Andrew M. Bauer, Peter G. Johansen, and Radhika L. Bauer, 3

The archaeology of southern India has long been dominated by cultural-historical paradigms, which have more recently become reliant on environmental stimuli to explain “culture change.” This interpretive framework has created a relatively fixed set of relationships between the environment and past human societies that oversimplifies issues of agency and causation in largely deterministic terms. At issue here is a lack of adequate treatment for the sociopolitical complexity of human-environment relationships. In this essay we examine the relationships between emerging social differences and both stable and dynamic aspects of land use throughout the South Indian Neolithic (3000–1200 B.C.), Iron Age (1200–500 B.C.), and Early Historic (500 B.C.–A.D. 500) periods in the southern Deccan region of South India. In an effort to contextualize land use in wider sociopolitical realms, we focus on the empirical components of three aspects of the archaeological record—animal use, agricultural regimes, and monument production and maintenance—through a lens of political ecology. Accepting that land use is socially and culturally mediated, we suggest how sociopolitical distinctions emergent during these periods could be viewed in relation to the production of a landscape that differentially included wild and domesticated animals, cultivars, water reservoirs, irrigation agriculture, and monumental architecture. In this sense, we argue that the landscape itself could be seen as a social product through which sociopolitical differences were experienced and perceived, and that the historical development of the landscape is both the artifact and medium of sociopolitics in early South India. As such, the determinants of social history remain in social and cultural fields of action, though not removed from the ecological-material world of which people are a part.
Keywords: agriculture, landscapes, monumentality, political ecology, zooarchaeology.

Hinterlands, Urban Centers, and Mobile Settings: The “New” Old World Archaeology from the Eurasian Steppe
William Honeychurch and Chunag Amartuvshin, 36

Archaeological studies of pastoral nomadic societies have been invigorated by recent collaborative research projects across the Eurasian steppe zone. This research contributes an important comparative perspective on processes of complex sociopolitical organization practiced among mobile groups. This essay employs a novel approach to understanding the organizational techniques and methods of finance that supported large-scale imperial polities of eastern Eurasia, specifically those centered on the Mongolian steppe. Using full-coverage survey data from the northern Mongolian valley of Egiin Gol, we present the results of diachronic spatial and environmental analyses in order to evaluate current models for nomadic political economy. We argue that eastern Eurasian subsistence economics are best understood not as a single “type” of production but as a productive process based on multiresource capacities (agro-pastoral, hunting, gathering, fishing) and the flexibility to readily adjust resource emphasis, degree of mobility, and specialization relative to a changeable environment. We offer a revised model for eastern steppe political integration emphasizing the spatial management of political relationships within a mobile setting. Our essay concludes with a brief overview of the potential for Eurasian steppe archaeology to contribute novel comparative insights for anthropologists studying the diversities and commonalities of complex social organization.
Keywords: pastoralism, nomadism, Mongolia, Eurasia, political economy, social complexity, urbanism.

Stone Axe Technology in Neolithic South India: New Evidence from the Sanganakallu-Kupgal Region, Mideastern Karnataka
Adam Brumm, Nicole Boivin, Ravi Korisettar, Jinu Koshy, and Paula Whittaker, 65

This essay discusses the preliminary results of recent archaeological investigations into stone axe production and exchange processes at a Neolithic hilltop settlement in South India. The site in question comprises a stone-lined circular structure situated on a plateau area on the side of a topographically complex hill, known locally as Hiregudda. Across the plateau, extensive surface scatters of flaked dolerite material indicate a heavy focus on edge-ground bifacial axe manufacture at the site. Excavation of the structure and its immediate surrounds has revealed stratified deposits of dolerite axes, axe blanks and debitage, as well as a large lithic dumping area adjacent to the structure. Several clusters of axe-grinding grooves are documented on granite boulders and bedrock exposures both in and around the structure, and at least two intensively quarried outcrops of dolerite have been recorded within close vicinity of the plateau. Following a detailed examination of the axe manufacturing technology employed by knappers in the “workshop” structure, we suggest that the evidence for large-scale quarrying and industrial activity at Hiregudda points to the importance of this hilltop settlement in the axe production and exchange network of Neolithic South India. We present radiocarbon dating evidence from our investigations that implies the most intensive phase of axe manufacture and possibly distribution at Hiregudda took place during the Late Neolithic–Megalithic transition around the thirteenth or fourteenth millennia B.C.
Keywords: Southern Neolithic, India, stone axes, technology, production, exchange, Neolithic-Megalithic transition.

The Lapita Occupation at Naitabale, Moturiki Island, Central Fiji
Patrick D. Nunn, Tomo Ishimura, William R. Dickinson, Kazumichi Katayama, Frank Thomas, Roselyn Kumar, Sepeti Matararaba, Janet Davidson, and Trevor Worthy, 96

In 2003 the authors discovered and excavated a Lapita site at Naitabale close to the southern end of Moturiki Island (central Fiji). Today the site is 350 m inland from the coast, but in Lapita times it was located behind the active beach ridge. A large collection of potsherds (including 92 dentate-stamped or incised Lapita sherds), shell, and animal bones was recovered, together with a human burial. Sherd decorations show affinities with the Western Lapita Province rather than the Eastern Lapita Province (which includes Fiji). Temper analyses of 45 Lapita sherds do not show any unmistakably exotic (to Fiji) pottery, but 29 percent are nonlocal to Moturiki and nearby islands. Fish bones are mostly from inshore species (dominated by Scaridae), while nonfish vertebrates are dominated by turtle and include dog and chicken. Shellfish remains are dominated by gastropods, mostly Strombus spp. (43 percent of gastropod MNI). The surf clam (Atactodea striata) accounts for 38 percent of bivalve MNI, with Anadara antiquata and Gafrarium pectinatum each representing 14 percent of the bivalve MNI. The skeleton is that of a woman (Mana) 161–164 cm tall who died at 40–60 years of age. Six radiocarbon dates from bones overlap 2740–2739 cal. years B.P. (790–789 B.C.). The mandible lacks antegonial notches but is not a proper rocker jaw. The cranium was better preserved than any Lapita-associated skeleton hitherto described, which allowed the head to be reconstructed. Stable-isotope analyses show that her diet contained significant amounts of reef foods but was probably dominated by terrestrial plants. The Lapita occupation of Naitabale is likely to have begun by 2850 cal. years B.P. (900 B.C.). Radiocarbon dates and pottery decorative styles both suggest Naitabale was first occupied within the early part of the Lapita history of Fiji.
Keywords: Fiji, Lapita, pottery, pottery temper, fish, turtle, shellfish, human, dating.

Sedentism, Territorial Circumscription, and the Increased Use of Plant Domesticates Across Neolithic–Bronze Age Korea
Christopher J. Norton, 133

As evidenced from the Korean archaeological record, there is an increased use of plant domesticates and a decrease in other food sources during the Holocene. These changes in overall human diet breadth culminate with the Late Neolithic–Bronze Age (c. 3500 B.P.) transition where dependence on hunted and gathered food packages decreases during the former period and full-scale agriculture becomes the norm during the latter cultural stage. This dietary shift appears to coincide with Holocene shoreline stabilization and overall large-scale population increase and movement through time. It is proposed here that two primary reasons exist for the change in overall diet breadth: (1) increasing shoreline stabilization during the Holocene and (2) an increase in hunter-gatherer population pressure due to a sedentary lifestyle. Both of these factors would have led to some degree of territorial circumscription, resulting in a progressive decline in overall hunter-gatherer foraging efficiency. In turn, this would have prompted the Holocene Korean Peninsular peoples to find other ways to offset their lowered overall foraging efficiency that had originally focused primarily on higher-ranked food resources (e.g., deer, wild boar). In this case, Korean peoples expanded their overall diet breadth to include a lower-ranked set of food packages (e.g., fish, shellfish) that by the advent of the Bronze Age eventually included plant domesticates regularly.
Keywords: East Asia, Korea, spread of agriculture, diet breadth contingency model, zooarchaeology.

