David Bulbeck

Resolving the ancestry of Austronesian-speaking populations

There are two very different interpretations of the prehistory of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA), with genetic evidence invoked in support of both. The “out-of-Taiwan” model proposes a major Late Holocene expansion of Neolithic Austronesian speakers from Taiwan. An alternative, proposing that Late Glacial/postglacial sea-level rises triggered largely autochthonous dispersals, accounts for some otherwise enigmatic genetic patterns, but fails to explain the Austronesian language dispersal. Combining mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y-chromosome and genome-wide data, we performed the most comprehensive analysis of the region to date, obtaining highly consistent results across all three systems and allowing us to reconcile the models. We infer a primarily common ancestry for Taiwan/ISEA populations established before the Neolithic, but also detected clear signals of two minor Late Holocene migrations, probably representing Neolithic input from both Mainland Southeast Asia and South China, via Taiwan. This latter may therefore have mediated the Austronesian language dispersal, implying small-scale migration and language shift rather than large-scale expansion.

The global implications of the early surviving rock art of greater Southeast Asia

The rock art of Southeast Asia has been less thoroughly studied than that of Europe or Australia, and it has generally been considered to be more recent in origin. New dating evidence from Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, however, demonstrates that the earliest motifs (hand stencils and naturalistic animals) are of late Pleistocene age and as early as those of Europe. The similar form of the earliest painted motifs in Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia suggests that they are the product of a shared underlying behaviour, but the difference in context (rockshelters) indicates that experiences in deep caves cannot have been their inspiration.

The Walandawe tradition from Southeast Sulawesi and osseous artifact traditions in island Southeast Asia

This chapter describes a sample of points and other osseous artifacts recovered from Holocene contexts at three sites in Walandawe, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Microscopic observations of use traces and manufacturing techniques are presented as well as metrical observations and morphological classifications. The points show a suite of temporal trends apparently related to a shift from a predominant use as hafted projectile points to their growing use as penetrative tools. Trends include a higher incidence of wear and decline in tip damage, a decrease in bipoint production, an increased focus on unipoints, and a manufacturing shift from predominantly scraping cortical bone to frequently grinding suid incisors and long-bone shafts. Notwithstanding these changes, the Walandawe osseous artifacts constitute an identifiable tradition with systematic differences from other Island Southeast Asian assemblages located in southwest Sulawesi and especially Borneo, the Aru Islands, the northern Moluccas and the New Guinea Bird’s Head.

Mortuary Caves and the Dammar Trade in the Towuti–Routa Region, Sulawesi, in an Island Southeast Asian Context

Archaeological evidence from survey and cave excavation in the Towuti–Routa region of Sulawesi suggests the following sequence of late Holocene cultural change. Settled communities whose subsistence included an agricultural component had established themselves by the early centuries a.d. and began the use of caves for mortuary purposes. Extended inhumations are the oldest attested mortuary practice, overlapping in time with secondary burials in large earthenware jars dated to around a.d. 1000. The third, ethnohistorically described practice involved the surface disposal of the deceased, including the use of imported martavans for the elite, between approximately a.d. 1500 and 1900. This sequence of mortuary practices has not been documented elsewhere in Island Southeast Asia, although each practice has multiple parallels. The Towuti–Routa dammar trade, which was at its peak at the time of European contact, can perhaps account for the quantity of exotic items imported to the region but not the specifics of the mortuary practices.

Two Clocks: A Comparison of Ceramic and Radiocarbon Dates at Macapainara, East Timor

Radiocarbon analysis and ceramic typology assessment are commonly used to date late Holocene archaeological sites in Island Southeast Asia. We apply both methods to date the site of Macapainara in East Timor, and they produce substantially different age ranges for this site. The radiocarbon dates are consistently later in time than ceramic typology dates from the same or adjacent stratigraphic levels. We assess the various sources of error for the two dating techniques that could produce this discrepancy, and conclude that the ceramic typology age ranges are misleadingly old due to concerted curation of fine ceramics by the site occupants. We discuss the implications of this for dating sites in East Timor and elsewhere within Island Southeast Asia.

