Palaeoecology and Forager Subsistence Strategies during the Pleistocene – Holocene Transition: A Reinvestigation of the Zooarchaeological Assemblage from Spirit Cave, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand (original) (raw)
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Antiquity, 2021
Established chronologies indicate a long-term ‘Hoabinhian’ hunter-gatherer occupation of Mainland Southeast Asia during the Terminal Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene (45 000–3000 years ago). Here, the authors re-examine the ‘Hoabinhian’ sequence from north-west Thailand using new radiocarbon and luminescence data from Spirit Cave, Steep Cliff Cave and Banyan Valley Cave. The results indicate that hunter-gatherers exploited this ecologically diverse region throughout the Terminal Pleistocene and the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, and into the period during which agricultural lifeways emerged in the Holocene. Hunter-gatherers did not abandon this highland region of Thailand during periods of environmental and socioeconomic change.
Open Quaternary, 2015
Meta-analysis of archaeozoological data from 28 prehistoric sites in Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia indicate that turtle (hard-shell, soft-shell and tortoise) and mollusc exploitation dominate the late Pleistocene and Holocene hunter-gatherer record. A total of 163 taxonomic classifications provide 29,842 identified specimens in this dataset. Using nestedness and squared chord distance metrics, results indicate that narrowing diet breadth and similar faunal composition is broadly characteristic of this region through time. A historical review of recording techniques indicates that while minimum number of individual (MNI) faunal quantification remained abundant during the twentieth century, number of identified specimen (NISP) quantification is more prevalent today. Synthesis of taxonomic composition suggests that Peninsular Malaysian sites have a higher abundance of wild boar (Suidae) in relation to Thailand sites that have a higher abundance of deer (Cervidae). Turtles and molluscs appear at almost every site in relative high occurrence and abundance. Future archaeozoological research should focus on standardizing quantification techniques, and providing fine-grained identification of turtle specimens to more accurately investigate shifting subsistence strategies, paleoenvironmental change, and seasonal occupation of sites throughout mainland Southeast Asia during the Pleistocene and Holocene.
PALAEOLITHIC ZOOARCHAEOLOGY IN MYANMAR: A REVIEW AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
The Anyathian culture, one of the prominent stone artefact traditions in Mainland Southeast Asia spanning the Pleistocene and Holocene, has been frequently described at archaeological sites in the central belt of Myanmar. Human exploitative patterns of plant and animal resources relating to the Anyathian are obscure due to the paucity of systematic stratigraphic excavations in Myanmar. However, recent research in the States of Shan and Kayin has shown that Myanmar has the potential to contribute to a better understanding of human subsistence economies at hunter-gatherer sites throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene. This study reviews faunal evidence recovered in association with stone artefacts at huntergatherer sites throughout Myanmar and illustrates the significance that further, more intensive research and better chronometric dating has for developing our understanding of foraging strategies in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene in Myanmar. Keywords: Anyathian Culture, archaeozoology, subsistence, Palaeolithic, Myanmar
This study reports on an analysis of human adaptations to sea level changes in the tropical monsoonal environment of Peninsula Thailand. We excavated Khao Toh Chong rockshelter in Krabi and recorded archaeological deposits spanning the last 13,000 years. A suite of geoarchaeological methods suggest largely uninterrupted deposition, against a backdrop of geological data that show major changes in sea levels. Although there is a small assemblage of mostly undiagnostic ceramics and stone artefacts, there are some distinct changes in stone artefact technology and ceramic fabric. There is a substantial faunal assemblage, with changes in both the mammalian and shellfish taxa during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition that correlate with local sea level fluctuation. This assemblage provides an opportunity to explore subsistence behaviours leading up to the transition to the Neolithic. We explore the implications for current debates on the prehistoric origins of agricultural subsistence in mainland Southeast Asia. The data highlight the importance of local contingencies in understanding the mechanisms of change from foragers to agriculturalists.