Ancient Irrigation and Buddhist History in Central India: Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dates and Pollen Sequences from the Sanchi Dams
Julia Shaw, John Sutcliffe, Lindsay Lloyd-Smith, Jean-Luc Schwenninger, and M. S. Chauhan, 166

This paper presents the results of a recent pilot project aimed at obtaining optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates from a group of ancient irrigation dams in central India. The dams are all situated within an area of 750 km² around the well-known Buddhist site of Sanchi, the latter established in c. third century B.C. and having a continuous constructional sequence up to the twelfth century A.D. They were documented during earlier seasons of the Sanchi Survey, initiated in 1998 in order to relate the site to its wider archaeological landscape. The pilot project builds upon earlier hypotheses regarding the chronology and function of the Sanchi dams and their relationship to religious and political history in Central India. The principal suggestion is that the earliest phase of dam construction coincided with the rise of urbanization and the establishment of Buddhism in central India between c. third and second centuries B.C.; and that they were connected with wet-rice cultivation as opposed to wheat, the main agricultural staple today. Similarities with intersite patterns in Sri Lanka, where monastic landlordism is attested from c. second century B.C. onward, have also led to the working hypothesis that the Sanchi dams were central to the development of exchange systems between Buddhist monks and local agricultural communities. The pilot project focused on two out of a total of 16 dam sites in the Sanchi area and involved scraping back dam sections created by modern road cuttings. This cast new light on aspects of dam construction and allowed for the collection of sediments and ceramics for OSL dating. The results confirmed the suitability of local sediments to OSL dating methods, as well as affirming our working hypothesis that the dams were constructed—along with the earliest Buddhist monuments in Central India—in the late centuries B.C. Sediment samples were also collected from cores hand drilled in the dried-up reservoir beds, for supplementary OSL dating and pollen analysis, which shed useful insights into land use.
Keywords: irrigation, dams, rice agriculture, OSL dating, pollen analysis, ancient India, spread of Buddhism, religious change, theories of state.

The Gold Coast: Suvannabhumi? Lower Myanmar Walled Sites of the First Millennium A.D.
Elizabeth Moore and San Win, 202

The high rainfall of the Lower Myanmar coast is balanced by the aridity of the country’s inland plains. The article profiles three sites in a laterite-rich area located in the northern part of the Lower Myanmar peninsula. The walls and moats of these sites underline their role in water management, one where control of water was the decisive catalyst. The sites of Kyaikkatha, Kelasa, and Winka illustrate how slight changes in topography signal critical junctures, the points where walls and moats were constructed. As a result, up to seven walls flank the higher edges of these sites; these protected the interior by diverting excess water to lower areas. Using large finger-marked bricks and terra-cotta artifacts such as votive tablets, plaques, and architectural elements, a broad chronology of c. the sixth to ninth centuries A.D. is proposed, although a majority of the pieces dated to the seventh century A.D. Attention is also drawn to evidence of Lower Myanmar prehistoric habitation in lowland areas close to the coast, where natural and man-made changes continue to alter the ecology and affect archaeological interpretation. The survey is used to encourage comparative studies, drawing in environmentally diverse but culturally related areas of South and Southeast Asia.
Keywords: Myanmar (Burma), ecology, laterite, water control, hydrology, Iron Age, Buddhism.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Archaeology of Pouerua by Douglas Sutton, Louise Furey, and Yvonne Marshall
Reviewed by Ian Barber, 233

Archaeology and Culture in Southeast Asia: Unraveling the Nusantao by Wilhelm G. Solheim II, with contributions from David Bulbeck and Ambika Flavel
Reviewed by John A. Peterson, 235

Gender and Chinese Archaeology edited by Katheryn M. Linduff and Yan Sun
Reviewed by Elizabeth Brumfiel, 237

Earthenware in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of the Singapore Symposium on Pre-Modern Southeast Asian Earthenwares edited by John Miksic
Reviewed by Laura Lee Junker, 242

ARTICLES

The Occurrence of Cereal Cultivation in China, 129
Tracey L-D Lu

This paper examines the progress and remaining problems on the occurrence of cereal cultivation in China, which led to agriculture, and discusses some related theoretical issues. Based on currently available data, it is argued that the occurrence of cereal cultivation in China was associated with and related to the climatic and environmental changes after the last glacial epoch, the occurrence of new technology, including the manufacturing of pottery, and the adoption of a broad-spectrum subsistence strategy, whereas sedentism does not seem to be a prerequisite for this cultural change. The transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture in China seems to have been a gradual process, and foraging remained a subsistence strategy of the early farmers. The occurrence of cereal cultivation in China differed from that in other core areas, demonstrating the diversity of human cultures and contributing to our understanding of the origin and development of agriculture in the world.
Keywords: foraging to farming, cereal cultivation, prehistory, China.

Craft Production and Social Change in Mumun Pottery Period Korea, 159
Martin T. Bale and Min-jung Ko

This paper addresses the development of craft production in the Mumun Pottery Period (c. 1500 to 300 B.C.) of south-central Korea. Specialized craft production of greenstone ornaments, groundstone daggers, red-burnished pottery, and bronze objects was coeval with the onset of intensive agriculture. We examine the nature of this production in the settlement of Daepyeong, where social differentiation increased diachronically, notably in the Late Middle Mumun (700–550 B.C.). Specialized craft production appears to have originated as a supplement to intensive agriculture in the Early Middle Mumun (850–700 B.C.), when a mix of corporate and network strategies of competition between leaders existed but social differences between community members was deemphasized and consumption of prestige artifacts was limited. Evidence suggests that full-time leaders used the production and distribution of greenstone ornaments and long groundstone daggers in an incipient network strategy to gain power for themselves and their supporters in the Late Middle Mumun.
Keywords: archaeology, Korean Peninsula, specialized craft production, Mumun Pottery Period, social complexity, prestige artifacts, settlements.

Archaeology and Archaeozoology of Phum Snay: A Late Prehistoric Cemetery in Northwestern Cambodia, 188
Dougald J. W. O’Reilly, Angela von den Driesch, and Vuthy Voeun

This paper analyzes faunal remains excavated from the late prehistoric cemetery of Phum Snay in northwestern Cambodia. The material comprises two different components: (1) animal bones as grave goods and (2) bone fragments originating from settlement activities. The mammal and bird remains from the graves derive exclusively from domestic animals and include water buffalo, cattle, pigs, and possibly a chicken. In most cases, one or two limbs from the left side of the body of one or two species were deposited in a grave. Fish were also incorporated in the grave cult. The animal bones found in nonburial contexts reveal a broad-spectrum foraging economy that exploited a wide range of ecosystems: forests, grass- and marshlands, rivers, and inundated fields, resulting in the capture of deer, boar, smaller carnivores, cranes, tortoises, turtles, monitor lizards, crocodiles, and fish.
Keywords: animal bones, burial goods, economic activities, late prehistoric time, Cambodia.

Biological Responses to Change in Prehistoric Viet Nam, 212
Marc F. Oxenham

A bioarchaeological analysis of human remains from Con Co Ngua, a Da But culture period cemetery site in northern Viet Nam (n = 96), and an aggregated sample from 11 sites, mostly from the Red River delta region (n = 96) representing the emerging Metal period in the same region, is carried out. This study focuses on a range of skeletal and dental signatures of both health and behavior, including carious lesions, antemortem tooth loss, alveolar defects of pulpal origin, dental task wear facets, cribra orbitalia, linear enamel hypoplasia, trauma, and chronic infectious disease. The findings of reasonably good oral health may be reflective of a lack of agricultural products in the diet and/or the low cariogenicity of rice. The physiological health of the samples was found to be compromised, with an elevated mortality among younger individuals that expressed evidence of physiological disturbance as measured by cribra orbitalia and/or linear enamel hypoplasia. The nature and frequency of trauma in both periods was not necessarily indicative of specific behaviors, with general misadventure and interpersonal violence as competing causes. The evidence for chronic infectious disease is apparent only in the Metal period and may be related to a range of factors, some of which include the effects of migration, changes to land use patterns, and/or the evolution of increased pathogen virulence.
Keywords: Con Co Ngua, Da But period, Metal period, Viet Nam.

Characterizing the Stoneware “Dragon Jars” in the Guthe Collection: Chemical, Decorative, and Formal Patterning, 240
Carla M. Sinopoli, Stephen Dueppen, Robert Brubaker, Christophe Descantes, Michael D. Glascock, Will Griffin, Hector Neff, Rasmi Shoocongdej, and Robert J. Speakman

This paper presents a multifaceted study of a collection of stoneware ceramic vessels in the Guthe Collection of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. These vessels, recovered in the Philippines but manufactured in multiple production sites across East and Southeast Asia, provide insights into premodern economic interactions and maritime trade. Our study of this collection drew on multiple approaches to identify coherent groupings of vessels associated with locations and traditions of production. These include instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of pastes; laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LAICP-MS) of glazes; stylistic analysis of decorative motifs and their execution; and study of morphological attributes. Results of our analyses point to at least four production areas for these ubiquitous trade wares and lay the groundwork for future research on Southeast Asian maritime trade from the twelfth through nineteenth centuries A.D.
Keywords: Southeast Asia, ceramic classification, trade wares, dragon jars.