The Minori Cave Expedient Lithic Technology (review)

Bulletin of the Madras Government Museum, New Series, General Section, Vol. IV (Madras: Director of Stationery and Printing, [1942] 1977), No. 51, pp. 283– 284; Keisho Tsukamoto, A Comprehensive Study of the Indian Buddhist Inscriptions (Kyoto: Heirakuji-Shoten, 1996), II Amarāvatı̄ 12 (p. 224). 3. Burgess, The Buddhist Stupas, No. 38, p. 103; Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, No. 118, pp. 301–302; Tsukamoto, A Comprehensive Study, II Amarāvatı̄ 46 (pp. 238–239). 4. Whether the Jad ̇ ikiyas do equal the Caitikas might be debated, and the meaning of ‘‘dham ̇ mathāna’’ is not clear. 5. For ‘‘les Caitı̄ya ou Caitika’’ see André Bareau, Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule, Publications de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient Vol. 38 (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1955), pp. 87– 88. 6. Tsukamoto, A Comprehensive Study, III Nāsik 9 (pp. 497–498), cetika-upāsakiyasa mugūdāsasa saparivārasa len ̇ a deyadhama . . . , ‘‘the gift of an upāsikā who is a Caitika’’?—I am not confident of the interpretation. For Ajanta see ibid., III Ajan ̇ t ̇ ā 43 (pp. 368– 369). The sentence is not complete and cannot help us. 7. See Bareau, Les sectes, p. 88. According to Vasumitra the same view was held by two other Mahāsām ̇ ghika schools, the Pūrvaśailas (Bareau, p. 100) and Aparaśailas (ibid., p. 105). 8. If the presence of caityas meant the presence of Caitikas, they would have been the biggest, and perhaps richest and most powerful, Buddhist school, not only in India but anywhere caityas are found. That this is not the case is obvious. 9. See for example the section on caityas in the Tibetan translation, ’Dul ba gzhung dam pa, in D. T. Suzuki, ed., The Tibetan Tripitaka, Peking Edition (Tokyo-Kyoto: Tibetan Tripitaka Research Institute, 1958), Vol. 45, Catalogue Number 1037, p. 162 ¤. 10. É. Senart, ed., Le Mahāvastu, Vol. II (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1890). For a convenient edition of the three recensions see Takashū Sugimoto, Studies in Buddhist Stūpa-cult in India (Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1984; 2nd ed., 1993), Appendix I, pp. 1–103. (Note that but for an English table of contents the book is in Japanese.) 11. The author’s conviction is expressed several times: the inscriptions are ‘‘the earliest surviving Pali texts in the world’’ (p. 24) and ‘‘the earliest surviving texts in pure canonical Pali’’ (p. 25). 12. S. Konow, ‘‘Two Buddhist Inscriptions from Sarnath,’’ Epigraphia Indica IX, pp. 291 ¤; Tsukamoto, A Comprehensive Study, IV Sārnāth 94. 13. For this see Oskar von Hinüber, The Oldest Pāli Manuscript. Four Folios of the VinayaPit ̇ aka from the National Archives, Kathmandu (Untersuchungen zur Sprachgeschichte und Handschriftenkunde des Pāli II) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991). 14. Lucien Fournereau, Le Siam Ancien, Annales du Musée Guimet, tome 27 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1895), I, pp. 84 ¤. 15. See e.g. P. Skilling, ‘‘The Advent of Theravāda Buddhism to Mainland South-east Asia,’’ Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 20.1 (1997) : 93–107; idem, ‘‘New Pāli Inscriptions from Southeast Asia,’’ Journal of the Pali Text Society (Oxford) 23 (1997) : 123–157. 16. Janice Stargardt, The Ancient Pyu of Burma, Vol. II, Early Pyu Buddhism in Cities, Sculptures and Texts (Cambridge: PACSEA).

Island Southeast Asia Late Prehistoric

relative time period: Follows the Southeast Asian Neolithic and Early Bronze, precedes the historic period.