Quaternary
Ban Rai Rockshelter in northwest Thailand, dating to the Terminal Pleistocene and Middle Holocene, includes evidence for hunter-gatherer exploitation of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and arthropods. Abundant faunal remains, identified throughout site deposits, include macaques (Macaca sp.) and Sambar deer (Rusa unicolor), but these identifications are influenced by an assemblage largely comprised of preserved tooth elements and fragmented bone. Area 3 at Ban Rai has the largest abundance and diversity of faunal remains recovered and identified in this study. Here, we examine the zooarchaeological assemblage from Ban Rai Rockshelter, to understand long-term hunter-gatherer subsistence change, influenced by site preservation, during and after the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. Our results support the presence of the exploitation of arboreal taxa during the Early and Middle Holocene in northwest Thailand.
Late Pleistocene human paleoecology in the highland savanna ecosystem of mainland Southeast Asia
Scientific Reports, 2021
The late Pleistocene settlement of highland settings in mainland Southeast Asia by Homo sapiens has challenged our species’s ability to occupy mountainous landscapes that acted as physical barriers to the expansion into lower-latitude Sunda islands during sea-level lowstands. Tham Lod Rockshelter in highland Pang Mapha (northwestern Thailand), dated between 34,000 and 12,000 years ago, has yielded evidence of Hoabinhian lithic assemblages and natural resource use by hunter-gatherer societies. To understand the process of early settlements of highland areas, we measured stable carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of Tham Lod human and faunal tooth enamel. Our assessment of the stable carbon isotope results suggests long-term opportunistic behavior among hunter-gatherers in foraging on a variety of food items in a mosaic environment and/or inhabiting an open forest edge during the terminal Pleistocene. This study reinforces the higher-latitude and -altitude extension of a forest-gra...
Quaternary International, 2019
The emergence of agriculture in Mainland Southeast Asia appears to have resulted in a subsistence shift from hunting terrestrial and arboreal game to a combined hunting/animal management subsistence regime focused on the maintenance of pigs and dogs. These conclusions are currently based on nominal differences in vertebrate taxonomic composition observed at different archaeological sites. In this paper, we take a statistical approach to test whether hunter-gather and early agricultural subsistence economies really can be confidently distinguished based on the relative taxonomic composition of the recovered animal bone assemblages. A regional database of terrestrial and arboreal vertebrate faunas was created for 32 archaeological sites across Southeast Asia from the Terminal Pleistocene to the Late Holocene, and principal component analysis was performed. The resultant data indicates that terrestrial vertebrate taxonomic composition is a relatively strong indicator of the general subsistence base for the various archaeological sites studied and can be used to determine whether the inhabitants subsisted purely from hunting, or from a mixture hunting and animal management.
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2021
Moving into montane rainforests was a unique behavioural innovation developed by Pleistocene Homo sapiens as they expanded out of Africa and through Southeast Asia and Sahul for the first time. However, faunal sequences from these environments that shed light on past hunting practices are rare. In this paper we assess zooarchaeological evidence from Yuku and Kiowa, two sites that span that Pleistocene to Holocene boundary in the New Guinea Highlands. We present new AMS radiocarbon dates and a revision of the stratigraphic sequences for these sites, and examine millennial-scale changes to vertebrate faunal composition based on NISP, MNI, and linear morphometric data to shed light on variability in hunting practices, processes of natural cave deposition, and the local palaeoenvironment at the end of the LGM through to the Late Holocene. We show that Yuku was first occupied at least c. 17,500 years ago and that Late PleistoceneeEarly Holocene hunters targeted a wide range of small-bodied and agile species from the mid-montane forest, with a particular focus on cuscus (Phalanger spp.). At Kiowa, occupied from around 12,000 years ago, a similar range of species were targeted, but with an added emphasis on specialised Dobsonia magna fruit bat hunting. We then integrate other zooarchaeological data from the wider Highlands zone to build a model of generalist-specialist hunting dynamics and examine how this more broadly contributes to our understanding of tropical foraging during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene.
Tam Hang rock shelter was excavated in 1934 by the French geologist Jacques Fromaget who discovered 13 skeletons and a lot of stone tools. But after the second War World, the lithic assemblages were lost. Then the site was forgotten since 2003, when the department of archaeology of the Lao Ministry of Culture relocated it and made with a French team a new prospection. In 2007 and after seven campaigns of excavations, a lot of archaeological materials had been found in two new areas opened at Tam Hang South and Tam Hang Central. More than 9000 specimens of stone have been found. This article proposes to give a new approach of the whole stratigraphy with C14 dating. It also makes a characterization of the lithic assemblage which belongs to the Hoabinhian techno-complex.