BOOK REVIEWS

Current Research in Chinese Pleistocene Archaeology edited by Chen Shen and Susan G. Keats, 283
Reviewed by Erella Hovers

China before China: Johan Gunnar Andersson, Ding Wenjiang, and the Discovery of China’s Prehistory by Magnus Fiskesjö and Chen Xingcan, 287
Reviewed by Yun Kuen Lee

Bulletin of the International Jomon Culture Conference, Volume 1 edited by Richard Pearson, 290
Reviewed by Oki Nakamura

The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective Gregory Possehl, 293
Reviewed by Monica L. Smith

Integrating Archaeology and Ethnohistory: The Development of Exchange between Yap and Ulithi, Western Caroline Islands by Christophe Descantes, 295
Reviewed by Rosalind L. Hunter-Anderson

Archaeological Investigations in the Mangareva Islands (Gambier Archipelago), French Polynesia edited by Eric Conte and Patrick V. Kirch, 299
Reviewed by Melinda S. Allen

ARTICLES

Embodying Okhotsk Ethnicity: Human Skeletal Remains from the Aonae Dune Site, Okushiri Island, Hokkaido, 1
Hirofumi Matsumura, Mark J. Hudson, Kenichiro Koshida, and Yoichi Minakawa

This article describes human skeletal remains from the Aonae Dune site, Okushiri Island, Hokkaido, Japan. Skeletal remains of an adult female and two subadults were excavated in 2002. Although these remains derived from Okhotsk culture contexts, analyses of cranial and tooth crown measurements demonstrated that Aonae Dune No. 1 (the adult female), Aonae Dune No. 2 (a child of about 11 years), and Aonae Dune No. 3 (a child of about 6 years) are morphologically closer to Epi-Jōmon or Jōmon and Ainu populations and significantly different from other Okhotsk samples in Hokkaido. It is argued that these three skeletons probably represent individuals from a different culture who were adopted into Okhotsk society. Keywords: Hokkaido, Okhotsk culture, Aonae Dune site, osteological analyses, ethnicity.

Type X Pottery, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea: Petrography and Possible Micronesian Relationships, 24
Jim Specht, Ian Lilley, and William R. Dickinson

Type X is one of four Post-Lapita pottery styles reported from Huon Peninsula and the Siassi Islands of Papua New Guinea. Previous petrographic work was inconclusive about its likely area of origin but indicated a possible Huon Peninsula source. Renewed analysis of a larger sample supports this conclusion and confirms the use of grog temper. This kind of temper is otherwise not recorded in the New Guinea region, and its use in the production of Type X was probably culturally driven. Comparisons between Type X and grog-tempered pottery from Palau, Yap, and Pohnpei in Micronesia lead to the suggestion that Type X probably derived from an otherwise unrecorded contact between Huon Peninsula and Palau about 1000 years ago. The article reviews other evidence for interaction between the New Guinea–Bismarck Archipelago region and various parts of Micronesia and concludes that the proposed Type X connection with Palau is but one of several prehistoric contacts between different parts of the regions. Recognition of such contacts, which could have been unintentional and on a small scale, may contribute to explaining the complex ethnolinguistic situation of Huon Peninsula.

Late Holocene Landscape Evolution and Land-Use Expansion in Tutuila, American Samoa, 48
Frederic B. Pearl

Archaeological excavations at the coast of A’asu, in Tutuila Island of American Samoa, exposed a depositional sequence spanning the past circa 700 years. With the period represented, sedimentation rates exceeded 10.15 cm per century in the valley floor and 16.34 cm per century along the valley margin. The occupational history may correlate with changes in climate, sea level, and coastal geomorphology. Although the evidence accords with the expected responses to the Little Climatic Optimum (circa 1050 to 690 B.P.) and Little Ice Age (circa 575 to 150 B.P.), the most plausible explanation for the A’asu case is that environmental change accompanied expansion of upland land use. Based on evidence here and elsewhere in Tutuila, it is proposed that the establishment of fortifications, monuments and permanent settlements in the uplands was part of a broader pattern of land-use expansion beginning in the fourteenth century A.D. Keywords: American Samoa, Polynesia, landscape evolution, prehistoric human impacts, geochronology.

No Pig Atoll: Island Biogeography and the Extirpation of a Polynesian Domesticate, 69
Christina M. Giovas

The significance of the domestic pig, Sus scrofa, to prehistoric Polynesians is hinted at by its inclusion among the species that they transported with them as they colonized Oceania. However, archaeological data reveal a pattern of pig distribution far more extensive in prehistory than at historic contact. Domestic mammal extirpation is a phenomenon apparently unique to prehistoric Polynesia. Although well recognized, the local extinction of domestic pigs in Polynesia prior to European contact has yet to be satisfactorily explained. Earlier accounts attributed the patchy distribution of pigs across the Island South Pacific to intentional extermination by their Polynesian keepers. More recent approaches seek to understand the disappearance of these animals within a biogeographic and ecological framework. Here, I test the hypothesis that the success of pig husbandry is correlated with ecological variables and demonstrate that the likelihood of pig extinction increases with decreasing island size. Keywords: Polynesia, domestic animals, pigs, island biogeography, extinction.

BOOK REVIEWS

William Gowland: The Father of Japanese Archaeology edited by Victor Harris and Kazuo Goto, 96
Reviewed by Mark Hudson

Jade Dragon by Sarah Milledge Nelson, 97
Reviewed by Adrian Praetzellis

The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di: A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand. Volume VII: Summary and Conclusions by C.F.W. Higham and R. Thosarat, with contributions by B.F.J. Manly and R. A. Bentley, 99
Reviewed by Anna Källén

And through Flows the River: Archaeology and the Pasts of Lao Pako by Anna Källén, 102
Reviewed by Joyce C. White

Fishbones and Glittering Emblems: Southeast Asian Archaeology 2002 edited by Anna Karlström and Anna Källén, 105
Reviewed by John N. Miksic

Southeast Asian Archaeology: Wilhelm G. Solheim II Festschrift edited by Victor Paz, 110
Reviewed by Peter Lape

After Captain Cook: The Archaeology of the Recent Indigenous Past in Australia edited by R. Harrison and C. Williamson, 112
Reviewed by Ian Lilley

Agriculture and Pastoralism in the Late Bronze and Iron Age, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan by Ruth Young, 115
Reviewed by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer

Kohika: The Archaeology of a Late Māori Lake Village in the Ngati Awa Rohe, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand edited by Geoffrey Irwin, 118
Reviewed by Harry Allen

Walpole: Ha Colo, une Île de l’Extrême, Archéologies et Histoires edited by Christophe Sand, 122
Reviewed by Mike T. Carson

KIBO—Le serment gravé: Essai de synthèse sur les pétroglyphes calédoniens edited by Jean Monnin and Christophe Sand, 123
Reviewed by Yann-Pierre Montelle

Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging by Ben Finney, 126
Reviewed by Atholl Anderson

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Mind the Gap, 247
Peter Bellwood

ARTICLES

Chemical Identification and Cultural Implications of a Mixed Fermented Beverage from Late Prehistoric China, 249
Patrick E. McGovern, Anne P. Underhill, Hui Fang, Fengshi Luan, Gretchen R. Hall, Haiguang Yu, Chen-shan Wang, Fengshu Cai, Zhijun Zhao, and Gary M. Feinman

Humans around the world have shown a remarkable propensity to ferment available sugar sources into alcoholic beverages. These drinks have contributed significantly to cultural innovation and development, including agricultural and horticultural skills to harness natural resources; technologies to produce the beverages and to make special vessels to serve, drink, and present them ceremonially; and their incorporation into feasting and other activities. Molecular archaeological analyses of a range of pottery forms from the site of Liangchengzhen, China, illustrates how contemporaneous chemical data, in conjunction with intensive archaeological and botanical recovery methods, enables the reconstruction of prehistoric beverages and their cultural significance. During the middle Longshan period (ca. 2400–2200 B.C.), a mixed fermented beverage of rice, fruit (probably hawthorn fruit and/or grape), and possibly honey was presented as grave offerings and consumed by the residents of the regional center.

Toward an Understanding of Technological Variability in Microblade Assemblages in Hokkaido, Japan, 276
Yuichi Nakazawa, Masami Izuho, Jun Takakura, and Satoru Yamada

Five decades of research history on the late Upper Paleolithic in Hokkaido (northern Japan) shows that microblade assemblages appeared by approximately 20,000 B.P. and that various microblade technologies were developed during late Pleistocene. The empirically observed good association between the morphological features of lithic raw materials and the reduction sequences of microblade cores demonstrates that morphological features of procured lithic raw materials (i.e., size and surface condition), which were constrained by unique geological and geoarchaeological characteristics in Hokkaido, created remarkable variability in reduction methods of microblade technology. This implies that geoarchaeological perspective can contribute to understanding technological variability in microblade assemblages in northeastern Asia.
Keywords: Hokkaido, microblade, technological variability, geoarchaeology, oxygen isotope stage 2.

