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Research on prehistoric mainland Southeast Asia is dominated by mortuary contexts, leaving processes such as the transition to sedentism relatively understudied. Recent excavations in southern Vietnam, however, have recovered new evidence for settlement. The authors report on investigations at the neolithic site of Loc Giang (3980-3270 cal BP) in southern Vietnam, where excavation revealed a vertical sequence of more than 30 surfaces. Microarchaeological analyses indicate that these features are carefully prepared lime mortar floors; the lime was probably produced from burnt shell. The floors date to between 3510 and 3150 cal BP, providing the earliest-known evidence for the use of lime mortar, and for durable settlement construction, in this region. Keywords: Southeast Asia, Neolithic, lime mortar, floor construction, microarchaeology, sedentary transition, Introduction Settlements have been described as the 'missing factor' in the archaeology of prehistoric mainland Southeast Asia (Higham 2017: 369). The transition to sedentism and agriculture in this region occurred [...]

The most westerly Pacific island chain, running from Taiwan southwards through the Philippines, has long been central in debates about the origins and early migrations of Austronesian-speaking peoples from the Asian mainland into the islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania. Focusing on the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon in the Philippines, the authors combine new and published radiocarbon dates to underpin a revised culture-historical synthesis. The results speak to the initial contacts and long-term relationships between Indigenous hunter-gatherers and immigrant Neolithic farmers, and the question of how the early speakers of Malayo-Polynesian languages spread into and through the Philippines. Keywords: Southeast Asia, Philippines, Neolithic, shell middens, radiocarbon dating, human migrations, Introduction Located 125km off the south-eastern coast of China, the island of Taiwan was host to the earliest Neolithic cultures that existed offshore from the southern Chinese mainland. The Dabenkeng [...]

In a previous Current Anthropology article considering the Scandinavian Bronze Age (Ling, Earle, and Kristiansen 2018), a model was proposed to explain the concentration of metal wealth and social stratification under conditions of low population density. This model is now considered to help understand anomalies in the archaeological sequence of eastern Taiwan during the Neolithic and Early Metal Ages. In contrast to Taiwan's agriculturally richer western coast, evidence of complexity arose unexpectedly early on the east despite its more limited agricultural soils and lower populations. We propose that these outcomes resulted from a maritime economy, in which local agricultural surpluses finance distant voyaging that an emergent elite might control. Travels carried a substantial amount of rare nephrite from Taiwan's eastern coast to Island Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. Subsequently, metals and glass technologies were introduced from there into Taiwan. This trade and technological transfer were earliest on the eastern coast, perhaps unexpected because it was more removed from the Chinese mainland, a likely source for cultural transfers. We propose that eastern coast Taiwanese populations developed an entrepreneurial raiding-trading political economy, perhaps involving slaves, that would explain these anomalies. Predating specialized merchant trading, a raiding-trading complex, not unlike later piracy, may have provided broadscale maritime interactions partially responsible for patterned developments of political complexity in this region of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earliest claim for domesticated rice in Island Southeast Asia (4960-3565 cal BP) derives from a single grain embedded in a ceramic sherd from Gua Sireh Cave, Borneo. In a first assessment of spikeletbase assemblages within pottery sherds using quantitative microCT analysis, the authors found no additional rice remains within this sherd to support the early date of rice farming; analysis of a more recent Gua Sireh sherd (1990-830 cal BP), however, indicates that 70 per cent of spikelet bases are from domesticated rice. This technique offers a high degree of contextual and temporal resolution for approaching organic-tempered ceramics as well-preserved archaeobotanical assemblages. Keywords: Island Southeast Asia, Borneo, archaeobotany, rice domestication, microCT, Introduction The archaeobotanical record of early (pre-3000 cal BP) domesticated rice (Oryza sativa) in Island Southeast Asia largely relies on the presence in pottery sherds of husk impressions and inclusions, [...]

Excavations at the stone sarcophagus burial site of Pangkung Paruk on Bali have yielded the largest collection of Roman gold-glass beads in early Southeast Asia found to date, together with elaborate gold ornaments and two Han Chinese bronze mirrors. Unprecedented in Island Southeast Asia, these artefacts find parallels at Oc Eo in Vietnam, at other sites in the Mekong Delta and on the Thai-Malay Peninsula. Analyses of these new finds and comparison with others from across the region provide insights into the early to mid first-millennium AD trans-Asiatic networks that linked Southeast Asia to South Asia, the Roman world and China. Keywords: Island Southeast Asia, Bali, trans-Asiatic exchange, late prehistoric, Roman glass, Introduction From the late first millennium BC onwards, Bali was linked via the Sunda Island-chain maritime route to South Asia, the Western Indian Ocean and, via Mainland Southeast Asia, to [...]

Prehistoric copper and bronze objects are found throughout Island Southeast Asia, many of which were manufactured in Mainland Southeast Asia and exchanged over vast distances. The contexts of initial metal [...]

Large, 'complex' pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer communities thrived in southern China and northern Vietnam, contemporaneous with the expansion of farming. Research at Con Co Ngua in Vietnam suggests that such hunter-gatherer populations shared characteristics with early farming communities: high disease loads, pottery, complex mortuary practices and access to stable sources of carbohydrates and protein. The substantive difference was in the use of domesticated plants and animals--effectively representing alternative responses to optimal climatic conditions. The work here suggests that the supposed correlation between farming and a decline in health may need to be reassessed. Keywords: Southeast Asia, Con Co Ngua, hunter-gatherers, domestication, paleopathology, Introduction Several sources of proxy data demonstrate that significant temperature rises (the Holocene Thermal Maximum) occurred between 11 000 and 5000 ya, peaking 7200-6000 ya in China, where surface temperatures [...]