Illuminating Southeast Asian Prehistory: New Archaeological and Paleoanthropological Frontiers for Luminescence Dating, 293
Richard G. Roberts, M. J. Morwood, and Kira E. Westaway

Since the explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace and Eugène Dubois in the nineteenth century, Southeast Asia has been one of the world’s focal points for studies of biogeography and biodiversity, human evolution and dispersal, environmental change, and the spread of culture, farming, and language. Yet despite its prominence, reliable chronologies are not available for many of the critical archaeological, evolutionary, and environmental turning points that have taken place in the region during the last 1.5 million years. In this paper, we discuss some of these chronological problems and describe how luminescence dating may help overcome them. ‘‘Luminescence dating’’ is a term that embraces the techniques of thermoluminescence (TL) and optical dating, which can be used to estimate the time elapsed since ubiquitous mineral grains, such as quartz and potassium feldspar, were last heated to a high temperature or were last exposed to sunlight. Luminescence methods have been successfully deployed at late Quaternary archaeological, paleoanthropological, and geological sites around the world, but not to any great extent in Southeast Asia. Here we describe the principles of TL and optical dating and some of the difficulties that are likely to arise in dating the volcanic minerals found throughout the region. We also outline several long-standing archaeological and paleoanthropological questions that are the subject of a current program of luminescence dating in Southeast Asia, and present recent dating results from Liang Bua in Indonesia and Bukit Bunuh in Malaysia.
Keywords: luminescence dating, archaeology, paleoanthropology, Quaternary, Southeast Asia, Liang Bua, Bukit Bunuh.

Mid-Sequence Archaeology at the Sigatoka Sand Dunes with Interpretive Implications for Fijian and Oceanic Culture History, 320
David V. Burley

Continued erosion of the Sigatoka Sand Dunes on the western coast of Viti Levu, Fiji has exposed discrete assemblages of ceramics associated with all phases of Fijian prehistory. Excavations here in 2000 investigated stratigraphically separated occupation floors associated with Fijian Plainware and Navatu phase components, respectively radiocarbon dated to between ca. 450–550 C.E. and 550–650 C.E. The excavations and analysis of recovered data allow for a clarification of previous misunderstandings of the mid-sequence occupation at the site as well as its associated uses and features. These data further bear upon the Plainware/Navatu phase transition for Fiji as a whole. In the Lau Islands of southeastern Fiji this transition is described as abrupt and attributable to influences or a population movement from Vanuatu. Mid-sequence ceramic and other data from Sigatoka illustrate a similar break that potentially represents different cultural traditions.
Keywords: Fiji, Sigatoka, excavation, ceramics, migration.

A 3000-Year Culture Sequence from Palau, Western Micronesia, 349
Geoffrey R. Clark

In western Micronesia archaeological sites containing material-culture remains spanning millennia are rare. This paper reports one from Ulong Island in Palau, which is radiocarbon dated to 3000 cal. B.P. The pottery sequence was divided into three assemblages, each distinguished by distinct vessel forms and by the type and proportion of nonplastic temper inclusions. An abrupt transformation of the ceramic assemblage is tentatively dated to around 2400 cal. B.P., coincident with substantial landscape alteration on the main island where pottery was manufactured, indicating that anthropogenic activity may have constrained the raw materials available to prehistoric potters. There is a discontinuity in the sequence from 2000–1000 B.P. that might represent an hiatus in site use. Critical consideration of paleoenvironmental data pointing to human arrival at 4500–4300 cal. B.P. suggests, instead, that climatic events may be responsible for the observed palaeoecological changes. If so, then sites dating to 3300–3000 cal. B.P., such as Ulong, could well be among the oldest in western Micronesia.
Keywords: archaeology, Palau, colonization, culture sequence, western Micronesia.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.–A.D. 907 by Charles Holcombe, 381
Reviewed by Gideon Shelach

Hunter-Gatherers of the North Pacific Rim by Junko Habu, James M. Savelle, Shuzo Koyama, and Hitomi Hongo, eds., 383
Reviewed by C. Melvin Aikens

Tracing Thought through Things: The Oldest Pali Texts and the Early Buddhist Archaeology of India and Burma by Janice Stargardt, 386
Reviewed by Peter Skilling

The Minori Cave Expedient Lithic Technology by Armand Salvador B. Mijares, 390
Reviewed by David Bulbeck

The Archaeology of Central Philippines, A Study Chiefly of the Iron Age and Its Relationships, rev. ed., by Wilhelm G. Solheim II, 392
Reviewed by Barbara Thiel

Early Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia by Charles Higham, 395
Reviewed by Sawang Lertrit

Ban Wang Hai: Excavations of an Iron-Age Cemetery in Northern Thailand by Jean-Pierre Pautreau, Patricia Mornais, and Tasana Doy-asa, 398
Reviewed by Kate Domett

Water Architecture in South Asia: A Study of Types, Development and Meanings by Julia A. B. Hegewald, 399
Reviewed by Janice Stargardt

Angkor and the Khmer Civilization by Michael D. Coe, 400
Reviewed by Dawn F. Rooney

Architecture and Its Models in South-East Asia by Jacques Dumarçay, 403
Reviewed by Eleanor Mannikka

Tiouandé: Archéologie d’un Massif de Karst du Nord-Est de la Grande Terre (Nouvelle-Calédonie), Christophe Sand, ed., 406
Reviewed by Patrick V. Kirch

Pacific Archaeology: Assessments and Prospects, Christophe Sand, ed., 407
Reviewed by Ethan E. Cochrane

The Prehistoric Archaeology of Norfolk Island, Southwest Pacific, Atholl Anderson and Peter White, eds., 410
Reviewed by Marshall I. Weisler

An Anthropologist in Papua: The Photography of F. E. Williams, 1922–39 by Michael W. Young and Julia Clark, 414
Reviewed by Robert L. Welsch and Sebastian Haraha

Among Stone Giants, The Life of Katherine Routledge and Her Remarkable Expedition to Easter Island by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, 416
Reviewed by Joan A. Wozniak

SPECIAL ISSUE: The Human Use of Caves in Peninsular and Island Southeast Asia
GUEST EDITORS: Graeme Barker, Tim Reynolds, and David Gilbertson

INTRODUCTION

The Human Use of Caves in Peninsular and Island Southeast Asia: Research Themes, 1
Graeme Barker, Tim Reynolds, and David Gilbertson

This paper introduces the essays in this volume. The challenging complexities of site formation and cave taphonomy in humid tropical environments are emphasized, as is the need for more sophisticated understanding of the geomorphological, biological, and taphonomic processes that affect tropical caves if archaeological remains within them are to be better understood. As the case studies in this collection illustrate, however, tropical cave excavations in peninsular and island Southeast Asia continue to provide new information that is shaping the agenda of discussions about the pathways of colonization of Pleistocene and Holocene human populations, their lifeways as foragers and farmers, and their belief systems as represented by their burials and cave art. The papers also emphasize the complexity of cave use in this region through time and space, but perhaps the most important argument of the volume is that the human use of caves here, past and present, can be understood only as integral components of wider cultural landscapes.
Keywords: burials, caves, rock shelters, cultural landscapes, farming, foraging, humid tropics, Peninsular Southeast Asia, Island Southeast Asia, taphonomy.

RESULTS FROM NIAH CAVE RESEARCH

Past Human Activity and Geomorphological Change in a Guano-Rich Tropical Cave Mouth: Initial Interpretations of the Late Quaternary Succession in the Great Cave of Niah, Sarawak, 16
David Gilbertson, Michael Bird, Christopher Hunt, Sue McLaren, Richard Mani Banda, Brian Pyatt, James Rose, and Mark Stephens

This paper presents initial interpretations of the processes and events responsible for the late Quaternary sequence in the West Mouth of the Great Cave of Niah, in the hot and humid lowland rainforest and swamp forest of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo. It evaluates the geomorphological context of the site within the known pattern of rapid late Quaternary climate change. Attention is given to the proximity to the sea and the likelihood of humid tropical or cooler drier conditions. The stratigraphic succession is described and four units or lithofacies (2C, 2, 3 and 4) are recognized as being of particular geomorphological and archaeological importance. The key processes operating within the site are the accumulation and subsequent failure and flow of bat and bird guano, hillslope colluviation, and ephemeral stream flow and pond development. Units 2C and 2 contain the critical archaeology, including the Deep Skull from an anatomically modern human, discovered by Tom Harrisson. These were formed by colluviation from a complex cave-mouth rampart and stream flow from within the cave. The stream transported fine-grained sediment to a shallow pond, and both the stream and pond deposits show evidence for prolonged desiccation. Human activity is associated with these surfaces. The human remains and related archaeology are preserved because a mudflow (Unit 3) plowed into and overrode the land surface upon which the humans had lived, resulting in the deformation and burial of the surface and the preservation of the archaeological material. Provisional radiocarbon dates indicate that Units 2C and 2 accumulated from before ca. 45,000 B.P. until ca. 38,000 B.P. Dates bracketing the Deep Skull give this an age of ca. 45,000 B.P. to ca. 43,000 B.P. Overlying the mudflow, Unit 4, a silty diamicton with a relatively high carbonate and organic content, appears to have formed by a mix of natural colluvial and human transport processes, and is associated with human cultural material. Unpublished radiocarbon dates indicate that this deposit formed from before ca. 19,500 B.P. to ca. 8500 B.P. (uncalibrated).

This interpretation of the site and its finds has required detailed reconstruction of the changing palaeogeography within and beyond the cave entrance and the nature and rate of geomorphological processes operating within the region, which have been placed within models for rapid Quaternary environmental change. The results suggest that during the earlier period of human presence in the Great Cave of Niah (earlier than ca. 45,000 B.P. until ca. 38,000 B.P.), the climate was episodically wet with much longer periods of relative dryness. During the later period of human occupancy (ca. 19,500 B.P. to ca. 8500 B.P. [uncalibrated]), the evidence is less secure and a slightly moister climate is suggested.
Keywords: ancient humans, bioturbation, Borneo, cave, climatic change, coastal change, geoarchaeology, geomorphology, guano, Niah, rainforest, Sarawak, site formation processes, Sunda, tropics.

Micromorphology of Cave Sediments in the Humid Tropics: Niah Cave, Sarawak, 42
Mark Stephens, James Rose, David Gilbertson, and Matthew G. Canti

This is the first detailed study of the micromorphology of archaeologically important cave sediments in the Great Cave of Niah, in the humid tropics of Sarawak, Borneo. Micromorphology is used to describe the sediments and post-depositional alteration, reconstruct the palaeoenvironments, and refine the environmental history of late Pleistocene deposits associated with the human remains (the so-called Deep Skull dated to ca. 43,000–42,000 B.P.). Micromorphology provides details of the shape, roundedness, arrangement, and chemistry of grains, aggregates, precipitates, and sedimentary structures that make up the cave sediments. The dominant processes in the West Mouth of the Great Cave of Niah are guano sedimentation, fluvial and shallow pond deposition interrupted by desiccation, mass movement, and chemical weathering. Also important is post-depositional alteration by bioturbation, mineral translocation and reprecipitation, and diagenesis. Micromorphology also provides evidence for short periods of soil development, burnt surfaces, and deposition of small fragments of bone within the sediment. Together this information indicates the fine details of the environment occupied by humans, the scale and effects of the mass movement processes that deformed the beds in which the human remains are preserved, and the taphonomic processes that reworked and redistributed archaeological material within this part of the cave.
Keywords: micromorphology, cave sediments, human remains, Niah Cave, Borneo, humid tropics.

The Case for Rainforest Foragers: The Starch Record at Niah Cave, Sarawak, 56
Huw Barton

A study of preserved starch grains from sedimentary sequences at Niah Cave, Sarawak, Borneo, reveals direct evidence for the use of rainforest plants rich in digestible carbohydrates. Plants identified include several species of Aroids (Alocasia sp., Cyrtosperma sp.), at least one species of yam (Dioscorea sp.), and the pith of sago palm (cf. Caryota mitis, Eugeissona utilis). Starch grains from a total of fourteen recurring types indicate that a wide range of starch-rich plants are present in Pleistocene occupation sediments from the cave, and await identification with a more comprehensive reference collection of tropical species. The technique of starch extraction from archaeological sediments presents archaeologists with a new and powerful tool for investigating the past diet of tropical forest hunter-gatherers.
Keywords: starch, starch grains, foraging, rainforest, tubers, palm sago.

Reconstructing Human Subsistence in the West Mouth (Niah Cave, Sarawak) Burial Series Using Stable Isotopes of Carbon, 73
John Krigbaum

The human burial series from the West Mouth of Niah Cave (Sarawak) offers a unique opportunity to explore prehistoric subsistence patterns in lowland tropical rainforest. Over 200 primary and secondary burials, classified as pre-Neolithic and Neolithic, have been recovered since preliminary excavations began there a half-century ago. Stable isotope ratios of carbon (¹³C/¹²C, reported as δ¹³C values) derived from human tooth enamel provide a quantitative measure of individual food consumption during the time of enamel formation. Such data provide a robust and independent assessment of total diet that complements other subsistence information recovered from the archaeological record. West Mouth human tooth enamel examined shows a broad range of δ¹³C values (–15.7‰ to –11.3‰), consistent with a C₃-based subsistence regime as would be expected in rainforest habitats dominated by C₃ vegetation. Pre-Neolithic individuals have more negative δ¹³C values on average (N = 15, X = –14.3‰) than Neolithic individuals sampled (N = 28, X = –13.1‰). This isotopic shift is statistically significant and suggests a fundamental change in human subsistence between the late Pleistocene/early Holocene and later Holocene inhabitants at Niah. Pre-Neolithic δ¹³C values suggest broad spectrum rainforest foraging, whereas less negative Neolithic δ¹³C values, on average, suggest a more coordinated regime of food production and/or collection. Studies of δ¹³C variation in rainforest habitats contribute to this interpretation, particularly with respect to the ‘‘canopy effect,’’ whereby closed-canopy foraging predicts more negative δ¹³C values, while food resources consumed by exploiting more open settings (such as fields, gaps, and swamps) predict less negative δ¹³C values. These data have important implications for interpreting the nature of human subsistence in a rainforest setting prior to and after the potential adoption of agriculture by the inhabitants represented in the West Mouth burial series.
Keywords: Niah Cave, Southeast Asia, Borneo, prehistory, late Pleistocene, Holocene, Neolithic, bioarchaeology, palaeodiet, subsistence, carbon isotopes.

The Archaeology of Foraging and Farming at Niah Cave, Sarawak, 90
Graeme Barker

This paper reports on the principal archaeological results of a renewed program of fieldwork in the Niah Caves (Sarawak) by an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists and environmental scientists. The paper focuses on two main themes: (1) the evidence for the changing nature of the human use of the cave and the implications of this evidence for wider debates in Southeast Asia regarding the foraging behaviors of the modern human populations who colonized the region in the later Pleistocene, and (2) the character of the later transition from foraging to farming. The first foragers visiting the caves ca. 45,000 years ago encountered much more varied landscapes than the present-day equatorial evergreen rainforest around Niah, though they were ones in which rainforest probably remained a component. A remarkable array of organic evidence indicates that the Pleistocene foragers using the caves exploited such landscapes with a combination of hunting, fishing, mollusk collection, and plant gathering, the latter including tuberous forest plants such as aroids, taro, yam, and sago palm. In the mid Holocene, when the landscape surrounding the cave was more similar to that of today, the primary use of the caves was for burials: the West Mouth of the Great Cave in particular was the location for an elaborate Neolithic cemetery that was characterized by a considerable degree of formal planning through its ca. 2500-year life. However, Neolithic people may also have used the West Mouth for habitation, as they certainly used other entrances of the cave complex. Based on present evidence, their subsistence base appears to have been forest foraging, though they were in contact with rice farmers. The remarkable antiquity and longevity of rainforest foraging knowledge and technologies at Niah appear to be among the most important conclusions emerging from the project, findings that may provide further support for arguments against the forager-farmer dichotomy that underpins the currently dominant model of agricultural origins in Southeast Asia.
Keywords: Niah Caves, Borneo, tropics, rainforest foraging, Neolithic burial, transitions to farming.

APPROACHES TO CAVE ARCHAEOLOGY

Rock Shelters, Caves, and Archaeobotany in Island Southeast Asia, 107
Victor Paz

This paper presents the state of archaeobotanical research at rock shelters and cave sites in Island Southeast Asia and its potential for enhancing our knowledge of the region’s prehistory. It takes stock of what has been done, what is being done, and the prospects for archaeobtanical research in the region. This paper argues that the knowledge we generate from archaeobotany, in tandem with other methodologies, can lead to a better understanding of past subsistence strategies in the region. It also takes the view that knowledge derived from analyzing cave deposits is better utilized when seen in relation to the wider human landscape, at whatever scale a study takes.
Keywords: archaeobotany, rock shelters and caves, Island Southeast Asia.

Cave Use Variability in Central Maluku, Eastern Indonesia, 119
D. Kyle Latinis and Ken Stark

This paper explores variability in cave use in central Maluku from initial settlement in the late Pleistocene to the ethnographic present. Significant variability exists. Historic and ethnographic accounts highlight cave use that is not often considered by archaeologists. Some uses may leave few archaeological signatures. Factors affecting different cave uses are examined, including environmental, social/cultural, and historical factors. The effects of immigrant population influences, such as the Austronesian immigration into and/or influence on central Maluku, are also important considerations. The possibility of multiple migrations of pre-Austronesians and various Austronesian groups, and the subsequent effects on cave use, are also discussed. Archaeological case studies include the Labarisi site (north Buru), the Hatusua site (southwest Seram), and several cave sites on the northern Leihitu Peninsula (Ambon).
Keywords: central Maluku, pre-Austronesian, Austronesian.

The Use of Caves in Peninsular Thailand in the Late Pleistocene and Early and Middle Holocene, 137
Douglas Anderson

Caves in peninsular Thailand have a complex history of human use ranging from brief campsites to long-term occupation and from locations of industrial activity to landscapes inhabited by spirit forces. In late Pleistocene times, dating from before than 40,000 B.P. to about 11,000 B.P., caves were used only sporadically as temporary campsites, where people built fires, fashioned tools, and consumed the meals of animal (and presumably plant) products. During early Holocene times, dating from before 11,000 B.P. to about 6500 B.P., many caves were occupied for suffcient duration to have built up sizable midden deposits, occasionally over 1 m thick. Some of these deposits also include burials, usually of single randomly placed individuals with few, if any, grave goods. During mid Holocene times, ca. 6500–3500 B.P., some caves were used as burial grounds, with little if any trace of occupation, whereas others were scenes of domestic activity. Mid Holocene and recent times also saw the use of cave walls as media for paintings, with depictions, often crude, of whole or parts of human figures, fish, birds, and land animals.
Keywords: prehistory, Southeast Asia, late Pleistocene, early Holocene, mid Holocene, caves.

The Early Exploitation of Southeast Asian Mangroves: Bone Technology from Caves and Open Sites, 154
Ryan J. Rabett

This paper focuses on the contribution that the study of bone technology is making to the understanding of early tropical subsistence in Southeast Asia. Newly completed research suggests that during the period from the terminal Pleistocene to mid Holocene, bone tools may have featured prominently in coastal subsistence. There are indications that this technology may have had a particular association with hunting and gathering in the mangrove forests that proliferated along many coasts during this period. The study of these tools thus represents a rare chance to examine prehistoric extractive technologies, which are generally agreed to have been predominantly made on organic, nonpreserving media. The evidence presented also suggests that prehistoric foragers from this region possessed a good working understanding of the mechanical properties of bone and used bone implements where conditions and needs suited the parameters of this material.
Keywords: bone technology, Sundaland, coastal subsistence.

REPORTS

Continuity in Tropical Cave Use: Examples from East Timor and the Aru Islands, Maluku, 180
Peter Veth, Matthew Spriggs, and Sue O’Connor

The Aru Islands and East Timor fall within the biogeographic region known as Wallacea and have lain within the tropics for the known history of human occupation. Recent research has identified archaeological sequences that parallel the older radiocarbon chronologies from Australia. Terminal Pleistocene hunter-gatherer assemblages recovered from at least six caves register the introduction of a Neolithic technocomplex after ca. 4000 B.P. in the form of pottery, domesticates, ovens, the industrial use of shell, and some endemic extinctions. However, there are also intriguing uniformities in the cultural assemblages: in the suites of artifacts discarded and assumed supply zones for those artifacts, in the economic faunal suites, and in the apparent level of intensity of occupation of the di€erent sites. We concur with and extend the argument made by Glover (1986) that there was no substantial change in the nature of cave use in East Timor despite the possible subsistence changes that might have taken place. Their remarkable continuities reflect their similar placement within larger regional land-use systems through time: they represent diverse components of a larger domestic and totemic landscape, which appears to continue to this day. The scale of territoriality, degree of mobility, and extent of trade and exchange of groups must all be considered if the placement of caves within cultural landscapes is to be understood.
Keywords: Southeast Asia, cave use, Pleistocene, Holocene, cultural landscapes, Aru Islands, East Timor.

Toward a Cultural Topography of Cave Use in East Timor: A Preliminary Study, 193
Sandra Pannell and Sue O’Connor

In his seminal work on the archaeology of East Timor, Ian Glover (1986) notes that there appeared to be little archaeological evidence for change in the nature of cave use as a focus for settlement, despite the subsistence changes that occurred with the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Looking to the ethnographic record for hunter-gatherer groups, he found little evidence to support the expectation that caves served as ‘‘permanent home bases’’ and commented that ‘‘at a time when stable village settlements existed in Timor it is inevitable that the caves provide an even more biased sample of the total Timorese way of life . . .’’ (1986: 206). In this paper we revisit the issue of contemporary cave occupation in East Timor with the purpose of providing a more detailed ethnographic discussion of the caves’ various uses and meanings. These encompass both the sorts of secular uses described by Glover as well as the social status of caves as sacred or in other ways significant natural formations in the cultural topography of local and national landscapes. The implications some of these observations on contemporary cave use hold for the interpretation of the archaeological record are briefly explored. We also review the sparse literature on contemporary cave use for tropical and tropical semi-arid regions and conclude that the notions of ‘‘permanent home cases’’ and ‘‘stable village settlements’’ are probably not very meaningful, either in contemporary horticultural or past hunter-gatherer contexts.
Keywords: contemporary cave use, East Timor, ethnoarchaeology, Island Southeast Asia.

Prehistoric Hunting Strategies in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea: The Evidence of te Cuscus (Phalanger orientalis) Remains from Buang Merabak Cave, 207
Matthew G. Leavesley

The cuscus, Phalanger orientalis, was probably the most important food source in New Ireland from its introduction 20,000 years ago until the introduction of the pig, Sus scrofa, 3500 years ago. Terrestrial, or land-based, fauna were an essential part of the prehistoric diet because they provided both protein and fat, which were often difficult to obtain from marine resources alone. P. orientalis was an important prey species because New Ireland had a relatively low range of prey taxa. Prior to 20,000 B.P., the New Ireland fauna were relatively meager: the potential terrestrial prey taxa for prehistoric hunters included bats, rats, birds, and reptiles. The introduction of the cuscus dramatically increased the number of individual animals and therefore expanded the island-based protein resource available to prehistoric hunters. This paper investigates the nature of the late Pleistocene to Holocene capture of P. orientalis based on data from Buang Merabak, a central New Ireland cave site, and investigates whether prehistoric hunters captured P. orientalis of a particular age and how this changed over time.
Keywords: Pleistocene, hunting strategies, Phalanger orientalis, cuscus, New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.

Rock Art, Burials, and Habitations: Caves in East Kalimantan, 219
Jean-Michel Chazine

This paper presents a brief summary of a program of study of the archaeology of caves and rock shelters in East Kalimantan, especially the results of recent fieldwork along the Marang River. The caves and rock shelters cluster into three groups in terms of their elevations in the karstic landscape and their archaeological remains. The highest and most inaccessible caves are the locations of rock paintings. Caves at middle locations have produced evidence for funerary activity. Large, dry rock shelters, mostly flat-bottomed, at the foot of the cli€s were preferred for habitation. The paintings consist especially of hand stencils but also include anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures as well as other motifs. A stalactite date indicates that the earliest hand stencils may predate ca. 10,000 B.P., and drawings of what may be extinct animals suggest that some of the other motifs could be of such antiquity. The funerary material includes both pottery similar to Neolithic material elsewhere in Borneo and also later material associated with bronze artifacts. Some of the habitation sites may be pre-Neolithic on the evidence of multiple AMS dates between 4,000 and 11,750 B.P.; others are more recent. A particular focus of further research will need to be an attempt to establish the antiquity and the authorship of the rock art, and its relationship, if any, to the Holocene uses of the caves for burials and habitation.
Keywords: Kalimantan, Borneo, rock art, cave burial, cave habitation.

Patterns of Habitation and Burial Activity in the Ban Rai Rock Shelter, Northwestern Thailand, 231
Cherdsak Treerayapiwat

The excavation of Ban Rai rock shelter (Pang Mapha district, Mae Hong Son Province, northwestern Thailand) has uncovered evidence relating to changing patterns of prehistoric human activity. Analyses of the excavation data, along with radiocarbon dating, have enabled the identification of two separate cultural components. The earlier component, the pre–Log Coffin culture, is dated by ¹⁴C to between ca. 12,500 and 8000 B.P. and is characterized by a wide range of lithics, an abundance of faunal remains, and a primary flexed burial. The second component, the Log Coffin culture, probably dates to ca. 2100–1200 B.P. and yielded human remains, potsherds, and iron tools, in addition to the log coffins themselves and their supporting posts. The composition of the artifact assemblages provided the main basis for the separation of the components, which has highlighted the changing use of the Ban Rai rock shelter from a primarily habitation to an exclusively burial site.
Keywords: Ban Rai, Log Coffin culture, lithics, Hoabinhian, flexed burial.

SPECIAL ISSUE: Asia and the Middle Pleistocene in Global Perspective
GUEST EDITORS: Lynne A. Schepartz and Sari Miller-Antonio

INTRODUCTION

Asia and the Middle Pleistocene in Global Perspective, 187
Lynne A. Schepartz and Sari Miller-Antonio

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

A Tribute to Jia Lanpo (1908–2001), 191
John W. Olsen

A Conversation with Huang Weiwen: Reflections on Asian Paleolithic Research, 197
Sari Miller-Antonio and Lynne A. Schepartz

CLIMATE CHANGE, HOMINID DISPERSALS, AND ADAPTATION

Hominid Dispersals and Asian Biogeography during the Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene, c. 2.0–0.5 Mya, 205
Robin W. Dennell

This paper examines the environmental context of human dispersals into Asia up to 0.5 mya. These dispersals were probably intermittent, often discontinuous, and initially confined to warm grasslands and open woodlands across southern Asia. During the Early Pleistocene, the effects of the uplift of Tibet and the inception of the monsoon were muted by the low-amplitude nature of northern hemisphere glaciations. By the Middle Pleistocene, further uplift, stronger monsoonal circulation, and higher-amplitude, glacial-interglacial cycles made much of Southwest and Central Asia more arid than previously. Two other Mid-Pleistocene developments were important: first, the appearance of Acheulean assemblages, possibly as far east as southern China; and secondly, the first appearance of hominids at latitudes 40–45° N during interglacial episodes. Hominid dispersals in both Europe and Asia were probably broadly similar in that hominids did not habitually live beyond 40° N until c. 500 kya. Rather than dividing Asia longitudinally into areas east or west of the Movius line, latitudinal divisions between warm/hot and cool/cold environments might be more appropriate.
Keywords: hominid dispersals, colonization, Asia, monsoon, loess, Lower Pleistocene, Middle Pleistocene, ice ages, Movius Line.

Home Range Size in Middle Pleistocene China and Human Dispersal Patterns in Eastern and Central Asia, 227
Susan G. Keates

Home range size in Middle Pleistocene China can be explored based on various lines of evidence. This paper provides a brief review of home range size from the perspectives of raw material source distance and the geographic location of archaeological localities in the eastern half of China. In most cases, hominids exploited lithic materials for tool manufacture from sources close to their camps. This is indicative of small home range size in the Middle Pleistocene of this region. Hominid occupation of upland localities in the later Middle Pleistocene may reflect a larger home range than previously. In the wider geographic context, based on faunal dispersals, hominid morphology, and also with reference to some relevant ecological hypotheses, it is difficult to defend the idea of geographic isolation of Eastern Asia in the Pleistocene. Rather, it seems that hominid dispersal within Eurasia may have been a significant behavioral attribute contributing to the evolution and survival of Homo species.
Keywords: China, home range, dispersal.

Was the Emergence of Home Bases and Domestic Fire a Punctuated Event? A Review of the Middle Pleistocene Record in Eurasia, 248
Nicolas Rolland

The concept of a home-based land use strategy is fundamental for studying recent and prehistoric foraging populations. A proposed datum for the emergence of this behavior is set during later Middle Pleistocene times, around 400–350 kya, and temporally linked with the first established evidence for domestic fire making. Precise causes for this dual appearance remain obscure. Surveying the known Paleolithic record and contexts serves to identify possible factors and processes leading to this development. The emphasis here is on fire technology, particularly domestic fire making and uses, and fire’s relationship with home base sensu lato characteristics, as contrasted with a previous land use system that reflects earlier primate patterns. Intentional bush and grassland burning could be components of this home base and domestic fire system. The issue of domestic fire and home base at Locality 1 in Zhoukoudian Cave is evaluated from the perspective of contemporaneous hominid behavior in Eurasia and Africa.
Keywords: fire production, home bases, Middle Paleolithic, East and Southeast Asia, Zhoukoudian Locality 1.

GEOLOGIC, LITHIC, AND FAUNAL ANALYSES

Lithic Technological Variability of the Middle Pleistocene in the Eastern Nihewan Basin, Northern China, 281
Chen Shen and Wei Qi

Previous studies have generalized the technological character of the Lower Paleolithic of China with reference to its non-Acheulean features, but regional perspectives on technological variability were largely overlooked. This study examines two lithic assemblages from Middle Pleistocene sites in the Nihewan Basin in northern China: Cenjiawan and Maliang. Through applications of refitting analysis, technological analysis, and use-wear examinations, technological variability within these assemblages is assessed. The results reveal some aspects of lithic technology that were largely undocumented in Lower Paleolithic industries, such as intentional selection of high-quality raw materials, continuously rotating core reduction, and evidence for butchering/meat-processing tool use, suggesting that the Cenjiawan and Maliang lithic assemblages might represent regional and/or temporal variations of Lower Paleolithic industries in northern China. The data are compared to other Lower Paleolithic industries such as Xiaochangliang, Dongguotou, and Zhoukoudian (Localities 1 and 15).
Keywords: Lower Paleolithic, lithic technology, core reduction, refitting, use-wear.

Panxian Dadong, South China: Establishing a Record of Middle Pleistocene Climatic Changes, 302
Wang Wei, Liu Jun, Hou Yamei, Si Xinqiang, Huang Weiwen, Lynne A. Schepartz, and Sari Miller-Antonio

Broad-based reconstructions of the Middle Pleistocene Asian environment are valuable sources of information that can augment our understanding of prehistoric human adaptations and expansion into East Asia. The sediments, speleothems, and geochronology of Panxian Dadong Cave serve as an example of the possible integration of this broader paleoenvironmental information with more fine-grained archaeological data. The current U-series and ESR dating results for Dadong suggest that the early human activity in the cave began at least 260 kya and continued until around 142 kya. This period correlates with Oxygen Isotope Stages 7 through 6. The lower part of the breccia (Layer 2) contains very strongly weathered dark deposits, suggesting a relatively warm climatic period from 260–180 kya that corresponds to OIS 7, followed by a cooler phase with less speleothem formation corresponding to OIS 6. The Middle Pleistocene stratigraphic sequence in the Dadong cave deposits documents fluctuating and rapid changes in temperature and humidity that are also detected in general Asian, as well as South China, paleoclimatic studies based on diverse data ranging from microstratigraphic and geochemical sediment analyses to mollusk species representation.
Keywords: Middle Pleistocene, Asian paleoenvironment, stratigraphy, speleothem, Panxian Dadong, China.

Lithic Raw Material Use at the Late Middle Pleistocene Site of Panxian Dadong, 314
Sari Miller-Antonio, Lynne A. Schepartz, Panagiotis Karkanas, Hou Yamei, Huang Weiwen, and Deborah Bekken

The possibility of selective use of lithic raw material in the Middle Pleistocene cave deposits of Panxian Dadong is examined in order to evaluate hominid strategies of resource management. Limestone, chert, and basalt, available in or nearby the cave, were differentially used for the production of tools and unretouched flakes. Limestone was predominantly used to produce expedient tools, unretouched flakes were most commonly made of basalt, and chert was most frequently used to produce retouched flakes and tools. Patterns in the reduction sequence for each raw material also indicate that these lithic resources were selectively used. The early stages of core reduction are clearly represented in basalt flakes, whereas chert artifacts exhibit the later stages of tool production and the greatest degree of resharpening. When the selection of raw material is examined through time, over a span of more than 100,000 years, two patterns are clear. The proportion of chert and basalt and the overall frequency of artifacts increases. These changes in the frequency and selection of raw material occur without a techno-typological change. The major shifts in raw material usage correlate with a colder climatic regime and may relate to the intensified use of the cave for animal carcass processing and shelter.
Keywords: Middle Pleistocene, lithics, reduction sequence, hominid.

Taxonomic Abundance at Panxian Dadong, a Middle Pleistocene Cave in South China, 333
Deborah Bekken, Lynne A. Schepartz, Sari Miller-Antonio, Hou Yamei, and Huang Weiwen

The faunal assemblage from the site of Panxian Dadong provides evidence for a general continuity in species representation throughout a period of approximately 120 kya. Taxonomically, faunal material from Dadong includes classic taxa of the Middle Pleistocene Ailuropoda-Stegodon faunal complex of South China. Taxonomic abundance measures document a sample that is rich in large ungulate species including rhinoceros, stegodonts, and large bovids. These data are further examined in light of assemblage formation processes, temporal distribution, and environmental context. Taphonomic data that demonstrate the presence and activities of bone-collecting species (including porcupines, hominids, and large and small carnivores) suggest that Dadong Cave was an attractive shelter that saw many uses during the period analyzed. These include hominid foraging, porcupine bone collecting, and carnivore scavenging and hunting.
Keywords: Middle Pleistocene, South China, Ailuropoda-Stegodon fauna, hominid.

BOOK REVIEWS

Acheulian Culture in Peninsular India: An Ecological Perspective by Raghunath S. Pappu, 360
Reviewed by Michael D. Petraglia

A Re-Examination of the Palaeolithic Archaeological Record of Northern Tamil Nadu, South India by Shanti Pappu, 362
Reviewed by Michael D. Petraglia

Sangiran: Man, Culture, and Environment in Pleistocene Times: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Sangiran, Solo-Indonesia, 21–24 September 1998, Truman Simanjuntak, Bagyo Prasetyo, and Retno Handini, eds., 364
Reviewed by Mike Morwood

REMEMBERING DONN BAYARD

Donn Bayard (1940–2002): Outstanding Southeast Asian Archaeologist and Much More, 1
Karl L. Hutterer

Donn Bayard died on September 14, 2002, in Dunedin at the age of 62. With his death, a very important Southeast Asian archaeologist passed away, one who had played a central role in the ferment the field experienced in the 1960s and 1970s. However, no matter how important his contributions were to Southeast Asian archaeology, they constituted only a limited segment of this remarkable man’s career and life.

ARTICLES

Who Invented the Bronze Drum? Nationalism, Politics, and a Sino-Vietnamese Archaeological Debate of the 1970s and 1980s, 7
Xiaorong Han

This paper reviews the Sino-Vietnamese archaeological debate of the 1970s and 1980s pertaining to the origins of the bronze drum, specifically analyzing how nationalism and international politics had an impact on both the questions posed by archaeologists as well as the answers they provided to these questions. Based on a reading of the major works on the bronze drum published in Viet Nam and China since the 1950s, particularly those published in the 1970s and 1980s, this paper argues that the debate between Chinese and Vietnamese archaeologists on the origins of the bronze drum in general, and the dating, classification, and interpretations of the decorations of the bronze drum in particular, had many of its origins in the political and military conflicts between the two countries, to the extent that an individual archaeologist’s views of certain issues were largely determined by his nationality.
Keywords: archaeology, bronze drum, China, nationalism, Viet Nam.

Hunter-Gatherers and the Archaeology of Discard Behavior: An Analysis of Surface Stone Artifacts from Sturt National Park, Western New South Wales, Australia, 34
Simon Holdaway, Justin Shiner, and Patricia Fanning

An analysis of surface scatters of stone artifacts from late Holocene contexts at Stud Creek, Sturt National Park in the northwest of New South Wales, Australia, is reported. A sedimentological and archaeological chronology for Stud Creek shows archaeological remains are no older than 2000 years and Stud Creek saw repeated occupation during the last two millennia. Methods are proposed whereby conflated stone artifact assemblages from different locations within the Stud Creek catchment can be analyzed to understand how use of the catchment differed from place to place. We propose ‘‘place use history,’’ as a more useful concept than ‘‘settlement system’’ for understanding surface artifact assemblages.
Keywords: arid Australia, hunter-gatherers, late Holocene, lithics.

Quartzite and Vein Quartz as Lithic Raw Materials Reconsidered: View from the Korean Paleolithic, 73
Chuntaek Seong

The present study challenges the widespread notion of an unchanging crude technology of quartzite and vein quartz assemblages in the Korean Paleolithic. Though mostly coarse and tough, the raw materials vary in texture, homogeneity, and thus quality in lithic manufacture, which in turn is the main reason why there is significant variability in the lithic technology. In contrast to the common impressionistic assumption, these materials produce not only large tools but also small flake tools. The examination of Paleolithic assemblages from the middle Korean Peninsula shows differences in raw material use in making artifacts of various form and size. Using the local raw materials, which allowed for hard and sharp edges when flaked, was a very effective strategy in lithic technology.
Keywords: lithic technology, Paleolithic, quartzite.

Archaeological Paleobiogeography in the Russian Far East: The Kuril Islands and Sakhalin in Comparative Perspective, 92
Ben Fitzhugh, Scotty Moore, Chris Lockwood, and Cristie Boone

This article presents analyses of lithic and zooarchaeological data from the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East to better understand the effects of island isolation and biodiversity on human settlement and subsistence. Using the theory of island biogeography, we examine predictions about lithic raw material use, trade, mobility, and foraging behavior for different island groups. This study finds convincing evidence that insularity imposed significant constraints on prehistoric maritime hunter-gatherer access to lithic raw materials and foraging targets in this part of the North Pacific. We find that lithic raw materials are constrained in their distribution and conserved in more insular areas, while zooarchaeological taxonomic composition and richness data pattern according to expectations from optimal foraging theory applied across islands of variable biogeographic diversity. While based on limited samples, the results of these analyses provide support for a biogeographical approach to the prehistory of islands and add to our understanding of human adaptation in the Sea of Okhotsk.
Keywords: island biogeography, Kuril Islands, lithic analysis, maritime hunter-gatherers, North Pacific Rim, Sakhalin, Sea of Okhotsk, zooarchaeology.

Glass Beads in Ancient India and Furnace-Wound Beads at Purdalpur: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach, 123
Alok Kumar Kanungo

Today glass beads are a major product of India from at least three different locations, using altogether different techniques. Each production process leaves behind debitage unique to its individual manufacturing process. Archaeologically, it is imperative to identify and record the production techniques of glass bead manufacture and to identify the various specific waste products rather than merely speaking of beads and production centers on the basis of statistics. There have been a number of studies on Indo-Pacific bead production, but few on other methods. An ancient and important technique of bead manufacture, used even today, is the ‘‘furnace-winding’’ technique. Beads produced by this technique have been found in large numbers at various archaeological sites. This paper discusses the details of beads and bead waste produced by the furnace-winding technique and the specific criteria of production. It also uses the results of a detailed ethnographic analysis at a manufacturing village, Purdalpur, to understand the production and dispersal mechanisms. An understanding of these mechanisms allows us to formulate certain criteria that can be used to draw better inferences about archaeological sites in which bead debitage has been found.
Keywords: Banaras Beads Limited, debitage, furnace-wound beads, India, Purdalpur.

BOOK REVIEWS

State Formation in Korea: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives by Gina L. Barnes, 151
Reviewed by Yangjin Pak

The Prehistory of Buka: A Stepping Stone Island in the Northern Solomons by Stephen Wickler, 153
Reviewed by Simon Holdaway

Histories of Old Ages: Essays in Honour of Rhys Jones by Atholl Anderson, Ian Lilley, and Sue O’Connor, eds., 155
Reviewed by James O’Connell

On the Margins of Sustainability, Prehistoric Settlement of Utrok Atoll, Northern Marshall Islands by Marshall I. Weisler, 158
Reviewed by Rosalind L. Hunter-Anderson

Ban Chiang, A Prehistoric Village Site in Northeast Thailand I: The Human Skeletal Remains by Michael Pietrusewsky and Michele Toomay Douglas, 162
Reviewed by Marc Oxenham

Southeast Asian Archaeology 1998. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists by Wibke Lobo and Stefanie Reimann, eds., 167
Reviewed by John N. Miksic

Pacific 2000: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Easter Island and the Pacific by Christopher M. Stevenson, Georgia Lee, and F. J. Morin, eds., 172
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An Archaeological History of Japan, 30,000 B.C. to A.D. 700 by Koji Mizoguchi, 175
Reviewed by Mark J. Hudson

Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China by Anne P. Underhill, 177
Reviewed by Gina L. Barnes

Genetic, Linguistic, and Archaeological Perspectives on Human Diversity in Southeast Asia by Li Jin, Mark Seielstad, and Chunjie Xiao, eds., 179
Reviewed by Michael Pietrusewsky

Subsistence-Settlement Systems and Intersite Variability in the Moroiso Phase of the Early Jomon Period of Japan by Habu Junko, 181
Reviewed by Kobayashi Ken’ichi